I thought it was lovely.

Your focus on tools sounds somewhat like . I find a lot to like there, but no one not already committed to science and rationality does.

In my home state of Georgia, in the southern United States, we will soon be sending to Congress a woman who supports QAnon. The gulf between our tribes is as a great as that between a Star Trek future and a Mad Max one.

Thanks! Yeah we are rapidly unlearning how to talk to each other and if I can somehow help to make online conversations healthier, I'll do it. There are many more aspects to this though, that I want to create videos on. Identifying with your tools of thinking is just one (albeit important) part of the solution imo.

Maybe discussions on the internet are failing because people want them to fail.

Part of the problem is the limited format of things like twitter, youtube and reddit, these formats lend themselves, not to quality, but to misinformation, they literally give an advantage to pathological personality types. That's one thing I like about this Forum, it doesn't lend itself to misinformation because truth has time to express itself without being suffocated by platitudes and insinuations of error.

This fella should be applauded for using his time to foster civil discourse. This is a good thread.

In my opinion one of the root causes of this is that we have a natural tendency to identify with the ideas that we store in our brains. We love ideology and we defend our informational catalogue with everything we got, because acknowledging a good argument means that we were wrong and that we need to let go of an idea, a part of our personality.

A much better way would be to identify with our way of thinking instead of our knowledge. Critical thinking skills are becoming more and more crucial in this age of informational floods. And these "tools" with which we can analyse the value of new information should be the centerpiece of our identity. — Hirnstoff

I'm not sure I agree here. The "informational catalogue" is intricately tied up with "the way we think". I think it's two sides of the same coin, really. You rightly call these things "tools", but the more you identify with "tools" the more they become thought habits. Being right still becomes personal; you just go from being right about things to being right about how to go about things.

What I'm saying can be summed up like this:

Identify with your knowledge ==> You're wrong.
Identify with your tools ==> You're stupid.

It's not an improvement. We need to relativise our tools and learn to figure out what tools other people use and see if there are tools we both can use. That's why science was successful: it's a tool many people can use. But that usefulness decreases the more you identify with the tools: it becomes a sort of scientism: if science can't explain it, it should be disregarded.

If people are suspicious of "critical thinking" there might be a reason. Any tool you use needs to be open to inspection. Less identification, not more.

Maybe I misunderstand you?

Thanks for the honest criticism. I'm not sure if you watched the video, because I'm pretty sure we are on the same page here. I emphasized that it's important to identify with your tools rather than with your acquired knowledge, which explicitely includes actively working on improving those tools. Even though everyone's tools of thinking should in the end be way more stable than the acquired knowledge.

E.g: I am happy to accept good scientific arguments that the Moon is made of cheese, however it takes a lot to make me question my fundamental scientific thinking. Even though there are definitely some parts of my applied scientific thinking that need to be readjusted.

And as I think it's necessary for human beings to form an identity, which means finding the constants in your mind, I think the idea of being defined by your way of thinking and the process of improving it, is a good candidate to focus on. It allows us to feel pride and a sense of accomplishment whenever we improved our perspective.

We need to relativise our tools and learn to figure out what tools other people use and see if there are tools we both can use. — Dawnstorm

This is the right thought. It's a truism that you have to find common ground to convince someone, a shared starting point, something. It's no use proving to your own satisfaction that 9/11 was not an inside job, if your goal is to convince someone else.

There was a sort of experiment on BBC3 many years ago called Conspiracy Road Trip, which famously convinced Charlie Veitch, a minor youtube celebrity and prominent 9/11 truther, to change his mind. (That episode.) At great time and expense, they convinced I think only 2 1/2 out of 5 participants. But Charlie was a big win, because pushing conspiracy theories was essentially his day job.

I think of there being a certain class of beliefs -- let's call it "ideology" -- which can have outsize impacts (social, cultural, political, economic) when people act on them, even just by voting, but which have very shallow epistemic roots. If you believe the moon landing was a hoax, how much does that really change how you go about your daily life?

So I also like to think that we all already use tools, share tools, that are up to the task -- everyday language and ordinary informal reasoning. The QAnon folks who almost certainly live near me all do the same sorts of things I do every day, take out the trash, go to work, buy groceries, check the weather. The problem is getting to talk to them about The Crazy in an ordinary way. Conspiracy Road Trip came close.

For instance, if you believe the moon landing was a hoax, would you still believe it if you spent an afternoon at the home of some old folks who worked on the project? Really sat and talked with them a while, asked questions, listened to their stories. Do that with a bunch of people who participated. There would have to been like a 100,000 people keeping this secret for 50 years. If you sat and talked and ate a chicken dinner with them, I doubt you could come away believing they were reciting the script they were given by the Deep State or whatever.

So my question for @Hirnstoff is how you can you do something like that on youtube? Or on reddit? So much of what we use to judge trustworthiness will be missing. But we need something that approximates it. I'm also partial to the view that science is just systematic common sense, so rather than "this is how Science does it" I'd lean on a folksier "that makes sense doesn't it?" approach. The main thing would be to approach ideological beliefs the same way people approach decisions about whether to take an umbrella, or whether their team has a shot at the playoffs this year, or which brand of peanut butter to buy. All these folks reason just like us outside the ideological zone, so start there.

It sounds really hard.

So my question for Hirnstoff is how you can you do something like that on youtube? Or on reddit? So much of what we use to judge trustworthiness will be missing. But we need something that approximates it. — Srap Tasmaner

As I'm already planning a video on how I think we can improve discussions directly, I just want to mention a few short thoughts:
We have to bridge the gap that anonymity creates on the internet. We can do that by actively making sure that we state our intentions upfront. "I'm curious why you think that way" "Show me the evidence that convinced you and I'll be open to accepting it as well, if it's convincing"
If no evidence is provided, we can emphasize that the opponent shouldn't build their beliefs on such a weak or even non-existent foundation. If evidence is provided, the discussion can lead to a rational debate about the validity of the provided evidence. If the evidence is even convincing, we have learnt something. Insulting each other or their beliefs and ideas won't change a thing. Opening up, trying to trace the way they came to their conclusion, can help in talking objectively about the validity of the claim or even help us to improve our own perspective. By starting a discussion this way, we show others that we respect them as a person that is also trying to figure out what's true and what's not and thus can connect on this basic level.

By starting a discussion this way, we show others that we respect them as a person that is also trying to figure out what's true and what's not and thus can connect on this basic level. — Hirnstoff

Absolutely. Carl Sagan talks about this in Demon-Haunted World -- there are people out there who are curious and inquisitive and the scientific community has failed them by not getting out into the world enough, with the result that his cab driver doesn't know the difference between astronomy and astrology.

If no evidence is provided, we can emphasize that the opponent shouldn't build their beliefs on such a weak or even non-existent foundation. — Hirnstoff

But this looks like a non-starter in half a dozen ways. How quickly do you think, in such a conversation, you'll find yourself wanting to say, "But that's not evidence"?

It is entirely possible that the evident success of science, broadly if quietly acknowledged in modern society, is part of the problem. Maybe you're not the only one to whom it has occurred to model their approach to knowledge acquisition on science. Consider that what distinguishes science from ordinary informal reasoning is the positing of invisible entities and hidden forces; what we see in the world is the effect of these invisible armies at work. That suggests two solutions: yours, get people to do their science better; mine, get them to stop doing science at all. In favor of my approach, they're already demonstrably competent at doing jobs and planning birthday parties and judging produce, but real science is actually pretty hard.

But this looks like a non-starter in half a dozen ways. How quickly do you think, in such a conversation, you'll find yourself wanting to say, "But that's not evidence"? — Srap Tasmaner

Well in that case the focus of the conversation should be what constitutes good evidence and why, which is also a very important foundation to build.

Consider that what distinguishes science from ordinary informal reasoning is the positing of invisible entities and hidden forces; what we see in the world is the effect of these invisible armies at work — Srap Tasmaner

I'm not sure I follow what you're saying here. "Ordinary informal reasoning" also relies on scientific thinking, just without the awareness. To use your past example "Should I take the umbrella or not?". People decide this by making a prognosis about the weather, by watching the weather report or by simply looking up at the sky. We are simply recognizing a pattern and are using our learned knowledge to deduce that it might be raining soon. While we aren't conducting formal scientific studies, we still rely on the same mechanisms to forecast the future.

That suggests two solutions: yours, get people to do their science better; mine, get them to stop doing science at all. In favor of my approach, they're already demonstrably competent at doing jobs and planning birthday parties and judging produce, but real science is actually pretty hard. — Srap Tasmaner

Those two solutions are the same with a different label. It seems to me that your solution simply doesn't call it science and instead calls it common sense or "ordinary informal reasoning". I think we are calling something common sense when the claim isn't extraordinary and therefore doesn't require extraordinary evidence. "The sky is darkgray and it's autumn, so it'll probably rain soon". However we must rely on our intuitive scientific thinking to come to this conclusion.

Those two solutions are the same with a different label. — Hirnstoff

Broadly, I'm relying on Sellars's Philosophy and the Scientific Image of Man, though without much subtlety.

I think we are calling something common sense when the claim isn't extraordinary and therefore doesn't require extraordinary evidence. — Hirnstoff

That's definitely not what I'm saying. It's common sense that when you drop something it falls to the ground; it's science that when the electromagnetic fields counteracting the gravitational field associated with a massive body are rendered less effective, an object will move toward that mass's center of gravity. (Even that is really "sciency" rather than science.)

I think QAnon is a bullshit story nobody should believe and that does jack-squat to help them get through their day. You think it's a faulty scientific theory. I think I could prove to you, using whatever philosophy of science you like, that it ain't science. It is, as the saying goes, "not even wrong". We might agree that it is "attempted science", but I believe the attempt should not be made.

If you ask people why they were trying to do science -- for instance, QAnon interpretation -- what will the answer be? I don't know, but it has to do with tribe. We can say they've engaged in motivated reasoning and fallen prey to all sorts of cognitive biases, and that guarding against that can be taught. But it's a game of whack-a-mole. They'll come up with some different bullshit -- or, honestly, someone will come up with it for them. You hope to make people reason better, to inoculate them against the next round, and I can't argue against that. I just want to leverage the sort of reasoning they already do just fine, rather than expect them all to be Dick Feynman.

If you ask people why they were trying to do science -- for instance, QAnon interpretation -- what will the answer be? I don't know, but it has to do with tribe. We can say they've engaged in motivated reasoning and fallen prey to all sorts of cognitive biases, and that guarding against that can be taught. But it's a game of whack-a-mole. — Srap Tasmaner

What's interesting about this belief is that those who arrive at it do so through an online procedure that makes them feel like they have accomplished serious research, that their conclusion is the result of some kind of scientific process. This is what they believe about what they did to arrive at the belief, and it locks them in the belief because they have to admit to themselves that they were duped and incompetent in order to refute the belief. This is an interesting scheme to deploy on people as a form of interactive propaganda.

It's a narrative technique.

There's an old documentary about cinematography called Visions of Light. In it, the cinematographer on Rosemary's Baby tells a story about Polanski telling him to set up a shot on Helen Hayes (I think) answering the phone in the next room. So he does, Polanski checks it and says, no no no, and moves the camera over a couple feet. When the cameraman checks it, he sees that she'll now be cut in half by the doorframe rather than centered in it. Half of her is blocked now, wtf?

But when he went to a screening and that scene came up, he said the whole audience leaned to one side a little to try to see around the doorframe -- and he realized that Polanski is a genius and he is not.

We might agree that it is "attempted science", but I believe the attempt should not be made. — Srap Tasmaner

It is most definitely attempted science. Those people also just want to get to the truth and I would approach them arguing to question the way they've got there. How do you know that the attempt should not be made? How do you determine that QAnon conspiracies are non-sense? Of course by trying to figure out what the evidence is. Another attempt at science ... that's all we do when we want to get to the bottom of things. Some more clumsily than others

So how's the project going so far?

I watched your video and liked it; I sympathize with your goals. You are now mostly telling me that I'm not doing what I think I'm doing and a lot of other people aren't either; we're all doing what you think we're doing but doing it badly.

So how's the project of fixing discourse on the internet going?

Remember, I'm sympathetic, and I'm suggesting you take a step back and consider whether this is the argument you want to be having, and whether this is how you want to conduct conversations.

I gave my actual opinions; I wasn't trying to trap you. But if you're having trouble dealing with someone like me, who's pretty well-versed in what you're talking about, and sympathetic to your program, that ought to tell you something.

I don't know why this conversation took a sudden turn here. I don't have a problem with you at all. On the contrary I enjoy your input very much. Is it because I said "some more clumsily than others"? Because that wasn't at all meant as an insult at you, but rather at QAnon folks. If so, I apologize to have caused this misunderstanding. I should have phrased that clearer.

Back to the topic: I think we're mostly talking semantics here. In my view the only way to get to a good description of reality, is to observe reality repeatedly and to extract useful patterns. A child for example observes its parents' speech and learns how to talk by extracting patterns of sound and attaching meaning to them. One could even say that it conducts experiments by altering some words until it gets the desired reaction. I'd call even that intuitive learning process a form of "science". The point I'm trying to make is, that every person has to follow a procedure of repeated observation and even experiments in order to get to a good description of reality. In my mind there is therefore no difference between science and "Ordinary informal reasoning" other than the degree of sophistication. And thus if I wanted to rely on people using "Ordinary informal reasoning" as the method to get to the truth, I'd inevitably try to sharpen this reasoning and to nudge it more towards "scientific thinking". How would a discussion with a QAnon theorist even look like, if I would avoid asking for evidence (which to me is inherently scientific)?

I don't have a problem with you at all. On the contrary I enjoy your input very much. Is it because I said "some more clumsily than others"? Because that wasn't at all meant as an insult at you, but rather at QAnon folks. If so, I apologize to have caused this misunderstanding. I should have phrased that clearer. — Hirnstoff

Right here, sign that this person is serious about 1) not being a hypocrite and 2) actually achieving civil discourse.

The main thing would be to approach ideological beliefs the same way people approach decisions about whether to take an umbrella, or whether their team has a shot at the playoffs this year, or which brand of peanut butter to buy. — Srap Tasmaner

You see, the examples you just gave would take too much time and effort to think them through..
Imagine this: You are in a hurry and just as you are walking outside the door, you notice that the sky is cloudy. You already know that a cloudy sky does not necessarily mean that is going to rain, but the probability is much higher than when there are no clouds in the sky. Similarily, you know that an umbrella is always a burden to carry, unless when it is raining, then it becomes a valuable possesion. Now that these, and more, statements have rushed all around your mind, you must make a decision: Do you take the umbrella or not?
Say, in order to correctly decide wether you should or shouldn´t take an umbrella would require for you to check the weather forecast, check the probability of rain and establish a percentage of risk that you would be willing to assume. Even in a hurry, you may pull out your phone to quickly glimpse at the weather app and some even offer probabilities of rain, but you know, at the back of your head, that the weather cast is often wrong, so you are back in square one.
I could go on and on, but I think that I have made my point. An untrained mind, a mind without support tools, like critical thinking, will always base its decisions on preferences or on irrelevant factors, so it may very well bet on its favorite team even if its not looking too good, be it by pride or by a sense of loyalty, or buy the same jar of peanut butter they have always bought because it is a tradition

Oh gosh no I don't feel insulted or anything. There's no personal animosity between us.

But if I now told you, as I believe, that classical empiricism died a long time ago, how would that affect the project? The spirit of empiricism lives on, but what you describe is not how children learn and is not how science is done.

Do you need that theory to do want you want to do?

But if I now told you, as I believe, that classical empiricism died a long time ago, how would that affect the project? — Srap Tasmaner

Maybe in some idealistic form, but you are a material being and you live in a material world. I don't think your object much applies to this original posters position. We refute and prove things most powerfully with evidence, any idealism you embrace that takes you away from this premise, is just that, idealism.

Not the place for that discussion.

I wish you the best of luck on your endeavour! I personally started something similar, but I have since abandoned it. Unfortunately, individuals are too fixated on their way of thinking and I decided that to spend so much time and effort on vainly trying to convince my fellows on the importance of tools such as critical thinking would be very foolish of me.
I do not wish to undermine your work nor your plans, but rather take my comment as a warning of what there is to come. I hope we get to see more of your content!

An untrained mind, a mind without support tools, like critical thinking, will always base its decisions on preferences or on irrelevant factors, so it may very well bet on its favorite team even if its not looking too good, be it by pride or by a sense of loyalty, or buy the same jar of peanut butter they have always bought because it is a tradition — Alejandro

Okay, yes, I like these examples. So how would you actually try to talk a friend out of betting on the home team, when you expect them to lose? Keep in mind that sports fandom includes people who get pretty sophisticated in how they use statistics, and people that think stats are, let's say, "overrated"?

Or how would you convince a friend to try a different peanut butter?

People do have these conversations without resorting to talk of evidence and Bayesian inference and the rest.

By first teaching them the importance and relevance of intellectual standards.

People can get better at reasoning, sure, but it should be clear I think ordinary people already have intellectual standards that work just fine in their daily lives, and those standards are robust enough to handle novel situations, of some kinds at least, pretty well. We all have trouble understanding what goes on at Planck scale, but how hard is it to convince someone that if our best player is on the DL we're probably going to lose?

Asking the why of something is always a good way to begin a conversation with the intend of changing someones mind. You must first understand where are they coming from. For all I know, they will always buy the same jar of peanut butter because thats the peanut butter that their now deceased mom used to make their sandwiches or they simply find the taste fascinating.
Once that you understand why do they do this or that, which is rarely simple, you may then make suggestions. By making suggestions I do not mean that you bluntly show stats, data or evidence and tell them they are wrong, but rather you make suggestions into the air, progressively showing new information and different point of views.
For example, lets say your friend always bets on the Cowboys, irrelevant or how they have performed. In the case that, say Patriots, are doing better and one could potentially profit off them with a higher degree of probability, any reasonsable being should drop the Cowboys and back the Packers. However, irrational behaviours such as undying loylaty or more complicated situations will prevent this decision from even being considered. This is precisely the point when you ask why.
Why do you bet on the Cowboys? Why do you even bet to begin with? Why this why that. Guide them into questioning themselves on their beliefs. Show them the path with easy questions.
Once your friend is questioning wether he should bet to begin with, you may show him that the Patriots are doing better, starting with simple suggestions and moving on into presenting more structural data. This process may result on your friend betting for another team, thinking and trying something different. You did not force him into doing anything, you just asked him, indirectly, to step out of his ways and try something new

Yeah we are rapidly unlearning how to talk to each other — Hirnstoff

I warn against this kind of idealising of the past, what makes you believe things were better before? With the exception of trolling, which I suspect was taking place in the youtube conversation you showed.

We should also look at how the information is being presented, people are less likely to admit that they're wrong when they're being called an idiot. They are also less likely to admit they're wrong to people they dislike or strongly disagree with on other topics. These things detract from the pleasure of being proven wrong and turn it into a humiliating experience.

There's also a lot of misinformation, just because someone sounds confident and cites sources, you can't assume they're correct yet actually fact-checking them can be laboriously difficult. It is often simply easier to just disregard them.

I think being proven wrong requires a lot, you need to be open-minded and actively listen, you need to fact-check and you need to be talking to someone who is actually trying to help you rather than insult you. The discussion needs to be framed in a particular way (not an ideological debate for example). And we do need to see people being happy to part with incorrect information without responding with bias or fallacy. I could list more reasons, many more. Overall, the list of pre-requisites for someone being in a position where they're likely to admit they're wrong when they are wrong is long and so it's not surprising that it rarely happens.

Why do you bet on the Cowboys? Why do you even bet to begin with? Why this why that. Guide them into questioning themselves on their beliefs. — Alejandro

This is a pretty strange conversation to have with a friend.

Your friend mentions he wants to get home because he has money on tonight's game.

You point out that the team's star player is on the DL.

He understands the point of that. Either he forgot and he'll cop to being an idiot for betting, or he'll counter with another point that both of you understand perfectly.

You are implicitly relying on a shared understanding of the game, otherwise why have this conversation? There may be some "why" in here, but it's bounded.

Thank you. I'll try my best to do my part, but I don't expect to change the world with my little attempt at making YouTube videos. There are many other topics I also want to make videos on. This is just the first stop, hopefully.

I warn against this kind of idealising of the past, what makes you believe things were better before? — Judaka

I agree. Critical thinking skills have been a rarity long before the internet changed our world. I just think that the internet supercharges the problems that arise as a result.

We should also look at how the information is being presented, people are less likely to admit that they're wrong when they're being called an idiot. They are also less likely to admit they're wrong to people they dislike or strongly disagree with on other topics. These things detract from the pleasure of being proven wrong and turn it into a humiliating experience. — Judaka

Absolutely. Those are things I want to talk about in future videos.

Overall, the list of pre-requisites for someone being in a position where they're likely to admit they're wrong when they are wrong is long and so it's not surprising that it rarely happens. — Judaka

But we still have the power to change our own thinking and to try to achieve civil discourse. Changing our conduct online can have wonderful exponential effects. I remember a few comments over the years, where a good debate actually took place. Apologies were expressed after some wrongdoing and good arguments acknowledged and all of a sudden other people chimed in expressing how wonderful this particular comment thread is. I think many people are seeing the dire state of online discourse today and the real world consequences this can have and are willing to do their part. We don't have to change every single person, just enough that these fruitful debates are becoming a more common occurrence and can act as a good example for others.