Comment by jancsika | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jancsika | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

> But pro-Brexit and anti-Brexit are two sides of the same coin.

Not necessarily.

For example, recommending videos that are somehow categorized "pro-evolutionary theory" would almost certainly be less divisive than recommending Creationist videos that attempt to "debunk" evolutionary theory. The pro-evolutionary theory videos would typically be substantive scientific talks or lectures that require patience and critical thinking in order to understand. The Creationist videos, on the other hand, typically use lots of underhanded tactics. They will attempt to mislead the viewer and typically throw out so many different arguments from so many disparate fields that it's impossible for any one person to debunk them all out of hand.

If you recommend the "pro-evolution" videos you probably end up with a lot of bored viewers who don't even make it through a single video. If you recommend the "anti-evolution" videos then you'll get a biologist debunking point 1 of 100 and a troglodyte responding "what about point 2-100?"

I have no clue whether the pro/anti Brexit videos fit that bill. But it's certainly a possibility.

Pro and anti brexit are not questions of what materially is, but a question of what ought, but no, perhaps not even what ought, but what choice to make, possibly one which doesn't have one option as morally obligatory over the other.

So, no, it isn't really like one group claiming a falsehood to be material fact while another claims the negation of that falsehood to be a material fact. (Material fact as opposed to moral fact)

If only that was the case! One of the conversations I had before the referendum went like this:

Them: “We should leave because then they’ll give us a great deal.”

Me: “But they can’t give you a better deal.”

Them: “That just proves we should leave!”

This person has a Cambridge degree, yet this topic allowed them to mix up hopes and preferences with objective economic benefits and end up with cult-like thinking where the conclusion was kept despite the negation of the argument just used to reach it.

From time to time, I ponder their mistake and ask if I have made a similar one of my own.

I have found that the smarter the person, the easier it is to fall into the trap of asserting something confidently without actually thinking through the details. Our brains are really good at abstracting out detail and so there can be a whole tree of things to consider that our brain simplifies into a ready made answer. When you are really bright, you are used to being right (or at least being able to argue the point so well that other people concede the argument). With that confidence, it's easy to overlook pretty massive gaps.

I once worked with a brilliant physicist. One day he went off on a holiday and when he came back I asked him how it went. "Terrible", he said. It turned out that his plan was to drive from Winnipeg (which is right smack in the middle of Canada) to Vancouver (on the west coast) in a day. Then he was going to drive down the coast to Los Angeles the next day, do some sight seeing and find a hotel. Then we was going to drive to Las Vegas the next day, and gamble for the rest of the day. Finally he was going to drive back to Winnipeg the next day. He made it from Winnipeg to Moose Jaw before he gave up.

"When I looked at the map of North America in my map book, it was the same size as the map of Germany, so I thought they were the same size in real life", was the excuse.

I also have scale problems whenever I visit California (I’m from the UK, which is about half the land area of that particular state). I’m glad Google Maps gives me a sense of journey time, or I might make similar mistakes.

Regarding the person themselves, when it came to subjective questions — philosophical sensation of self, where I rather than they wanted to live, if cyclists (they didn’t cycle) preferred cars to overtake quickly or slowly — this person tended to have the “used to being right” hubris that you described.

Regardless, the point is that "pro" and "con" are not necessarily equally divisive when displayed by Youtube's recommendation system.

> The pro-evolutionary theory videos would typically be substantive scientific talks or lectures that require patience and critical thinking in order to understand.

There's a LOT of very low-brow, fast-food content on the "left", too. Videos that just makes fun of how stupid anti-vaxxers are, generate outrage about global warming while being very light on scientific data and hard of apocaliptic imaging, generate fear and anxiety about the rise of fascism and nazism, repeating the idea that Trump is literally Hitler and Theresa May is his Mussolini...

I'm not trying to make any point about whether those things are true or false, by the way. Just about the level of propaganda and emotional manipulation on both sides.

You're at least somewhat correct, at least judging by the headlines on realclearpolitics, for example, or by browsing politically opposed subreddits simultaneously. But I'm really astounded that you've said that anti-vaxxers are specifically right-wing. I thought it was a bit more like the flat-earth phenomenon where it's unclear who is being satirical, who supports it simply because of some disposition to conspiracy, and who actually believes that they've found evidence more compelling than the near entirety of the foundation of our scientific system - the same scientific system that has managed to create the device of incomprehensible complexity on which you're reading this comment.

Are you saying that Youtube's recommendation system is favoring the poorest quality and/or most outrage-inducing videos on these topics for you?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com