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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.
This seems to be pretty much the universal experience of people that advocate for trans participation in women's sports. They have no idea how large the gaps are between men and women because they have somehow managed to take pride in avoiding anything to do with physical fitness. I guess I can kind of, sort of squint and see how that happens, but the part I don't understand is their willingness to jump into arguments about a topic that they just don't care about at all.
The more charitable explanation is that women and men never compete in sports directly past puberty . In the sports with comparable outcomes, it’s not clear if women do worse because there are so few of them or they are less competitive generally. Basically, anyone who grew up without a brother has no way of naturally disabusing themself of the notion that women are just as strong as men.
That isn't just more charitable, it is maximally charitable. In the post the OP is talking about the author describes the almost insane and pathological amount of avoidance he had for physical activity throughout much of his life, particularly post puberty. This is a guy who not only didn't participate or watch high school sports; in PE he sat out or walked the track; he had basically no friends, no brothers with girlfriends, and no sisters that he actually interacts with; and certainly no friends of the opposite sex willing to touch him in a playful manner. I dont know if it is a real story, but it is a literal one in a 100 million story sort of thing.
Not sure if 1:1M. I buy it, really. It's not too far off from my own teenage experiences. All it takes is the right brain wiring to accept statements by authority at face value. "Men and women can be equally physically capable? Sure thing, I trust you mom/teacher/book.". Add a few examples of exceptionally physically capable girls/women (as were present around me at the time, though of course they were given extra spotlight and never put into direct competition against equally ambitious boys/men.) and it can seem quite credible. Especially when you yourself are a bookworm for whom taking a walk is peak physical activity, and those guys/girls running marathons seem like aliens and you have no interest in observing their activities at all, nevermind gender disparities.
I'm glad I grew out of it, but I suppose there's ways enough for similar teenagers to instead double down and become physically illiterate adults instad.
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