Together, all of these studies support the theory of "motivated reasoning": The idea that our prior beliefs, commitments, and emotions drive our responses to new information, such that when we are faced with facts that deeply challenge these commitments, we fight back against them to defend our identities. So next time you feel the urge to argue back against some idiot on the internet…pause, take a deep breath, and realize not only that arguing might not do any good, but that in fact, it might very well backfire.So much for rationality. It's cognitive bias all the way down.
Mother Jones
Here Are 5 Infuriating Examples of Facts Making People Dumber
Chris Mooney
5 comments:
Isn't #1 sort of the basic premise of MMT, higher spending or lower taxes are necessary to maximize tax revenues (and productivity)?
These five examples are the team building 'facts' if you want to be a new democrat. Don't believe them? You aren't on the team. Oh well...
It is weird how we assume that people who disagree are automatically stupid -- it actually infuriates us. When so much depends on the order of importance I place on problems, Even if you agree that something is a problem and the relative order of importance with me, it doesn't mean we agree on solutions. And then of course people tend to take teams, become over confident, and believe their own rhetoric while underestimating the uncertainty in their own arguments. The one thing that is absolutely constant among ALL people of all value system: NO one based on first person experience is good at estimating risks and probabilities while virtually EVERYONE thinks they are better than average.
Right Ryan this guy Mooney here doesnt even know what the heck is even going on wrt #1...
and for #2 the Democrat guy Rattner actually wrote an op-ed in the NYT titled "We need death panels" and he is also a Fix the Debt moron... yet he brings up Palin...
then for #5 he titles it "Global Warming" but then goes on to talk about "Climate Change".... ???? what will it be next? (imo 'mini Ice Age' which will be the correct one... good thing you get 3 strikes...)
So this guy from Mother Jones needs to put down the bong and sober up himself and try to figure out what the heck is really going on too...
rsp,
MMT doesn't say that tax cuts produce higher tax revenues.
"Man is not a rational animal, he is a rationalizing animal." Robert Heinlein.
Reading the article, it's a bit weird and unhelpful that every fact is an effort to catch conservatives, rather than an interesting mix to understand our minds. It would be better to call the author on the shortcomings of the study than to promulgate a weak, partisan study on a real issue: trying to get a deeper understanding of why so many of us rationalize instead of think. I'd even hypothesize that crap-science-on-the-internet might be part of the problem: few people read peer-reviewed articles, we get our science here on the interwebs, and here the experts are not worth believing. An interesting study would determine why people don't believe the facts: for example, for fact #1, the study claims to disprove a Republican-orientation fact... do the people who come away disagreeing subconsciously remodel what they read, or do they come away consciously thinking they are being lied to?
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