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Probably true, but I suppose it's some sort of cognitive bias rather than a conscious thought out of greed or similar motives.
by nnamtr 5y ago
Probably true, but I suppose it's some sort of cognitive bias rather than a conscious thought out of greed or similar motives.
- pessimizer 5y agoIf you ask people pointed enough questions, you'll soon find that their "subconscious" reasoning is just conscious reasoning that they don't attribute to themselves.
- NateEag 5y agos/don't attribute to/aren't aware of/
- wpietri 5y agoOr have chosen to not be aware of. We live in an age of abundant information with many opportunities for pursuing self-awareness. But people are very good at avoiding thinking about things that would make them feel cognitive dissonance. E.g., look at religion. They can't all be correct. Fully rational people would surely want to get something so important right, so they'd work hard to discover the sources of confusion and sort things out. Instead we see religions and religious factions multiply. Thanks to fMRIs, we can even see that "what god wants" is just people "unconsciously" reading their own preferences: https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/creating-god-in-ones-own-image https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/creating-god-i...
- NateEag 5y agoSure, makes sense, and fits cleanly into the substitution I proposed.
- pessimizer 5y agoNot even. If you don't take the roundabout route, they will definitely often use what Wikipedia calls "weasel words" to directly explain their thinking, in "plenty of" other anonymous people's mouths, in the passive voice.
- NateEag 5y agoI expect that happens plenty, but there is such a thing as the subconscious, and I don't think everyone who lacks a full understanding of their own mind is operating in bad faith.
- sneak 5y agoThe classic quote on the topic is from Upton Sinclair: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."