I tend to think the most accurate predictor of a person's beliefs is... what they want to believe, in the context of the beliefs available at the time.
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I think that's a pretty good summary. It took me a while to realise how malleable "belief" really is, at least for some people - I guess it's a spectrum, but some people really seem to be able to consciously decide a particular belief would be convenient and to run with it.
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What you're describing sounds like an unusually highly-cultivated version of this ability, probably very uncommon in neurotypicals.
Most people have a loose set of implicit and social motivations that steer them into these things, whether they want them to or not.
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I honestly don't know; I just see the apparent speed of a change of expressed opinion in, for example, American right-wing politics where dearly-held beliefs seem to spring up out of nowhere and wonder if people are being sincere, because they've decided which opinions fit.
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I think you're overestimating the strength of the non-utilitarian causes of expressed beliefs. We can't all be , y'know.
You could even argue that categorically & firmly principled stances are *abnormal*, and rarely a deciding element in how most people live their lives.
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Which makes perfect sense, given that your propensity for holding beliefs has most probably evolved as some kind of survival tool, or is the outcome of one.
Not, however, so that you can be a "good person", or some other thing nature gives absolutely no fucks about whatsoever.
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So when we see many people give little thought to anything else than "how do people I care about regard this?" before they opine about something, that seems perfectly consistent with what human beings *are*.
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Right, which is kind of what I was trying to get at - even if you're actively trying to be objective, in reality the incentive to try to convince yourself that your peers (in whatever fashion) are correct, reasonable and honest is way too strong.
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With a near-endless pool of virtually limitless information at your fingertips, "proving" to yourself that your existing feelings and your friends' POV are correct is easy and fast. You can pick the "facts" you like and really easily ignore anything else.
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Slower information may have always been drip-feeding us convenient spins on whatever is going on, but now we can spin for ourselves and build an echo chamber on a whim.
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Yes, that is true to a very large extent. And have them built for us by eager spin doctors.
The rate of spread of hysterias like the latest anti-vaxxing movements are fairly effective proofs-of-concept here.
Pretty amazing to see in the case of one of my in-laws:
He left Poland as a clueless neoliberal type for a summer job. Came back several months later as a born-again fundamentalist.
Completely bizarre. Completely normal, too.
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Yeah. These things evolve like religions. I guess that's just humans.
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