Conversely, I’ve noticed some people who had the correct opinions before, but have since changed their opinions to conform with what is now (erroneously) seen as “common sense”.
Oh, for sure. My point is more that the incredibly strong social pressure that characterized the dialogue around all questions concerning COVID completely overrode individual reflective capacity to the point where people don’t even have a self-image of how their positions shifted over time and based on what new information/circumstances.
Sure—what I had in mind was mostly stuff like “lockdowns / mask mandates / etc. are good/necessary” → “lockdowns / mask mandates / etc. are bad/harmful/etc.”. People have drawn entirely the wrong conclusions about these things from observations of the last two years. (Robyn Dawes, in Rational Choice in an Uncertain World, writes about this mistake, wherein people learn from experience when they really shouldn’t; this seems like a good real-life example.)
Conversely, I’ve noticed some people who had the correct opinions before, but have since changed their opinions to conform with what is now (erroneously) seen as “common sense”.
Oh, for sure. My point is more that the incredibly strong social pressure that characterized the dialogue around all questions concerning COVID completely overrode individual reflective capacity to the point where people don’t even have a self-image of how their positions shifted over time and based on what new information/circumstances.
Can you provide an example (without naming people)?
Sure—what I had in mind was mostly stuff like “lockdowns / mask mandates / etc. are good/necessary” → “lockdowns / mask mandates / etc. are bad/harmful/etc.”. People have drawn entirely the wrong conclusions about these things from observations of the last two years. (Robyn Dawes, in Rational Choice in an Uncertain World, writes about this mistake, wherein people learn from experience when they really shouldn’t; this seems like a good real-life example.)