I just learned about a concept called cognitive dissonance. Basically when what you believe goes against what evidence is telling you, you experience cognitive dissonance. It's uncomfortable, and in order to lessen the discomfort we have to change our belief or not trust the evidence.
In a TED talk I just saw (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqONzcNbzh8), the speaker gives two great examples. The first is being a pilot, and learning how to fly with only instruments without the visual of the world around you. Your body is telling you one thing, and the instruments are telling you another. You believe your body, even though it's wrong. He also gives the example of a friend of his that works at a hospital that sees the effects of smoking on people, yet continues to smoke, claiming it keeps her thin, and that it's better health-wise to smoke than to be obese.
Without understanding that this happens, things make less sense. This basically explains certain types of irrationality. I couldn't understand how people could not accept mounds of evidence put right in front of their face. We have a need to justify what we do and say, and if that requires ignoring evidence that we're wrong, that tends to be preferred over the alternative.
I know I don't like being wrong. But by accepting that I'm wrong when I've been provided with evidence, I can be right in the future. Being wrong about something often means you have to be wrong about things relating to it, otherwise the puzzle of complex ideas won't fit together.
We should be skeptical when people try to persuade us. There are many tricks people use, and too often, we're lied to for somebody else's personal gain. But when it turns out that they are right, we should be willing to accept that what we previously thought was actually incorrect. We can go forward with a better understanding of what is happening around us if we don't deny what evidence shows us.
Friday, November 18, 2011
Friday, November 4, 2011
I like Google Plus
Facebook has been around for a long time. I wasn't that interested in it when it was becoming popular. I also wasn't interested in myspace or Friendster. I never joined either of those. I suppose Facebook was essentially the same thing in my mind, given I had never experienced any of them.
But through social pressure, and an urge to get in contact with the people I once knew, I decided to join. I did briefly reconnect and chat with an old high school friend. I also came across family members I didn't know I had.
What impacted me most was the superficiality of everything. People would talk just to make noise. It rarely felt like anybody actually said anything. I don't do well in those kinds of conversations. So after a week of being a Facebook member, I dropped it. Things I liked were uninteresting to everybody else, and what was interesting to everybody else, I didn't like.
Even though this blog's title involves the idea of nobody else caring about it, I have different expectations from a blog that I would for something like facebook.
I like Google Plus. I heard about it fairly early on. Thanks to Teamliquid.net I got an invite before it was part of public beta. I like the idea of defining who you are talking to before you let it out. I also am a very big fan of the culture that emerged where people actually speak in ways you might expect them to speak in real life. People discuss and debate and engage in actual conversation about ideas. On the internet, that usually only lasts an instant before it degenerates into an incoherent mess of name-calling or successful use of red herring fallacies.
It also seems like the community is largely a supportive one. People usually let others have their own judgments. When Steven Jobs died, there were lots of people praising his contribution to the world. There were others that felt in death, people were cherry picking the nice things about his personality, and ignoring other, less nice things that were just as important to remember about him. But few started arguments in those threads. They respected the other people's posts, and simply made their own statements in their own streams.
Similarly, different people have different ideas about what makes good photography. Trey Ratcliff is well known for his use of HDR. There are other artists that think the way it's used ruins most photography. That's fine. But attacking individuals for their choice of how they want to express their art is a bit too far, if you ask me. A certain underwater photographer seems to froth at the mouth when he sees HDR used in ways he doesn't appreciate. I don't need that animosity in my stream of posts. He got uncircled. So far, that's the only blind anger I've come across. I'd say that's pretty impressive.
Google plus has turned into something different than I think the creators expected. I think they expected it to be more like Facebook than it is. They always wanted selective sharing, but I doubt they expected to be connecting strangers quite like this. People say they don't use Google plus because all their friends are on Facebook and don't want to switch over. Plus can be for multiple things. You can use it exactly like Facebook if you want. But you can also use it to join a community that is interesting to you. You don't need your friends on Google Plus to enjoy being there. You can come across amazingly beautiful photographs every 30 minutes if you follow popular photographers.
You can keep up to date on the latest tech news and gadgets if you're into that. You can choose to follow people that spread information about how science can potentially change our world in ways you'd probably never imagined. Basically, if you have a hobby or interest, odds are you can connect to people on google plus that share that same hobby or interest. And if you want to share things with your friends that aren't on Plus, it's fine. Just click the box that sends them an email. Share with who you want, regardless of whether they use the service or not.
But through social pressure, and an urge to get in contact with the people I once knew, I decided to join. I did briefly reconnect and chat with an old high school friend. I also came across family members I didn't know I had.
What impacted me most was the superficiality of everything. People would talk just to make noise. It rarely felt like anybody actually said anything. I don't do well in those kinds of conversations. So after a week of being a Facebook member, I dropped it. Things I liked were uninteresting to everybody else, and what was interesting to everybody else, I didn't like.
Even though this blog's title involves the idea of nobody else caring about it, I have different expectations from a blog that I would for something like facebook.
I like Google Plus. I heard about it fairly early on. Thanks to Teamliquid.net I got an invite before it was part of public beta. I like the idea of defining who you are talking to before you let it out. I also am a very big fan of the culture that emerged where people actually speak in ways you might expect them to speak in real life. People discuss and debate and engage in actual conversation about ideas. On the internet, that usually only lasts an instant before it degenerates into an incoherent mess of name-calling or successful use of red herring fallacies.
It also seems like the community is largely a supportive one. People usually let others have their own judgments. When Steven Jobs died, there were lots of people praising his contribution to the world. There were others that felt in death, people were cherry picking the nice things about his personality, and ignoring other, less nice things that were just as important to remember about him. But few started arguments in those threads. They respected the other people's posts, and simply made their own statements in their own streams.
Similarly, different people have different ideas about what makes good photography. Trey Ratcliff is well known for his use of HDR. There are other artists that think the way it's used ruins most photography. That's fine. But attacking individuals for their choice of how they want to express their art is a bit too far, if you ask me. A certain underwater photographer seems to froth at the mouth when he sees HDR used in ways he doesn't appreciate. I don't need that animosity in my stream of posts. He got uncircled. So far, that's the only blind anger I've come across. I'd say that's pretty impressive.
Google plus has turned into something different than I think the creators expected. I think they expected it to be more like Facebook than it is. They always wanted selective sharing, but I doubt they expected to be connecting strangers quite like this. People say they don't use Google plus because all their friends are on Facebook and don't want to switch over. Plus can be for multiple things. You can use it exactly like Facebook if you want. But you can also use it to join a community that is interesting to you. You don't need your friends on Google Plus to enjoy being there. You can come across amazingly beautiful photographs every 30 minutes if you follow popular photographers.
You can keep up to date on the latest tech news and gadgets if you're into that. You can choose to follow people that spread information about how science can potentially change our world in ways you'd probably never imagined. Basically, if you have a hobby or interest, odds are you can connect to people on google plus that share that same hobby or interest. And if you want to share things with your friends that aren't on Plus, it's fine. Just click the box that sends them an email. Share with who you want, regardless of whether they use the service or not.
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