Love your stuff. I’ve read most of the gun stuff, but the social media insight is priceless and spot on. Just became a patron, too (#3, haha!) 😉 Unfortunately, I can’t comment on the Medium articles because I’ve been shadow banned by that platform — nothing controversial; my opinions just aren’t left of center.
I was hoping to get your take on something I read in a book called Superforecasters by Phillip Tetlock. I haven’t seen it addressed in your writings on social media or anywhere else on the ‘net. Tetlock asserts that causing someone to publicly commit to a particular belief greatly increases their resistance to change, even when confronted with incontrovertible evidence that conflicts with the previously expressed belief. He references this in relation to public experts’ unwillingness to alter forecasts despite emerging data that conflicts with a previous forecast.
I’m not sure about the underlying premise – seems intuitive but I haven’t researched it. If true, however, this may be an additional factor to explain how social media enhances partisanship. Today, people can proclaim their beliefs to the world. Their social circles certainly become more familiar with what these beliefs are. The beliefs of social media denizens are permanently tied to their online reputations. This immutable record exponentially magnifies their intransigence, even when presented with evidence that belies these beliefs.
There’s an old adage that goes something like: Anyone in their 20s who isn’t a liberal has no heart; anyone in their 40s who is still a liberal has no brain. Assuming this is true (and I don’t), social media would make this progression more difficult.
Again, I haven’t researched it. It just seems logical
“Tetlock asserts that causing someone to publicly commit to a particular belief greatly increases their resistance to change, even when confronted with incontrovertible evidence that conflicts with the previously expressed belief. He references this in relation to public experts’ unwillingness to alter forecasts despite emerging data that conflicts with a previous forecast.”
Oh that’s fascinating, and it’s an angle I don’t think I’d considered deeply before. Thanks very much for sharing this. I’m tooling out a “Facebook Sucks Opus” right now, and that will fit nicely in with the overall message. That’s going to be a tough one to get right, though. I might try to parley that one onto Quillette.
And also thanks for the Patreon thing! If you’re ever in Atlanta I’ll buy you beers out of the Patreon tab. 🙂
Interesting that Medium banned someone ‘left of center’.
(When i think of a ‘center’ , i think of a circle, or sphere, or n-dimensional sphere.
Or of something like a community center, or this one around here for people who are ‘mentally disabled’ or have ‘severe mental illness’ or are just broke and unemployable (some because of criminal records or addictions) . Despite the widely acclaimed popular belief that I go there (and maybe should to make some different , hopefully less toxic friends than my current ones ) I don’t.
I just talk to some of the people when i sit in the park and study or play guitar, or pretend to. If people hear the way I play guitar or read what I write, they may commit me.
( My favorite conversation was with a womyn who came up to me with an egg in her hand, and asked me if could take it home to hatch. She said it was a vampire egg. I considered it since i’ve never seen a baby vampire (or at least not very often—global warming or gun crime may have exterminated them) but I declined. I have already had gunshots fired through my wall when there was an invasion in apt next door, and decided a vampire might be scary to bring i my apt—got enough problems.
So she took it over to a guy with his little daughter walking a puppy dog and asked them. They took it home with them to hatch—the vampire baby could probably bond with the puppy.)
The issue of Tetlock’s thesis is interesting. I think it may sometimes hold and sometimes not. There is a famous US educator named Diane Ravitch who was associated with ‘right wing’ or traditionalist types like Hirsch and other ‘great books/common core/ phonics/standardized testing’ education, Chesster Finn, school vouchers, worked for Bush for awhile, and was funded by conservative hoover and olin foundations. After maybe 20-30 years, she switched her positions and is now a sort of darling of the left, and now spends most of her time criticizing the people she had been associated with. She did acknowledge in some of work right after she changed sides that she had been wrong. However in her more recent stuff you will never see a mention that she used to endorse what she now rejects.
Publicly endorsing something, and then retracting it, can be a shameful experience, and people don’t like that very often–embarrassing. There was or is something going around called the ‘Pro-Truth Pledge’ by a former professor. That pledge (which even i signed) says basically if you are going to make an assertion of fact, you better have data to back it up. Supposedly this is or was going to keep politicians and media from spouting lies or ‘fake news’. (He has a paper somewhere recently which claims this is empirically validated—it looked like the sample size was quite small; maybe a few 100 people who said after signing the pledge they told fewer lies and spread less fake news. I think he has a few 1000 people in USA who signed his pledge, including P Singer and S Pinker (both of whom hold some questionable views from my POV—-Pinker says violence is down historically and everything is getter better, which says that average incomes are going up as well as economic growth so socioeconomics is getting better too–lots of people disagree). Singer says we should be altruists, and rather than spend 5 $ on a coffee instead send it to an antimalria campaign, and its shameful not to. Sounds good, except he flies around the world repeating this line.) Anyway, that study supports Tetlocck’s thesis. (The prof was fired for some sort of claim of negligance which he denies–he says he was fired for having a mental illness for which he took sick leave. A few other people criticized him for other things —using offshore techies (poor students in India) to raise money, and if i recall he told me on the phone he was at one well known research university when it turned out he was at a sattelite campus which apears tio be more of a business school or even community college. )
On the other side one has ‘false confessions’. People can plead guilty in public although they still believe actually they are not, so they lied.
The article on the blog called ‘progressives on a precipitice’ i think is also relevant. ‘No turning back, even if its a losing game. I’d rather be dead than proved wrong’. There’s a ton of behavioral psychology and economics on these sorts of issues. (My guess is that it may be like physics and biology–every rule is made to be broken, like the symmetries (also called laws) of physics, so the exception proves the rule (of law)).
I make predictions too –i predicted this WWW craze , perhaps now identified with FB –would collapse very soon–people wouldn’t want to be on a computer. I can’t really do the stats, and haven’t researched the data, but i assume i am correct. (One of my relatives from an elite U who planned to b an environmental scientist just got a job at FBI doing data analytics–better pay than computational environmental engineering. ). I’m also good at forecasting stocks, the economy, and religious trneds and the end of civilization–shortly after the enlightenment and industrial revolution, religion ended as did poverty. In 2000 i correctly predicted the end of civilization when the meteor hit the earth. And as a stock if you empty your bank account and send it to my patreon account (i actually have or had one tho couldn’t figure out how to use it) i guarantee a 25% annual return for a stock you buy in my company (called ‘bitcoin bites the dust’).
Since i never heard of quillette, described on Wikip as ‘libertarian’, i do see they had on David Frum too, who has a youtube video debate with Steve Brannon. Frum appears to be a straight up clinton liberal.
Actually, I said that I was banned by Medium for my opinions which were “nothing controversial; my opinions just aren’t left of center.” I consider myself closest to Libertarians. Most people would allocate that sort of opinion to “right of center.” Here’s an example of the controversial stuff I posted on Medium. https://medium.com/@laramie43ip/why-people-voted-for-trump-d08a17f0f4b5
You mention Stephen Pinker. I’ve read about 2/3 of his Better Angels of Our Nature. That far into the book, I concluded: (a) I can’t stand his style of writing; and (b) he utterly beat to death his argument that violence is decreasing. It was like reading a 500-page legal brief. But, I will give him credit. I’m persuaded. That doesn’t mean we couldn’t have a 200-year flood plain-style Civil War. But, the trend is not in that direction.
On David Frum: He’s just a NeverTrumper. That breed is a classic example of someone who publicly proclaims opposition to something and can’t retract it. Regardless of what you think of Trump, he has done many, many things that a true conservative should like, ranging from Supreme Court picks to tax cuts to regulatory rollback. The NeverTrumpers know this in their souls; but they’ve staked out their positions. There’s no going back. Again, this has nothing to do with how you feel about Trump. It is only an example of people who call themselves conservative but who are unable to retreat from their NeverTrump proclamations.
YouTube 
Love your stuff. I’ve read most of the gun stuff, but the social media insight is priceless and spot on. Just became a patron, too (#3, haha!) 😉 Unfortunately, I can’t comment on the Medium articles because I’ve been shadow banned by that platform — nothing controversial; my opinions just aren’t left of center.
I was hoping to get your take on something I read in a book called Superforecasters by Phillip Tetlock. I haven’t seen it addressed in your writings on social media or anywhere else on the ‘net. Tetlock asserts that causing someone to publicly commit to a particular belief greatly increases their resistance to change, even when confronted with incontrovertible evidence that conflicts with the previously expressed belief. He references this in relation to public experts’ unwillingness to alter forecasts despite emerging data that conflicts with a previous forecast.
I’m not sure about the underlying premise – seems intuitive but I haven’t researched it. If true, however, this may be an additional factor to explain how social media enhances partisanship. Today, people can proclaim their beliefs to the world. Their social circles certainly become more familiar with what these beliefs are. The beliefs of social media denizens are permanently tied to their online reputations. This immutable record exponentially magnifies their intransigence, even when presented with evidence that belies these beliefs.
There’s an old adage that goes something like: Anyone in their 20s who isn’t a liberal has no heart; anyone in their 40s who is still a liberal has no brain. Assuming this is true (and I don’t), social media would make this progression more difficult.
Again, I haven’t researched it. It just seems logical
“Tetlock asserts that causing someone to publicly commit to a particular belief greatly increases their resistance to change, even when confronted with incontrovertible evidence that conflicts with the previously expressed belief. He references this in relation to public experts’ unwillingness to alter forecasts despite emerging data that conflicts with a previous forecast.”
Oh that’s fascinating, and it’s an angle I don’t think I’d considered deeply before. Thanks very much for sharing this. I’m tooling out a “Facebook Sucks Opus” right now, and that will fit nicely in with the overall message. That’s going to be a tough one to get right, though. I might try to parley that one onto Quillette.
And also thanks for the Patreon thing! If you’re ever in Atlanta I’ll buy you beers out of the Patreon tab. 🙂
Interesting that Medium banned someone ‘left of center’.
(When i think of a ‘center’ , i think of a circle, or sphere, or n-dimensional sphere.
Or of something like a community center, or this one around here for people who are ‘mentally disabled’ or have ‘severe mental illness’ or are just broke and unemployable (some because of criminal records or addictions) . Despite the widely acclaimed popular belief that I go there (and maybe should to make some different , hopefully less toxic friends than my current ones ) I don’t.
I just talk to some of the people when i sit in the park and study or play guitar, or pretend to. If people hear the way I play guitar or read what I write, they may commit me.
( My favorite conversation was with a womyn who came up to me with an egg in her hand, and asked me if could take it home to hatch. She said it was a vampire egg. I considered it since i’ve never seen a baby vampire (or at least not very often—global warming or gun crime may have exterminated them) but I declined. I have already had gunshots fired through my wall when there was an invasion in apt next door, and decided a vampire might be scary to bring i my apt—got enough problems.
So she took it over to a guy with his little daughter walking a puppy dog and asked them. They took it home with them to hatch—the vampire baby could probably bond with the puppy.)
The issue of Tetlock’s thesis is interesting. I think it may sometimes hold and sometimes not. There is a famous US educator named Diane Ravitch who was associated with ‘right wing’ or traditionalist types like Hirsch and other ‘great books/common core/ phonics/standardized testing’ education, Chesster Finn, school vouchers, worked for Bush for awhile, and was funded by conservative hoover and olin foundations. After maybe 20-30 years, she switched her positions and is now a sort of darling of the left, and now spends most of her time criticizing the people she had been associated with. She did acknowledge in some of work right after she changed sides that she had been wrong. However in her more recent stuff you will never see a mention that she used to endorse what she now rejects.
Publicly endorsing something, and then retracting it, can be a shameful experience, and people don’t like that very often–embarrassing. There was or is something going around called the ‘Pro-Truth Pledge’ by a former professor. That pledge (which even i signed) says basically if you are going to make an assertion of fact, you better have data to back it up. Supposedly this is or was going to keep politicians and media from spouting lies or ‘fake news’. (He has a paper somewhere recently which claims this is empirically validated—it looked like the sample size was quite small; maybe a few 100 people who said after signing the pledge they told fewer lies and spread less fake news. I think he has a few 1000 people in USA who signed his pledge, including P Singer and S Pinker (both of whom hold some questionable views from my POV—-Pinker says violence is down historically and everything is getter better, which says that average incomes are going up as well as economic growth so socioeconomics is getting better too–lots of people disagree). Singer says we should be altruists, and rather than spend 5 $ on a coffee instead send it to an antimalria campaign, and its shameful not to. Sounds good, except he flies around the world repeating this line.) Anyway, that study supports Tetlocck’s thesis. (The prof was fired for some sort of claim of negligance which he denies–he says he was fired for having a mental illness for which he took sick leave. A few other people criticized him for other things —using offshore techies (poor students in India) to raise money, and if i recall he told me on the phone he was at one well known research university when it turned out he was at a sattelite campus which apears tio be more of a business school or even community college. )
On the other side one has ‘false confessions’. People can plead guilty in public although they still believe actually they are not, so they lied.
The article on the blog called ‘progressives on a precipitice’ i think is also relevant. ‘No turning back, even if its a losing game. I’d rather be dead than proved wrong’. There’s a ton of behavioral psychology and economics on these sorts of issues. (My guess is that it may be like physics and biology–every rule is made to be broken, like the symmetries (also called laws) of physics, so the exception proves the rule (of law)).
I make predictions too –i predicted this WWW craze , perhaps now identified with FB –would collapse very soon–people wouldn’t want to be on a computer. I can’t really do the stats, and haven’t researched the data, but i assume i am correct. (One of my relatives from an elite U who planned to b an environmental scientist just got a job at FBI doing data analytics–better pay than computational environmental engineering. ). I’m also good at forecasting stocks, the economy, and religious trneds and the end of civilization–shortly after the enlightenment and industrial revolution, religion ended as did poverty. In 2000 i correctly predicted the end of civilization when the meteor hit the earth. And as a stock if you empty your bank account and send it to my patreon account (i actually have or had one tho couldn’t figure out how to use it) i guarantee a 25% annual return for a stock you buy in my company (called ‘bitcoin bites the dust’).
Since i never heard of quillette, described on Wikip as ‘libertarian’, i do see they had on David Frum too, who has a youtube video debate with Steve Brannon. Frum appears to be a straight up clinton liberal.
Actually, I said that I was banned by Medium for my opinions which were “nothing controversial; my opinions just aren’t left of center.” I consider myself closest to Libertarians. Most people would allocate that sort of opinion to “right of center.” Here’s an example of the controversial stuff I posted on Medium. https://medium.com/@laramie43ip/why-people-voted-for-trump-d08a17f0f4b5
You mention Stephen Pinker. I’ve read about 2/3 of his Better Angels of Our Nature. That far into the book, I concluded: (a) I can’t stand his style of writing; and (b) he utterly beat to death his argument that violence is decreasing. It was like reading a 500-page legal brief. But, I will give him credit. I’m persuaded. That doesn’t mean we couldn’t have a 200-year flood plain-style Civil War. But, the trend is not in that direction.
On David Frum: He’s just a NeverTrumper. That breed is a classic example of someone who publicly proclaims opposition to something and can’t retract it. Regardless of what you think of Trump, he has done many, many things that a true conservative should like, ranging from Supreme Court picks to tax cuts to regulatory rollback. The NeverTrumpers know this in their souls; but they’ve staked out their positions. There’s no going back. Again, this has nothing to do with how you feel about Trump. It is only an example of people who call themselves conservative but who are unable to retreat from their NeverTrump proclamations.