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Comment by arcturus17 | Hacker News Reader

There is a personal bias I have observed when I have listened to people talk over the last ~5 years, for example:

- Startup founders without any domain experience in extremely risky ventures

- Crypto bros

- Donald Trump

I consider myself - and others view me as - a hyperrational person (possibly often to a fault), and I must admit that when I hear an outlandish claim like the ones spewed by the above, I am sometimes left in a strange emotional state... a stupor?

Like, I don't quite believe the claim because I'm defensively rational, but I feel a certain dizziness and confusion (thinking to myself, "could this actually be true?") until I come back to my senses. The more outlandish and impassioned the speech, the stronger the effect.

It's made me realise we're all built similarly, from the most rational from the most gullible.

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> Like, I don't quite believe the claim because I'm defensively rational, but I feel a certain dizziness and confusion (thinking to myself, "could this actually be true?") until I come back to my senses. The more outlandish and impassioned the speech, the stronger the effect.

I always like to ask myself: "what are they trying to get me to do?". Whether it's a habit, voting pattern, product, etc. Then I ask myself: "is it useful? who does it benefit?"

Whether it's true or not, idrc. what's more important (at least to me) is what it does and who it benefits

(also in this case to avoid any ethical conundrums, something is useful if it makes $, beneficial to X party if it makes them $)

This. In the language popularized by Kahnemann et al. I tell myself: wow, he really got my system 1. And then system 2 needs to work on on undoing the belief created, get back to sober doubt and weigh the probabilities.

But this is an interpretation after the fact, it feels exactly like you describe it. Stupor.

Edit: typo

But the odd time when system 2 is also satisfied, you genuinely learn something important and new. How lovely that feeling is.

Sounds like cognitive dissonance, I have had similarly humbling experiences.

I somewhat doubt most people actually have the `"could this actually be true?"` phase. It seems most like... just your rational mind reminding you that whatever you set your priors, if you set it to exactly zero the Bayes' Theorem breaks down?

I don't think anyone believes themself to be irrational, even crazy people.

I do- I definitely see limits to my own rationality that have only been obvious after extraordinary reflection and addtional data. I would presume that most people who are truly self-aware recognize that we are all fundamentally irrational.

> - Crypto bros

I'm in the field. Haven't experienced people who I could have described as bros. Can you point to one example?

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