Intellectual Humility & the importance of knowing you might be wrong

[john61ct]

And of course systemic changes can be made to help reduce capital's abilities to dictate, stop the grosser abuses.

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by cyan

While I don't agree 100%, I could easily be wrong.
In my little technology world, Dunning-Kruger has been enhanced by that damn Steve Jobs book. There seems to be a horrible trend among some technology business leaders who are self-styled Jobs... just do it my way. (We'll give them something they don't KNOW that they want.) What a curse that book was.

It’s not my world, but yes, this sounds like a good example of the big issue we face in society. So often, the voices of those on the low end of the DK scale, seem to overwhelm people who are actual experts.

Originally Posted by Exile

Maybe in part because by the time the actual expertise is filtered through to the people, it's been misconstrued/tainted/manipulated and so is no longer credible. Or at least not believed to be credible. I think the mistrust may be focused less on true experts, but on elitists who bestow unearned & undeserved expertise on themselves.

Well, I’m not sure what you mean by “elitists.” Actual experts are, pretty much by definition, elite. But I agree the problem too often lies with the way expertise is filtered and manipulated.

[GordMay]

Dave Guard, Nick Reynolds, & Bob Shane got it (nearly) right, way back in 1959;
“The Merry Little Minuet” ~ The Kingston Trio

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Z26XJbnpeA

[GordMay]

The most pressing environmental problem we face today is not climate change. It is pollution in the public square, where a smog of adversarial rhetoric, propaganda and polarization stifles discussion and debate, creating resistance to change and thwarting our ability to solve our collective problems.

In “I'm Right and You're an Idiot: The Toxic State of Public Discourse and How to Clean it Up”, author and David Suzuki Foundation chair James Hoggan grapples with this critical issue, conducting interviews with outstanding thinkers from the Himalaya to the House of Lords. Drawing on the wisdom of such notables as Thich Nhat Hanh, Noam Chomsky, and the Dalai Lama, his comprehensive analysis explores:
How trust is undermined and misinformation thrives in today's public dialogue
Why facts alone fail — the manipulation of language and the silencing of dissent
The importance of reframing our arguments with empathy and values to create compelling narratives and spur action.

Our species' greatest survival strategy has always been foresight and the ability to leverage our intelligence to overcome adversity. For too long now this capacity has been threatened by the sorry state of our public discourse. Focusing on proven techniques to foster more powerful and effective communication, “I'm Right and You're an Idiot” will appeal to readers looking for both deep insights and practical advice.

➥ I'm Right And You're An Idiot – I'm Right And You're An Idiot

➥ Table of Contents – I'm Right And You're An Idiot

Review ➥ https://www.nationalobserver.com/201...d-how-clean-it

[SV THIRD DAY]

Deplatforming.....
That's the Danger.

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by SV THIRD DAY

Deplatforming.....
That's the Danger.

I'd say there's more than one danger, and banning free speech may be a minor one, because it;s not pervasive.

If a idiot rants in a forest, and nobody is around to hear him, does anybody care what that idiot says?

Apparently, deplatforming “works” but doesn’t answer the philosophical quandaries surrounding banning.
However, free speech is sacrosanct in the Western world, and there's a reason for this: Protecting the most odious speech protects all speech, and while shielding citizens from "hate speech" may seem like a noble goal, in places where speech is restricted, the consequences of this can be very broad.

“You Can’t Stay Here: The Efficacy of Reddit’s 2015 Ban Examined Through Hate Speech” ~ by ESHWAR CHANDRASEKHARAN et al
“... We find that the ban workedfor Reddit. More accounts than expected discontinued using the site; those that stayed drastically decreasedtheir hate speech usage—by at least 80%. Though many subreddits saw an influx of r/fatpeoplehate andr/CoonTown “migrants,” those subreddits saw no significant changes in hate speech usage. In other words,other subreddits did not inherit the problem. We conclude by reflecting on the apparent success of the ban,discussing implications for online moderation, Reddit and internet communities more broadly...”
➥ http://comp.social.gatech.edu/papers...chand-hate.pdf

[john61ct]

Hardly.

McLuhan is as relevant as ever:

Instead of tending towards a vast Alexandrian library the world has become a computer, an electronic brain, exactly as an infantile piece of science fiction. And as our senses have gone outside us, Big Brother goes inside. So, unless aware of this dynamic, we shall at once move into a phase of panic terrors, exactly befitting a small world of tribal drums, total interdependence, and superimposed co-existence. [...] Terror is the normal state of any oral society, for in it everything affects everything all the time. [...] In our long striving to recover for the Western world a unity of sensibility and of thought and feeling we have no more been prepared to accept the tribal consequences of such unity than we were ready for the fragmentation of the human psyche by print culture.

For those willing to spend some time, really trying to come to grips with the fundamental changes to our society wrought by tech & changes in how we engage with "the media" over the recent decades.

https://www.theatlantic.com/entertai...eality/509135/

https://biblioklept.org/2013/06/08/h...he-webcomic-2/

http://articles.latimes.com/2012/apr...abler-20120415

https://www.salon.com/2015/01/04/mee...nd_reality_tv/

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=49rcVQ1vFAY

https://www.theatlantic.com/entertai...ch-fun/523143/

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hlrv7DIHllE

https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/...ng-of-reality/

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4pS4x8hXQ5c

http://hope.journ.wwu.edu/tpilgrim/j...echnopoly.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/26/b...-winchell.html

https://reallifemag.com/faked-out/

https://nationalpost.com/entertainme...unreal-reality

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cu...ciation-dinner

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/1761...election_2016/

https://billmoyers.com/story/how-the...olitics-first/

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cu...edia-landscape

https://www.wnycstudios.org/shows/otm/handbooks

[Mike OReilly]

Thanks Gord. Sounds like a good read.

I just watched the documentary Behind the Curve. It is a doc looking at the apparently growing phenomena of people who believe the Earth is flat.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuAo...&frags=pl%2Cwn

The film makers did not take a “look how dumb these people are” approach. They let the main characters speak for themselves. It’s fascinating to see their scientific experiments disprove their own beliefs, and even more fascinating to see how the people respond.

It also touches on issues that have been raised here in this thread around intellectual humility, and also about the how distrust and misinformation is driving beliefs like flat earth. The parallels to a whole host of similar topics, from anti-vaccines to climate change repudiation, are all too clear.

I’m generally not in favour of “deplatforming”, or more generally silencing or censoring people or ideas. I think free speech should be held high on the rights spectrum, and should only be limited in clear cases of imminent danger or perhaps clear hateful intent. Silencing people doesn’t make the bad ideas go away, it just drives them underground where they can fester and grow.

Of course the problem is, our new Internet-driven world has made it easier for all of us to create our own information bubbles. Behind the Curve is a fascinating look into how this, combined with paranoia and conspiracy thinking, can quickly drive clearly intelligent and thoughtful people off the rails of reality.

[Exile]

Originally Posted by GordMay

I'd say there's more than one danger, and banning free speech may be a minor one, because it;s not pervasive.

If a idiot rants in a forest, and nobody is around to hear him, does anybody care what that idiot says?

Apparently, deplatforming “works” but doesn’t answer the philosophical quandaries surrounding banning.
However, free speech is sacrosanct in the Western world, and there's a reason for this: Protecting the most odious speech protects all speech, and while shielding citizens from "hate speech" may seem like a noble goal, in places where speech is restricted, the consequences of this can be very broad.

“You Can’t Stay Here: The Efficacy of Reddit’s 2015 Ban Examined Through Hate Speech” ~ by ESHWAR CHANDRASEKHARAN et al
“... We find that the ban workedfor Reddit. More accounts than expected discontinued using the site; those that stayed drastically decreasedtheir hate speech usage—by at least 80%. Though many subreddits saw an influx of r/fatpeoplehate andr/CoonTown “migrants,” those subreddits saw no significant changes in hate speech usage. In other words,other subreddits did not inherit the problem. We conclude by reflecting on the apparent success of the ban,discussing implications for online moderation, Reddit and internet communities more broadly...”
➥ http://comp.social.gatech.edu/papers...chand-hate.pdf

Free speech is sacrosanct in the Western world (although not so much anymore ) because despots, tyrants, and others merely convinced of their own righteousness have always tried to suppress it in order to increase their own power or advance their own ideas. The danger to open, democratic societies is that it's often subtle, as in declaring an increasingly broad category of opinions one doesn't like as "hate speech," or labeling opinions one finds disagreeable as "idiotic" or derived from someone not as "educated." The problem is that these are often subjective judgments, and what may be a sincere effort at eliminating insulting & provocative language quickly morphs into formal or informal censorship, with honest debate and legitimate opinion getting caught in an ever-widening net.

Hundreds of years ago more far-sighted people -- with a more realistic & pragmatic understanding of the nature of humankind -- figured out that the best answer for idiotic, disagreeable, or bogus speech was generally to counter it with more speech not less. The idea was to expose the undesirable speech -- and its proponents -- for what it and they were, as opposed to giving credence to it by suppressing it. There is a troubling trend nowadays that doesn't understand or has forgotten this age-old wisdom, and it seems to be mainly coming from the political Left. Since freedom of speech (and the press) is the underpinning of free & open societies, this trend, perhaps more than any other issue, has compelled me (and many others) to #walkaway. From my Left-leaning roots that is.

[john61ct]

What really gets me is how little money it takes to corrupt the institutions supposed to protect the public interest

https://www.washingtonpost.com/busin...arch-its-favor

https://www.latimes.com/business/laz...119-story.html

[Exile]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

Thanks Gord. Sounds like a good read.

I just watched the documentary Behind the Curve. It is a doc looking at the apparently growing phenomena of people who believe the Earth is flat.

The film makers did not take a “look how dumb these people are” approach. They let the main characters speak for themselves. It’s fascinating to see their scientific experiments disprove their own beliefs, and even more fascinating to see how the people respond.

It also touches on issues that have been raised here in this thread around intellectual humility, and also about the how distrust and misinformation is driving beliefs like flat earth. The parallels to a whole host of similar topics, from anti-vaccines to climate change repudiation, are all too clear.

I’m generally not in favour of “deplatforming”, or more generally silencing or censoring people or ideas. I think free speech should be held high on the rights spectrum, and should only be limited in clear cases of imminent danger or perhaps clear hateful intent. Silencing people doesn’t make the bad ideas go away, it just drives them underground where they can fester and grow.

Of course the problem is, our new Internet-driven world has made it easier for all of us to create our own information bubbles. Behind the Curve is a fascinating look into how this, combined with paranoia and conspiracy thinking, can quickly drive clearly intelligent and thoughtful people off the rails of reality.

I haven't watched the documentary, but you make very important points about information bubbles. And this is a problem which affects people across the board, i.e. definitely not specific to political orientation or bias. As previously discussed, it seems the explosion of information easily accessible on the internet has compounded this, as the natural tendency towards confirmation bias without challenge becomes all too easy to attain.

[Exile]

Originally Posted by john61ct

What really gets me is how little money it takes to corrupt the institutions supposed to protect the public interest

https://www.washingtonpost.com/busin...arch-its-favor

https://www.latimes.com/business/laz...119-story.html

The WP link was paywalled but I got the gist of it from the LA Times article.

The Payday lending industry has a reputation for abuse that is often well-deserved. But it also serves an essential function for many lower income people who otherwise have no access to credit when emergencies or other financial necessities come up. I recently read a stat that claimed that 70% of Americans live mainly paycheck-to-paycheck, with little in savings. Most resort to credit card debt, with the high interest rates that accompany. But for those who don't qualify, Payday lending may be their only option.

You may argue that such a system is flawed in its entirety, but that's the system we have and access to easy credit remains, for better or worse, essential for millions of working people. The issue is for the govt to find the appropriate balance between protecting consumers while at the same time not disincentivizing the higher risk such lenders are taking. I can't say whether your conclusion that it's simply a matter of corruption is correct or not, only that your sources are overly simplifying the issue.

[john61ct]

Originally Posted by Exile

such a system is flawed in its entirety, but that's the system we have

Yes it is fundamentally flawed, and usurious predatory credit businesses are not a "service" for the bottom 60-70% of the population, i.e. the poor.

Community-based co-ops, credit unions, the USPS could very easily become an alternative to the banksters so focused on ever - increasing the crippling inequality that is hastening the downfall of our society.

So-called free-market capitalism has never existed, corruption, cronyism and corporate welfare are what is on "the other side" of a humane political-economic system.

Time's Up, radical change is required, or there will be a violent uprising in our near future.

[Exile]

Originally Posted by john61ct

Yes it is fundamentally flawed, and usurious predatory credit businesses are not a "service" for the bottom 60-70% of the population, i.e. the poor.

Community-based co-ops, credit unions, the USPS could very easily become an alternative to the banksters so focused on ever - increasing the crippling inequality that is hastening the downfall of our society.

So-called free-market capitalism has never existed, corruption, cronyism and corporate welfare are what is on "the other side" of a humane political-economic system.

Time's Up, radical change is required, or there will be a violent uprising in our near future.

Well, that's your opinion and not unwelcome here. I would only suggest that a bit more intellectual humility might result in a more balanced (and less radical) view.

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

Thanks Gord. Sounds like a good read.

I just watched the documentary Behind the Curve. It is a doc looking at the apparently growing phenomena of people who believe the Earth is flat.

It also touches on issues that have been raised here in this thread around intellectual humility, and also about the how distrust and misinformation is driving beliefs like flat earth. The parallels to a whole host of similar topics, from anti-vaccines to climate change repudiation, are all too clear.

I’m generally not in favour of “deplatforming”, or more generally silencing or censoring people or ideas. I think free speech should be held high on the rights spectrum, and should only be limited in clear cases of imminent danger or perhaps clear hateful intent. Silencing people doesn’t make the bad ideas go away, it just drives them underground where they can fester and grow...

I came across the review of “I'm Right and You're an Idiot ...”, and was quite taken with the title, so added it to my (longish) reading list. Don't know when I'll get to it, though.

I certainly agree that, as you note, and Exile so perspicaciously argues in post #504, free speech should be cherished.
However, the authors of my previously linked article, “You Can’t Stay Here: The Efficacy of Reddit’s 2015 Ban Examined Through Hate Speech” argue that deplatforming “worked” as intended (in Reddit’s case).
➥ http://comp.social.gatech.edu/papers...chand-hate.pdf