A 16yo going into the modern school system and turning into a radical leftist is much more often than not a failure state than a success state.
Young leftist conformists outnumber the thought-out and well-reasoned young leftists by at least 10 to 1 so that’s where our prior should be at. Hypothetical Wei then has a few conversations with his hypothetical, radical leftist kid and the kid reasons well for a 16yo. We would expect a well-reasoned leftist to reason well more often than a conformed leftist so that updates our priors, but I don’t think we’d go as far as saying that it overcomes our original 10 to 1 prior. Well-reasoned people only make arguments sound well-reasoned to others maybe 90% of the time max and even conformists can make nice-sounding arguments (for a 16yo) fairly often.
Even after the conversations, it’s still more likely that the hypothetical radical leftist kid is a conformist rather than well-reasoned. If hypothetical Wei had some ability to determine to a high degree of certainty whether his kid was a conformist or well-reasoned then that would be a very different case and he likely wouldn’t have the concerns that his children will be indoctrinated that he expressed in the original post.
You’re neglecting the base rate of 16 year old conformity. I think this is some pretty silly speculation, but let’s run with it. Isn’t the base rate for 16 year old conformity at least 10 to 1? If so, a 16 year old who’s a leftist is no more likely to be a conformist than any other.
In the end, what we’re looking for is a reliable signal that, whatever the 16 year old thinks, it’s due to their independent reasoning.
Widely shared reasonable beliefs won’t cut it, because they wouldn’t have to think it out for themselves. Outrageous contrarian views won’t work, because that’s not reasonable.
You’d have to look for them to hold views that are both reasonable and contrarian. So, a genius. Is that a realistic bar to diagnose your kid as uninfected by mind viruses?
Ideological conformity in the school system is not uniform. A person turning left when everybody else is turning right is much less likely to be a conformist than someone else turning right.
ETA: Without metaphor, our priors for conformist vs. well-reasoned is different for young rightists or non-leftists in the school system.
A 16yo going into the modern school system and turning into a radical leftist is much more often than not a failure state than a success state.
Young leftist conformists outnumber the thought-out and well-reasoned young leftists by at least 10 to 1 so that’s where our prior should be at. Hypothetical Wei then has a few conversations with his hypothetical, radical leftist kid and the kid reasons well for a 16yo. We would expect a well-reasoned leftist to reason well more often than a conformed leftist so that updates our priors, but I don’t think we’d go as far as saying that it overcomes our original 10 to 1 prior. Well-reasoned people only make arguments sound well-reasoned to others maybe 90% of the time max and even conformists can make nice-sounding arguments (for a 16yo) fairly often.
Even after the conversations, it’s still more likely that the hypothetical radical leftist kid is a conformist rather than well-reasoned. If hypothetical Wei had some ability to determine to a high degree of certainty whether his kid was a conformist or well-reasoned then that would be a very different case and he likely wouldn’t have the concerns that his children will be indoctrinated that he expressed in the original post.
You’re neglecting the base rate of 16 year old conformity. I think this is some pretty silly speculation, but let’s run with it. Isn’t the base rate for 16 year old conformity at least 10 to 1? If so, a 16 year old who’s a leftist is no more likely to be a conformist than any other.
In the end, what we’re looking for is a reliable signal that, whatever the 16 year old thinks, it’s due to their independent reasoning.
Widely shared reasonable beliefs won’t cut it, because they wouldn’t have to think it out for themselves. Outrageous contrarian views won’t work, because that’s not reasonable.
You’d have to look for them to hold views that are both reasonable and contrarian. So, a genius. Is that a realistic bar to diagnose your kid as uninfected by mind viruses?
Ideological conformity in the school system is not uniform. A person turning left when everybody else is turning right is much less likely to be a conformist than someone else turning right.
ETA: Without metaphor, our priors for conformist vs. well-reasoned is different for young rightists or non-leftists in the school system.