That’s my point. I don’t know what they meant. I could definitely agree with them but everyone i’ve ever heard who use that term mean something to likes of George Soros and Bill Gates are overthrowing stable institutions (they usually say Christianity and/or America and or the white race and/or freedom ) and democracy (they usually say capitalism) for personal profit by lying through their teeth about vaccines and global warming and rigging elections for the democrats.
So if that’s what he meant then how can AF person think like that? And here’s the deal, I’m not saying that what he meant when he said New World Order. I don’t know what he meant. But I can see him have such an opinion. Craig too. I can see him having such an opinion. Because they both are on the record with some verifiably batshit crazy opinions. How is that even possible?
No of course there isn’t. That should be obvious. That’s what propaganda and religion are. I am in complete agreement that there is a network of propagandists with similar enough aims that they help each other out. (Either conspiratorially or just quite naturally because their aims align. Doesn’t matter.) No one disagrees with that.
But their arguments would still be wrong. If George Soros and Bill Gates appeared on worldwide telvision tomorrow and ripped off their human face masks to reveal a lizard alien and the camera panned out to show them on a vessel riding a wave of lava next to a red satan like figure and we watched as they explained their master plan to us and how we were so stupid to no see it. Well that would be something. But all those dolts still would have been guilty of bad arguments.
It sounds more to me like you guys never got into the details of talking out what Richard meant by what he was saying. It sounds like you heard the words ‘George Soros’ come out of his mouth and you started thinking, “wait a minute - is this guy into QAnon?”
April 28 2004
RICHARD: … it did not occur to me it was a concept, and not a fact, that the sun was a giant ball of nuclear fusion until about five years ago.
RESPONDENT: Do you, perchance, know what the sun actually is?
RICHARD: No, virtually the only thing regarding the properties of the universe that is readily apparent here in this actual world is its infinitude … matters such as what a star/ planet/ moon/ comet is require observation and illation.
If you come out of it holding some very eccentric opinions and dubious conclusions about damn near everything – then no matter.
If you come out of it hallucinating spiders on the wall for the rest of your life – then no matter.
For sure, I didn’t question him like I wanted. I was too afraid too. Time was short and I wanted to focus on self immolation. Plus he sometimes deflected when pressed. I remember making a point and Vineeto saying did you come all this way just to argue. That kind of set the tone. Also, I truly wanted to believe everything he said. That was my conception of an AF person. They couldn’t possibly be so stupidly wrong as long as they are well informed. And I didn’t want to destroy my conception of that. If I had a better sense of humor, I would have laughed more and maybe we could have gotten to the bottom of some of their ideas.
I’m ok with a lot of this stuff just because as I said above, being free doesn’t automatically make you right about this or that. I think it does make one more likely to be sensible & therefore capable of sensible conversation. But I guess I don’t know that for sure, I’ll find out when I get there.
In my experience, everyone I’ve ever talked to holds ridiculous biases when it comes down to it (this becomes especially apparent once the topic of actual freedom comes up). Richard & Vineeto have been two of the most level-headed people I’ve ever talked with. And that includes the discussion about global warming / new world order / etc. etc.
This is apparent in all the written records of their writings & arguments, as well (as Rick points out above)
Really all it is is that as far as I can tell, it’s the best direction to go. And that’s good enough for me.
It should be noted that you intejected that. That was never on my radar throughtout this thread. I know AF is the best way to go. That’s established. I was wondering where bias comes from if even AF people have it.
My view is that there is less bias in AF people, and I think it is a relevant consideration when it comes to deciding if one wants to become free or not. Why would anyone want to become more biased?
I always assumed that I would become less biased to. But I’ve not so recently concluded that Richard and Craig are simply flat out stupidly wrong about a couple of things. From there, I have to conclude that bias is physical and not psychological. So where physically is it within the cognitive structure. If it doesn’t originate in the brain stem then where does it originate. Or does it originate in the brain stem but still not connected to fear at all. What if it’s not material? I didn’t expect answers just some ideas about it. And I suppose I should appreciate the comments that maybe they aren’t stupidly wrong but just talk using outrageous cultural tropes invented by conspiracy theorist. I don’t think so. I accept the possibility but find it highly unlikely.
A cognitive bias is a systematic pattern of deviation from norm or rationality in judgment. Individuals create their own “subjective reality” from their perception of the input. An individual’s construction of reality, not the objective input, may dictate their behavior in the world. Thus, cognitive biases may sometimes lead to perceptual distortion, inaccurate judgment, illogical interpretation, or what is broadly called irrationality. Cognitive bias - Wikipedia
Then here’s nice-sounding theory that you can use as a placeholder for the time being:
Human decision-making shows systematic simplifications and deviations from the tenets of rationality (‘heuristics’) that may lead to suboptimal decisional outcomes (‘cognitive biases’). There are currently three prevailing theoretical perspectives on the origin of heuristics and cognitive biases: a cognitive-psychological, an ecological and an evolutionary perspective. However, these perspectives are mainly descriptive and none of them provides an overall explanatory framework for the underlying mechanisms of cognitive biases. To enhance our understanding of cognitive heuristics and biases we propose a neural network framework for cognitive biases, which explains why our brain systematically tends to default to heuristic (‘Type 1’) decision making. We argue that many cognitive biases arise from intrinsic brain mechanisms that are fundamental for the working of biological neural networks. To substantiate our viewpoint, we discern and explain four basic neural network principles: (1) Association, (2) Compatibility, (3) Retainment, and (4) Focus. These principles are inherent to (all) neural networks which were originally optimized to perform concrete biological, perceptual, and motor functions. They form the basis for our inclinations to associate and combine (unrelated) information, to prioritize information that is compatible with our present state (such as knowledge, opinions, and expectations), to retain given information that sometimes could better be ignored, and to focus on dominant information while ignoring relevant information that is not directly activated. The supposed mechanisms are complementary and not mutually exclusive. For different cognitive biases they may all contribute in varying degrees to distortion of information. The present viewpoint not only complements the earlier three viewpoints, but also provides a unifying and binding framework for many cognitive bias phenomena. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01561/full
In other words: Ain’t no way around being biased.
Last, a description of a biological neural network:
A biological neural network is composed of a group of chemically connected or functionally associated neurons. A single neuron may be connected to many other neurons and the total number of neurons and connections in a network may be extensive. Neural network - Wikipedia
They form the basis for our inclinations to associate and combine (unrelated) information, to prioritize information that is compatible with our present state (such as knowledge, opinions, and expectations), to retain given information that sometimes could better be ignored, and to focus on dominant information while ignoring relevant information that is not directly activated.
We’re all inclined in a certain way (for better and for worse). Like I was hinting at in the beginning. We’re just sentient lawn bowls.
So has he identified four principles inherent in our homo ergaster level brain structure that leads to biases. He is saying, I think, that those four principles help us dominate our environment. Mainly by leading to creative solutions. In fact, it may be homo sapien level brain function. Because we only know of sustained creativity in the fossil record in the last 30,000 years or so. Ergaster invented axes and used distinct sounds to form abstract concepts like happy/sad - now/wait, etc. Maybe more, of course. Maybe less. who knows. But that’s a tangent.
Basically principles that lead to creative solutions can also lead to haywire conclusions. And since it’s a physical process, it shouldn’t be a surprise to see things get mixed up from time to time and a person thinks Tom Hanks eats babies.
Why wouldn’t that person, in the face of points that they themselves can’t counter, sooner or later concede some of those points? Is it that a person who is exceptionally good at retaining and associating can’t help but see association between unrelated facts. But once they see, why can’t they unsee it? A creative person can drop an idea they had due to a variety of reasons. Why wouldn’t they be able to drop an opinion they have in the face of good arguments?
The brain is a highly complex organ. It’s damn near amazing what it can do. The fact that it can add 2+2, make fire, and manufacture indoor plumbing, and keep you from walking into furniture (when not drunk) is already incredible. We may be expecting too much out of it in its current iteration.
Despite their primal origin, perceptual-motor processes are highly complex and depend on the continuous parallel processing of massive incoming sensory data streams. The computational complexity of these processes becomes clear when we attempt to model and simulate them in logical machines (computers and robots). Our brain on the other hand, continuously and efficiently performs this kind of processing without any conscious effort. However, our brain is less optimized for (recently developed) cognitive functions that involve deliberate or analytic thinking (e.g., calculation, statistics, analysis, reasoning, abstraction, conceptual thinking) and that have only become essential for ‘survival’ in relatively modern civilizations. Our neural network framework conceives that biased decision making results from a mismatch between the original design characteristics of our brain as a neural network for performing perceptual-motor functions and maintaining biological integrity on the one hand and the nature of many conceptual or analytic problems on the other.
In other words: Give the human brain a break, man!
