On 10/07/2014 03:37 PM, Walter Bright wrote:
I believe one of the most important things we can teach the young is how to separate truth from crap. And this is not done
Hear, hear!
I.e. logical fallacies and the scientific method should be core curriculum.
Yes. My high-school (and maybe junior high, IIRC) science classes covered the scientific method at least. So that much is good (at least, where I was anyway).
Ironically, I've seen many researchers with PhD's carefully using the scientific method in their research, and promptly lapsing into logical fallacies with everything else.
Yes, people use entirely different mindsets for different topics. Seems to be an inherent part of the mind, and I can certainly see some benefit to that. Unfortunately it can occasionally go wrong, like you describe.
It's like sales techniques. I've read books on sales techniques and the psychology behind them. I don't use or apply them with any skill, but it has enabled me to recognize when those techniques are used on me, and has the effect of immunizing me against them. At least learning the logical fallacies helps immunize one against being fraudulently influenced.
Definitely. I can always spot a commissioned (or "bonus"-based) salesman a mile away. A lot of their tactics are incredibly irritating, patronizing, and frankly very transparent. (But my dad's a salesman so maybe that's how I managed to develop a finely-tuned "sales-bullshit detector") It's interesting (read: disturbing) how convinced they are that you're just being rude and difficult when you don't fall hook, line and sinker for their obvious bullshit and their obvious lack of knowledge.
Here's another interesting tactic you may not be aware of: I'm not sure how wide-spread this is, but I have direct inside information that it *is* common in car dealerships around my general area. Among themselves, the salesmen have a common saying: "Buyers are liars".
It's an interesting (and disturbing) method of ensuring salesmen police themselves and continue to be 100% read-and-willing to abandon ethics and bullshit the crap out of customers.
Obviously customers *do* lie of course (and that helps the tactic perpetuate itself), but when a *salesman* says it, it really is an almost hilarious case of "The pot calling the grey paint 'black'." It's a salesman's whole freaking *job* is be a professional liar! (And there's all sorts of tricks to self-rationalizing it and staying on the good side of the law. But their whole professional JOB is to *bullshit*! And they themselves are dumb enough to buy into their *own* "It's the *buyers* who are disonest!" nonsence.)
Casinos are similar. Back in college, when my friends and I were all 19 and attending a school only about 2 hours from Canada...well, whaddya expect?...We took a roadtrip up to Casino Windsor! Within minutes of walking through the place I couldn't even *help* myself from counting the seemingly-neverending stream of blatantly-obvious psychological gimmicks. It was just one after another, everywhere you'd look, and they were so SO OBVIOUS it was like walking inside a salesman's brain. The physical manifestation of a direct insult to people's intelligence. It's really unbelievable how stupid a person has to be to fall for those blatant tricks.
But then again, slots and video poker aren't exactly my thing anyway. I'm from the 80's: If I plunk coins into a machine I expect to get food, beverage, clean laundry, or *actual gameplay*. Repeatedly purchasing the message "You loose" while the entire building itself is treating me like a complete brain-dead idiot isn't exactly my idea of "addictive". If I want to spend money to watch non-interactive animations and occasionally push a button or two to keep it all going, I'll just buy "The Last of Us".
