Comments by "Jason Dashney" (@jasondashney) on "Big Think" channel.

  1. It basically said to not fight the other person's opinion directly, but to use arguments that would support another part of the person's fear (keeping kids safe from measles etc).
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  2. 1:11. She was on shaky ground by immediately talking about two things that are associated almost exclusively with the right, then lost me completely when she equated believing in climate change with believing in the Paris Accord. You can fully be in agreement that manmade climate change is a thing, yet disagree that the Paris Accord is a good thing in so far as the ROI on that particular approach to tackling the problem. This is ironic to see in a video titled "How to cut through confirmation bias". If I could tell with a high degree of probability which side of the political aisle she most likely identifies with in the first 10 seconds, she is not the right person to be giving this talk. Jesus, this talk is getting worse and worse. She says "we said the scientists re-evaluated the data and now conclude things are now actually much worse than we thought before", then says another group was told the opposite. Any rational person would think: "Re-evaluate? You mean they looked at the same data and look it completely differently now? Why should I trust that this interpretation is right and the other was wrong, and what about the last few years when you guys were pounding the table and we believed you?" type deal. We should also think "Why am I only being told one side of this story?". I never, ever 100% buy in to anything I only hear one side of. Beyond that, climate change is a bad example to use, since it's so grey. Drop a thumble full of water on me vs a barrel full. Both technically get me wet but are markedly different. Climate change is a massive umbrella that we like to break down, as she ironically does here, in terms of a simple binary. It's much more nuanced than that. Flat earth would be a much better example than climate change. Flat earth is a definitive yes/no issue. Gun control is not either. On a societal level or personal level? Walking down a dangerous dark alley it's better to have a gun than not, but on a mass level it's less safe. Nuance, people! As a truly politically homeless person, stuff like this is frustrating beyond belief. In a talk like this I should not be able to figure out which side of the political spectrum you are on in the first few seconds. The point she makes about more intelligent people being able to interpret data in a way that supports their already held position is interesting, and probably spot on. This is more like what the rest of the talk should've been about because she's saying it in a non partisan way. It's not so much that what she's saying is "wrong" in any of it, but more about how you shouldn't tip your political beliefs in a sub 5 minute talk about bias.
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  3. That's awesome. Never stop letting new information help you grow as a person.
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  4. Usually but not always. Some people like myself are obsessed with objectivity. My aim really, honestly, truly is to find the truth. My ego is built on being correct, not "right". If the evidence changes, or I realize I thought about the evidence wrong, I'll change my mind on the spot. I know I'm severely in the minority though.
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  5. Objectivity just doesn't feel good to most people. Being right to them feels better than being correct.
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  6. When your brain stops automatically playing devil's advocate.
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  7. This is my biggest problem because my emotion lies with insisting on impartiality. It's frustrates the shit out of me that most people refuse to be objective.
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  8. I recommend swift and brutal violence.
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  9. Yeah she certainly does exhibit bias in the talk in a number of ways, but her conclusions are not wrong so it's a bit of a mixed bag.
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  10.  @Giant_Meteor  If you have something constructive to contribute, I'm all ears. If you are just going to sarcastically insult me while contributing nothing else, then I'm out.
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  11. You are assuming there is only one possible truth for every given situation? Most areas are more grey than we think.
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  12. So every situation is binary? No grey areas? Okay then.
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  13. Amen. She equates AGW to the Paris Accord as if it's not possible to to differentiate. Even the most hardcore AGW believer can still think the Paris Accord is a terrible way to tackle the problem. The climate change crowd takes a really grey, nuanced area and continually makes it a simple binary. It's so annoying.
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  14. There's also no proof of that feeling you get when you know you are being watched and you turn around and see that indeed that person was watching you. Doesn't mean it didn't happen.
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  15.  @keenfire8151  Doesn't mean it's not, either. The devoutly religious "feel" their god the same way you feel someone is watching you. Neither can be explained at this point, so I'm careful not to ascribe real to one, and baloney to the other because the argument for is the same in both cases.
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  16. Spot on. If you truly want to change someone's perspective, you absolutely always have to start with the common ground you share. The bonus is that sometimes starting at this point will help you realize that it was actually you that was incorrect the whole time.
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  17. Well THE truth just so happens to be a very grey area in most circumstances. Few things are black and white.
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  18.  @EmperorsNewWardrobe  "truth itself doesn’t change one bit" I agree completely, but I feel like 95% of the world is a grey area. Objective "truth" is extremely rare. Will hitting a room temperature ripe orange with an aluminum baseball bat damage it? Yes, yes it will. That's "truth". Other than that (and you even have to be careful with physics because quantum physics does not actually jive with standard physics), most things have a certain degree of subjectivity to them. Other than "Is the earth flat?", I can't think of many contentious issues that you can apply the label of truth to. There is no "truth" in abortion, climate change, systemic racism, nutrition etc. If people can rationally argue different sides of an issue, then I'd say "truth" is not attainable. "Yeah, the pros of this side seem to outweigh the cons of that side" is not the same thing as truth or black-and-white.
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  19.  @EmperorsNewWardrobe  Yes. Your statement applies to millions of disagreements every year.
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  20. I will bet you my entire bank account that would have a significant impact. They could also try Talking to one person versus talking to 10 people who share the same views. I guarantee it's almost impossible to convince a room of 10 like minded Individuals that they are all wrong.
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  21. Why would you need to sterilize the stick? Where exactly did you get this stick?
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  22. Psychologist Jordan Peterson says he encounters this in his clinical practice all the time. He said smarter people are better at justifying things.
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  23. I know, right? As if it's a binary thing and not possibly on a sliding scale that we don't yet posses the tools to accurately measure. There is zero consensus on exactly how much is man made, nor the future effects, and considering how painfully off the previous predictions all were, you think there'd be more humbleness in the message.
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  24. If you are like me, you bristled against the this talk because she really tips her hat as to which side of the political spectrum she's on in the first few seconds, in a video that has the word "bias" right in the title. I guarantee every one of us would agree that if she votes, she's likely to vote left. In a talk about bias you should never, ever give this away. You should appear 100% neutral. She makes some good points in the talk but like me, you probably didn't like the fact she never once talked about reasonable skepticism stemming from hearing only one side of a debate. You will never get me to 100% buy in to anything at all if you only give me one side.
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  25. Thank you! The Paris Accord may or may not be a good allocation of those resources completely independently of whether or not you are all-in on AGW. To equate the two on a 1 to 1 in a video about bias was pretty ridiculous. Of all the possible examples.........
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  26. If only the world really did work that way ;-P
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  27.  @adolfhipsteryolocaust3443  Yeah but they have a trap. They've created a sort of logic circle because if you point out when they have been incorrect, they'll say that's only because of the preventative measures they helped put in place. Maybe they are right, maybe they are wrong but there's no way to tell, and no way they'd ever accept any notion other than theirs.
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  28. You are forgetting the other half of the study. They also gave people the counter view and it did not move the needle much at all. That certainly was something worse getting some empirical evidence for
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  29. Climate change and clean air are not related in the least unless you mean that less fossil fuel burning leads to clean air, because carbon dioxide doesn't 'dirty' the air. The dirty air is a byproduct of fossil fuel burning, not a direct product of more Co2 being in the air.
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  30. Bingo. People feel like their beliefs are who they are, so attacking their beliefs is like an attack on them. If you show them you aren't attacking them as a person, they become much more open minded.
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  31. Are you kidding? It's never been easier. The phone in your pocket has access to multiple sides of every argument. You can get as many different sources for your information as possible. From whether dinosaurs all had feathers, to how much of an effect do we have on the climate, there is a plethora of sources of information out there. It's much easier to get varying opinions and sources now than it was back in the days where you had the encyclopedia and library and newspapers and that was it.
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  32. I'd say the left, not Leftists.
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