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Notes -
Do you believe false things?
You, high IQ, well educated, traveled and read motte denizen, you personally?
Not ordinary mistaken trivia knowledge, for example when you are unsure whether US has 50 or 51 states, or on what continent is New Guinea, but when facts about the world that serve as bedrock of your beliefs that happen to be totally delusionary, at catastrophical odds to reality. Can it happen to you?
It happens frequently. See the famous poll where about one in 20 of "very liberal people" believe that tens of thousands of unarmed blacks are annually killed by police.
For non-US example, see this poll among Palestinians, where one third of population of Gaza believe that Israel has less than 500k inhabitants.
"No, it cannot happen to me! I was trained in martial arts of rationalism by ancient master Yud the Yumongous! I am unstoppable!"
Well, it can happen not only to "brainwashed libtards" or "dumb Ayrabs".
It happened to credentialed rationalist and one of Yud's disciples.
The short xeet that went viral:
Until I was 38 I thought Men's World Cup team vs Women's World Cup team would be a fair match and couldn't figure out why they didn't just play each other
And the long essay where Eneasz Brodski at request of his readers and haters explains how it happened:
How To Believe False Things - by request, this is an explanation of how I got 38 years old believing a match of World Cup men's team vs World Cup women's would be fair.
TL;DR: EB learned about relative strength of men and women as we all learn all things we know. From his own experience, from media, from experts. EB trusted them all, without considering that his experiences could be extremely unrepresentative, media could be completely fictional and experts could just plain lie to his face.
Given history is rife with entire civilizations believing things we now consider mad, and given still that I don't consider this age as meaningfully wiser than any previous one, it seems almost certain that I take for granted things that are catastrophically erroneous.
I wouldn't go as far as to say that I believe such things since such a stance is contradictory with my metaphysical skepticism. But I certainly act as if some erroneous things are true.
The more interesting question is if it really matters that much outside of academic affairs or outside of a political regime that derives its legitimacy from public opinion.
I've made no secret in this forum of my attachment to truth as a terminal value, but experience has dispelled in me the conviction that this is a preoccupation of most people, or indeed something they ought to preoccupy themselves with in the first place.
People are prompt to delegate this kind of thinking, with no way to convince them to do otherwise, so the corruption of authoritative institutions seems a much more pressing problem than perennial biases.
Health seems like the big one. It makes a personal difference to your quality of life and lifespan whether you believe that lead paint is safe, whether you believe that vaccines are good for you, etc. I expect that the biggest thing our descendants are likely to shake their heads at is some benign part of everyday life in the developed world which will have been exposed as having dire long-term consequences on the human body. The "microscopic lithium contamination is causing obesity" people are probably wrong, but something like that.
Our descendants in 100 years seem unlikely to be more longevity maxing or scientifically minded than we are.
I'm not saying they'll be systematically better at taking care of their health, just that something big and loud akin to "yo, lead point is bad for you" might emerge and filter out into popular consciousness to the point they'd be horrified at the 2025 lifestyle for that alone.
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