Comment by nostrademons | Hacker News Reader

Comment by nostrademons | Hacker News Reader

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This is a problem with human wetware - there are several cognitive biases [1][2][3][4] that make people engage more strongly with ideas that fit their preconceptions and discount ideas that don't. Add information-sharing to the mix and the aggregate effect you get is large information cascades that fracture the population into tribes that believe things not necessarily because they're true, but because they are stated early, vehemently, and frequently.

Remember that evolution favors individuals who survive & gain status, not those whose representation of the world is true. Someone who is right but killed for it (eg. Copernicus) is still dead.

The fix is for people to be aware of these cognitive biases in themselves, to actively seek out information that differs from their preconceptions, and to challenge inaccurate information (with evidence!) when presented with it. You can't outsource this to a communication platform, because it's inherently less comfortable and more effort for the reader, and the reader will just go to a competing communication platform that makes them feel better.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_truth_effect

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandwagon_effect

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congruence_bias

Fact check: Copernicus was not killed.

He died of natural causes at 70. According to viral stories at the time, moments after having seen the first print of his book.

See, just like that. Would be more effective with sources, though.

Given the amount of misinformation put out by the MSM this election they'd do well to blanket ban the NYT, CNN, et al.

Maybe people confuse Copernicus with the advocate of related theories Giordano Bruno, who was killed in 1600 for his beliefs and advocacy (though not only for his beliefs about astronomy).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giordano_Bruno

People may also confuse Bruno with Galileo Galilei, who was punished by the Inquisition for his defense of Copernican theory, but not executed.

> The fix is for people to be aware of these cognitive biases in themselves, to actively seek out information that differs from their preconceptions, and to challenge inaccurate information (with evidence!) when presented with it.

You are right, but I hope you are aware that this would require a giant leap to an essentially superhuman state of rationality and clear thinking for a vast majority of people.

Just stop for a moment and look around you. Is that how most people actually function in this world?

Is that how you function?

Separate ideology (or whatever happens to be the object of bias) from identity, and you're halfway there. People are much more amenable to changing their minds if their identities aren't at stake. For example, most people can discuss the pros and cons of F-150s and Silverados fairly rationally; those with the Calvin pissing logos, not so much.

Again agreed. But how would you accomplish that?

For large majorities of voters, dropping that ballot in the box is over 90% an identity game.

On a societal level, your guess is good as mine. Perhaps increased infrastructure spending so that high-skill, high-pay jobs are more evenly spread out and ideological segregation is reduced?

On an individual level, being active in (non-political) hobbies and volunteer groups can help, especially ones that attract both people from the cities and the countryside.

Prove that assumption, please.

>> most people can discuss the pros and cons of F-150s and Silverados fairly rationally; those with the Calvin pissing logos, not so much.

How is this different from stereotyping then?

Who am I stereotyping? People with "Calvin pissing on Ford/Chevy/Ram logo" stickers? The vast majority of truck drivers don't really care about brand--they just want the most appropriate truck for their situation.

We have to design systems that work with the people we have, not the people we wish we had.

Fail to recognize that, and you've failed before you've started.

Well, a good first step would be an education system that encouraged a culture of curiosity and respectful questioning, rather than just "obey".

None of us function in this way. While part of the solution does have to involve people becoming better at vetting their information-sources, it is equally important to acknowledge that for everyone to do this individually would be absolutely impossible given time constraints.

What we need, fundamentally, is a media environment that can harness the collective capacity of humans to vet and debate new information in an organized fashion that can be trusted. This site is a good example where a knowledgeable community, and the simple mechanism of votes does some automatic, crowd-based content curation. But the Reddit-like model is very basic - so much more could possibly be done to allow individual users to contribute to a collective process of knowledge-building.

I think we need more development and discussion devoted to what kind of systems could be designed to encourage transparency, quality, and critical analysis in our news-making.

Hah! It's worse.

As a kid I learnt this and tried to be as rational and aware of my fallibalities as possible.

That makes you an alien to normal human beings. Conversation becomes impossible, processing fast enough becomes impossible, and the penalties for acting weird and communicating weird are huge.

Instead you need to find a way to act in a manner that allows you to blend in with people.

This is absolutely the right answer, but maybe Facebook can do some things to help. It's possible to gamify the process of learning to spot biases by presenting people with situations and getting them to think critically to solve the biases or fallacies. Especially on Facebook, people love filling out questionnaires that tell them something about themselves.

I'm not saying that one smart game is going to fix the entire problem, but adding the development of logic skills into the types of activities that people enjoy doing on Facebook is definitely possible.

It doesn't work that way. It assumes that what people are doing is wrong - it's not. The mental overhead to assess everything clinically is sufficient that faster thinkers can just outrun you. People/brains are making trade offs to deal with the world around them.

Other humans are taking advantage of those gaps to mobilize votes or advertisements.

There's no way out and I've been wondering when people would realize the depth and intricacy of the mess we're in. Hopefully people pay more attention to the way cognitive cheat code are being abused.

Hopefully a protocol to deal with it can be made.

There's really an amazing amount of misinformation and manipulation going on. I think there's a place for people developing critical thinking skills, but there's also a limit to what people can sort through. There's a big need for more software to fact-check and compare sources across the Internet. Having Facebook run it is one part of the solution, but people need to have transparent software that they control to do the same kind of work so it isn't entirely centralized. Google, Amazon, and Facebook assistants are great, but we need personal assistants that work for us.

The fix is for people to be aware of these cognitive biases in themselves, to actively seek out information that differs from their preconceptions, and to challenge inaccurate information (with evidence!) when presented with it.

Exactly right. This should be strongly emphasized in our educational curriculum.

As any alien arriving in your world would immediately ask, why doesn't having a true representation of the world help you survive and gain status? And if it doesn't, why does it matter?

It helps me gain status even more if I can plant false information in others.

An interesting TED talk about the topic how evolution does not necessarily favor true representation of reality in our minds and bodies: https://www.ted.com/talks/donald_hoffman_do_we_see_reality_a...

As someone points out Copernicus was not killed. And it illustrates the problem of FB putting its finger on the scales. Ever.

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