I used to be frustrated and annoyed by what I thought was short-sightedness and irrationality on the behalf of people. But as I’ve learned more of the science of rationality, I’ve become far more understanding.
People having strong opinions on things they know nothing about? It doesn’t show that they’re stupid. It just shows that on issues of low personal relevance, it’s often more useful to have opinions that are chosen to align with the opinions of those you wish to associate yourself with, and that this has been true so often in our evolutionary history that we do it without conscious notice. What right do I have to be annoyed at people who just do what has been the reasonable course of action for who knows how long, and aren’t even aware of the fact that they’re doing it?
Or being frustrated about people not responding to rational argument? Words are just sounds in the air: arbitrarily-chosen signals that correspond to certain meanings. Some kinds of algorithms (in the brain or in general) will respond to some kinds of input, others to other kinds. Why should anyone expect a specific kind of word input to be capable of persuading everyone? They’re just words, not magic spells.
Why should anyone expect a specific kind of word input to be capable of persuading everyone? They’re just words, not magic spells.
The specific word sequence is evidence for something or other. It’s still unreasonable to expect people to respond to evidence in every domain, but many people do respond to words, and calling them just sounds in air doesn’t capture the reasons they do so.
On this topic, I once wrote:
The specific word sequence is evidence for something or other. It’s still unreasonable to expect people to respond to evidence in every domain, but many people do respond to words, and calling them just sounds in air doesn’t capture the reasons they do so.