Political bias can subvert your rational thinking [video] | Hacker News Reader

Political bias can subvert your rational thinking [video]

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26 pointsbelorn21 comments

Simply put, voting itself creates a bias. Once you commit to a decision (e.g., vote) you are *less* likely to change your mind, change your perspective, etc. Yes, it can happen. But it's less likely.

Aristotle had this one figured out a while ago, methinks: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhetoric_(Aristotle)

His model of rhetoric suggests that the authority of a respected figure (eg. ethos) can override either pathos or logos (emotion and logic respectively), but not both at once. In political terms, this means that candidates have to prove their point emotionally and logically to have the best chance at changing your mind (or at least overriding ethos.)

It kinda sucks that we live in a hyper-emotional and hyper-informed election cycle, but this is the logical conclusion of two competitors dueling with rhetoric alone.

The act of committing to a candidate makes you at that point subjective. Ppl would rather stick with their (perhaps bad) decision then admit they got it wrong.

When so much emphasis is put on Federal elections, this bias contributes to the divisiveness.

I agree, and I think Aristotle would too. But inherently sticking with a bad or mis-guided belief is a human experience that has always existed, not a new political phenomenon.

The bias is just how people behave. There is a tried-and-true framework for undermining those biases and even dialectic processes by which one can be proven logically superior to the other. We watch debates, read op-eds and encourage discussions of policy so that these entrenched beliefs are challenged - a free country has no obligation to brainwash it's citizens, even for a good cause.

If you drop the whole voting thing from your comment, the idea you're conveying becomes very self-evident, perhaps even amusingly so:

> Simply put, (...) Once you commit to a decision (...) you are less likely to change your mind, (...).

And so I'm not sure the video was about this specifically. To me, it was more about how narrative and tribalism easily overpower critical thinking in general. Being decided and then unwilling to change your mind is one thing, but as the video details, the issue discussed actually exhibits itself with open minded people more.

The interesting thing that is less obvious is that, if you are convinced you made a choice that you didn't (e.g. you see your votes but one is falsified), you will stick to it. So you hadn't gone through the commitment process but then you somehow you did retroactively.

> narrative and tribalism

The Vote is part of the physical manifestation of that. It deepens the identity. It deepens the bias.

I wonder if people who vote strategically for the most part might fall into this category as well. The ability for this to be an effective approach can vary from place to face.

Title is editorialized, the actual title of the video is "On These Questions, Smarter People Do Worse."

While this is true, the video title on YouTube can and likely will change.

Veritasium very often changes the title and thumbnail of their videos shortly after release. Whether it's to squeeze some more views out of a video or because of some metrics they take note of I don't know.

YouTube even provides a feature to automate A/B testing thumbnails now: https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/13861714

IMO the Youtube title isn’t even accurate, it’s just clickbait. The HN title is a more accurate representation of the content. Also to back up my sibling commenter, Derek is known to trial several title and thumbnails within the first few hours/days after a video release.

Whops, I forgot that I had dearrow enabled, a browser addon that changes titles thumbnails on yt to community based versions.

s/Political b/B/

Isn't it kind of the definition of bias?

Proud to be the sanest person I know. What does that tell you?

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