Is it really that simple? I’ve seen a lot of ways in which people strongly express beliefs different from those expressed by a large majority of smart people. Most of the apparent reasons do not seem to boil down to overconfidence of any sort, but are related to the fact that expressions of belief are social acts with many consequences. Personally I have a reputation as a “fence-sitter” (apparently this is socially undesirable) since I often present evidence for and against various positions instead of showing “courage of convictions”.
I wouldn’t quite profess that beliefs being expressed are nothing but tokens in a social game and don’t actually matter to how people actually think and act, but I’m pretty sure that they matter a lot less than the form and strength of expression indicates. People do seem to really believe what they say in the moment, but then continue with life without examining the consequences of that belief to their life.
I am not excluding myself from this assessment, but I would expect anyone reading or posting on this site to want to examine consequences of their expressed and unexpressed beliefs substantially more than most.
Is it really that simple? I’ve seen a lot of ways in which people strongly express beliefs different from those expressed by a large majority of smart people. Most of the apparent reasons do not seem to boil down to overconfidence of any sort, but are related to the fact that expressions of belief are social acts with many consequences. Personally I have a reputation as a “fence-sitter” (apparently this is socially undesirable) since I often present evidence for and against various positions instead of showing “courage of convictions”.
I wouldn’t quite profess that beliefs being expressed are nothing but tokens in a social game and don’t actually matter to how people actually think and act, but I’m pretty sure that they matter a lot less than the form and strength of expression indicates. People do seem to really believe what they say in the moment, but then continue with life without examining the consequences of that belief to their life.
I am not excluding myself from this assessment, but I would expect anyone reading or posting on this site to want to examine consequences of their expressed and unexpressed beliefs substantially more than most.