Warning: This Site Contains Conspiracy Theories

[LilyPatToo]

The fundamental mistake made on this board (and in my personal career decisions) is accepting that human beings are moved to action by rational discourse, by understanding the meaning of words and their true relationships with each other. That is not the case at all. Most people (probably even myself) are moved by desire, what their desire tells them to believe, and by what the superior force tells them about their desires and beliefs through the power of the language they know how to control.

Desire doesn't always lead to inattention or blindness, but that's a wonderful distillation of an amorphous, frustrated idea that's haunted me for the past 25 years or so. To it I would add denial as a prime mover in most people's thinking. I see that "superior force" invoking it often these days. And Bruce, I've pretty much stopped trying to penetrate the general blindness/deafness too. Now and then I slip and get into an argument when someone says something so dumb that it's like a slap in the face of Reality, but mostly those conversations end badly for me. Or for the relationship. And relationships are important.

At this point, I seem to have reached a point where simply acquiring accurate information about the true nature of the world in which we live is an end in and of itself. Knowledge matters more to me than it used to and I deeply appreciate the chance to interact with you other rabbit hole denizens here. It still hurts like Hell when someone close to me expresses denial around things that have actually happened to me, but I think I handle it better now than I used to. I needed to learn about desire and denial and their effect on comprehension. And I think it was here that I followed a link to George Lakoff's writings on cognitive framing and metaphors which has helped me to deal with The Right with less danger of bringing on a fatal stroke...always a good thing, especially in election years.

LilyPat

[slomo]

Changing the mind of another person is a vain and self-defeating desire. At best, one might provide an opportunity for another person to change their own mind. Although for the most part this only happens if mental fashion crashes into your idea like a mack truck.

You would like to believe that, but there are a number of influential people who would quietly beg to differ with you.

If you wish to argue rationally, yes, I agree it is a futile endeavor. If you go through the back door of desire, that's a whole other story...

[MacCruiskeen]

Changing the mind of another person is a vain and self-defeating desire. At best, one might provide an opportunity for another person to change their own mind. Although for the most part this only happens if mental fashion crashes into your idea like a mack truck.

You would like to believe that, but there are a number of influential people who would quietly beg to differ with you.

If you wish to argue rationally, yes, I agree it is a futile endeavor. If you go through the back door of desire, that's a whole other story...

Minds are changed by rational argument all the time. This is why most people now believe that the earth goes round the sun, that continents drift, that living creatures evolve, and that surgeons should wash their hands. Just for instance.

[psynapz]

Why do I constantly go out of my way in an attempt to keep informed and to make sense of the world when I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that life would be much easier for me if I just put my head down and became a well-oiled cog in the machine?

Lots of people have told me that I have a martyr complex, and that I just get off on feeling superior to everyone else, but I don't think that's it at all. I think that I do it all because I couldn't live with myself if I didn't.

Willow made a terrific point:

outside of certain scenarios it's very difficult to measure the impact of your actions. You just never know until for one odd reason or another somehow an anecdote gets back to you. There are a lot of silent watchers here. If you're expressing concern over a topic that the rest of society has sidelined, there's probably someone reading who feels a little more validated and less isolated. If you're contributing knowledge and insight about important topics, or humor or creativity or just about anything and doing so in a thoughtful manner, you're doing good.

Giant waves start out as tiny ripples, and looking at the ocean from above, it would be impossible to predict the moment when a ripple is going to become a wave.

No shit...

Thanks for all your great photos, Bruce. Every time you're there, you're my representative. And you're representing countless thousands like me.

Big love you to man. Thanks for representing all of us down in Zucotti as much as you did. And your documentary efforts there are nothing short of monumental.

[Sounder]

slomo wrote...

If you wish to argue rationally, yes, I agree it is a futile endeavor. If you go through the back door of desire, that's a whole other story...

Yes good point, thanks for adding that qualification.

Mac wrote...

Minds are changed by rational argument all the time. This is why most people now believe that the earth goes round the sun, that continents drift, that living creatures evolve, and that surgeons should wash their hands. Just for instance.

Now I see the assertion as being over broad even when qualified.

I will try harder next time.

Maybe I can stick with, fashion and social conformity are much larger causative factors than are rational considerations in determining how to think about any given idea.

[Bruce Dazzling]

Thanks for the big ups, psynapz.

This...

Minds are changed by rational argument all the time. This is why most people now believe that the earth goes round the sun, that continents drift, that living creatures evolve, and that surgeons should wash their hands. Just for instance.

...is absolutely true.

Unfortunately, this...



...seems to be exponentially more powerful.

And there's the rub.

How do you condense a rational argument into an emotionally powerful piece of propaganda? And even if you knew how (by studying Bernays, Goebbels, et al.) you'd still run into the brick wall of lack of access to the media machine.

I DO understand where you're coming from, slomo/Sounder, and it's true, our fight can often seem impossible, but if not us, then who?

This all reminds me of Lennon's interview with Gloria Emerson, where she was rather condescendingly telling him that protests need to be *serious* and he was trying to explain to her that he wanted to do AN ADVERTISING CAMPAIGN for peace.

"Do you want nice middle class gestures for peace, and intellectual manifestos written by a lot of half-witted intellectuals, and nobody reads 'em?"

Lennon, of course, was on to something, and yes, he was most likely silenced because of it, but again, if not us, then who?

We ARE making a difference.

I see subtle changes every day in the way my friends consume media. They still have a long way to go (and so do I, incidentally), but logic and rationality are gaining more and more supporters, and it's because of people like us leading the way in discussion groups, and blogs, and on Facebook, and in bars, and in family arguments over the holidays. It's not easy, but most things that are worthwhile never are.

If you need to recharge, slomo, go ahead, but we're leaving the door open for you.

[JackRiddler]

Thanks for the big ups, psynapz.

This...

Minds are changed by rational argument all the time. This is why most people now believe that the earth goes round the sun, that continents drift, that living creatures evolve, and that surgeons should wash their hands. Just for instance.

...is absolutely true.

Unfortunately, this...



...seems to be exponentially more powerful.

Well, not exponentially. Or rather: Where the relative power lies on the pole between reason and terra-terra-terra is a function of context and who's talking to whom.

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[Plutonia]

Also there is a generally unacknowledged liberating effect of dialogue (in the Socratic sense) as a remedy for the disorienting effects of Spin, and people connecting around shared, long-term interests. Tyler Cowen make this point obliquely when he points out that the internet enables people to pursue their durable interests and links that with authenticity.

These guys are on to it:

The emergence of publics in early modernity amounted to an overall expansion of forms of public expression, feeling, identity, self-representation, influence, and action for people usually excluded from public life. The approach is post-Habermasian because, among other things, it focuses on a plurality of publics rather than on a single public sphere, because it focuses on accidental and unintended outcomes as much as on intended ones, and because it is interested in the realm of art on its own aesthetic, evaluative, and affective terms rather than in art as instrumental to the emergence of rational public debate. However, the members of the MaPs team also bear in mind the continuing value of Habermas' emphasis on the public sphere, since we know that if we lose sight of how publics relate to the broader social formation, we will be at risk of producing something like a historical sociology of early modern hobbies and hobby collectivities. Also important is Habermas' brilliant insight into the crucial interactivity of privacy and publicity in the formation of what he characterizes as the modern public domain, an event that he locates in the eighteenth century. The "bourgeois public sphere," he says, is "the sphere of private people come together as a public; they soon claimed the public sphere regulated from above against the public authorities themselves . .

http://www.makingpublics.org/enter/what-do-you-mean/

And

"We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." – Albert Einstein

[Nordic]

Some people are just stupid.

http://newsone.com/nation/kirstensavali ... g-low-iqs/

Gordon Hodson, a psychologist at Brock University in Ontario, Canada, served as lead researcher for a study that had some not so surprising results. According to his team’s findings, there is a significant positive correlation between prejudice, low intelligence, and social conservative ideology, reports LiveScience.

Not only are children with low IQs more likely to be prejudiced adults, Hodson uncovered a hidden bias that exposes the relationship between prejudice and conservatives:

The research finds that children with low intelligence are more likely to hold prejudiced attitudes as adults. These findings point to a vicious cycle. Low-intelligence adults tend to gravitate toward socially conservative ideologies, the study found. Those ideologies, in turn, stress hierarchy and resistance to change, attitudes that can contribute to prejudice, Hodson wrote in an e-mail to LiveScience.
Prejudice is extremely complex and multifaceted, making it critical that any factors contributing to bias are uncovered and understood.
Briain Nosek, a social and cognitive psychologist at the University of Virginia, believes that this study will trigger a storm of controversy:

They’ve pulled off the trifecta of controversial topics, said Brian Nosek, a social and cognitive psychologist at the University of Virginia who was not involved in the study. When one selects intelligence, political ideology, and racism and looks at any of the relationships between those three variables, it’s bound to upset somebody.
Interestingly, politics seemed to be the connecting force between “brains” and “bias.” The study found that the inability of children with low intelligence to understand and empathize with the perspective of others — especially those of different ethnicity and class — was a clear indication that they would embrace right-wing ideology:

Polling data and social and political science research do show that prejudice is more common in those who hold right-wing ideals that those of other political persuasions. The unique contribution here is trying to make some progress on the most challenging aspect of this,” Nosek said, referring to the new study. It’s not that a relationship like that exists, but why it exists.
The working definition for “social conservatives” for this study’s purposes relied upon participants’ agreement with statements such as:

‘Family life suffers if mum is working full-time,’ and ‘Schools should teach children to obey authority.’ Attitudes toward other races were captured by measuring agreement with statements such as, ‘I wouldn’t mind working with people from other races.’
Hodson is very clear that he doesn’t want people to think that he is characterizing all conservatives as unintelligent. He points to the example of men, in general, being taller than women — though there are some women who are taller than men — as evidence of the generality of the study.

My speculation is that it’s not as simple as their model presents it, Nosek said. I think that lower cognitive capacity can lead to multiple simple ways to represent the world, and one of those can be embodied in a right-wing ideology where ‘people I don’t know are threats’ and ‘the world is a dangerous place‘. … Another simple way would be to just assume everybody is wonderful.
In simplified terms for any conservatives that may be reading, this study seems to prove the popular wisdom that all Republicans may not be racists, but all racists are more than likely Republican.

It also begs the question, since many Democrats of color are social conservatives: Are their political perspectives also informed by prejudice — as this study suggests — or religion?

[Simulist]

Do words mean anything? Do theories mean anything?

Unless "meaning" is an objective reality somehow, it is dependent upon units of consciousness to process it.

And since units of consciousness are prone to different points of view -- quite literally -- the "meaning" of words and the "meaning" of theories is dependent upon the particular point of view that each unit of consciousness is prone to.

There are several ways to overcome this limitation, at least partially, and one of them is through discourse.

But, as nearly everyone here has experienced at one time or another, that can be a disappointingly imprecise and sometimes messy process.

[JackRiddler]

Some people are just stupid.

http://newsone.com/nation/kirstensavali ... g-low-iqs/

Gordon Hodson, a psychologist at Brock University in Ontario, Canada, served as lead researcher for a study that had some not so surprising results. According to his team’s findings, there is a significant positive correlation between prejudice, low intelligence, and social conservative ideology, reports LiveScience.

Not only are children with low IQs more likely to be prejudiced adults, Hodson uncovered a hidden bias that exposes the relationship between prejudice and conservatives:

School and the prevailing sociocultural setting into which we are born both have a great deal to do with how this develops. Competitive school hierarchies and the total myth that school performance governs an economic meritocracy make the slower ones very angry at the smarties, builds resentment and solidarity against "elites." It doesn't help that the culture encourages so many forms of stupid, with nationalism, homophobia and sexism leading the way as still near-universals.

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[crikkett]

Remember when nobody would admit that Israel had nukes?

Alice told me once that she spent years getting kicked around on this board before her criticisms of Israeli policy gained traction. After gaining traction here it gained traction IRL.

Rigorous Intuition isn't just anyone's conspiracy theory bulletin board. This is highbrow and therefore, much more difficult to dismiss. I can point to the Nuclear Meltdown Watch, and the Egypt, Wall Street and Occupy threads as the best compilation of news on those topics that I have found.

I am a better-prepared agent of change because of my time here. Pseudonymity is also very important to me, because if I wrote under my real name I could be marginalized in ways that would negatively impact my family and organizations I'm involved in.

[JackRiddler]

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This is a really interesting thread, from the start!

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