Truth and Why Smart People Are Stupid
Excellent article by Jonah Lehrer of the New Yorker.
"I know so much I don't know where to begin" http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/frontal-cortex/2012/06/daniel-kahneman-bias-studies.html
Which is related to "Smart people don't think others are stupid": http://sivers.org/ss
My experience is that I cant tell someone what I think the truth is and expect positive results. I can only present information that may excite them to discover the connections I think are important. A person who discovers something is more likely to become active than a person who is told they were wrong about something.
The difference between the two outcomes is directly related to the way information is presented. Is it adversarial or interesting?
Occasionally people can agree on the input to a function and the function specification, and they will regard the answer as true, but only the experience of evaluating the facts can really convince a person. Just telling them does not work.... and it shouldn't.
Truth is a absolute word. Does it help us to use it? Is it _effective_ to imply we know the truth?
What is the history of this and other movements using this word?
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blind spot
I am reminded of the model of objectivity; perceiver, method of perception, and object perceived. The perceiver is always the biggest problem.
Also from the Encyclopaedia of Ignorance, "Lure of Completeness" - you can't take a position outside of totality to see it.
Also, what I am doing right now, which is my content - my displacement - my blind spot. I'm probably spewing my blind spot right now. I've heard of little kids getting some obvious things more easily than adults. At this point, I don't recall where that was.
Matches with my experience
The findings of Daniel Kahneman and what you write both match with my personal 9/11 spreading experience. In twelve months of activism, I only met one person that was really interested in what I had to tell. We have become friends now but one day he told me that he already was suspicious of 9/11 before we met.
For myself this is the case as well: I was not told about 9/11 inconsistencies by somebody personal, but I stumbled upon it on YouTube.
Images
https://www.facebook.com/bewareofimages
We all know what the truth is
We all know what the truth is about 9/11, right? It was an inside job.
We know this, because we are smart, and we perceive correctl, right?
Excellent aricle, John. Perhaps gives some of us pause to think about our own biases, and whether we expect the other side to be more biased than us. In fact, I sometimes have a feeling that the average 9/11 Truth proponent believes that the blind spot of people on the other side covers their entire field of vision, while ours is insignificant. Can this be true?
What happens when our biases meet nothing but positive feedback, as they probably do on this board, where we see practically no opposing view? Do they get better? Or worse?
Ooops, excuse me, it's
Ooops, excuse me, it's "excellent article, Justin", not "John" *blush*
Veritasium's Ph.D.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcX3IW00nuk