We All Preach The End of the World

The world is not going to end on May 21st, 2011. And don't expect the people who claim it will to admit they were wrong on May 22nd. But don't be too smug about it, because the same psychological mechanism that drives them to such irrational rationalizations infects all of us, to a greater or lesser degree.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Cognitive
• dissonance
• Leon
• Festinger
• When
• Prophecy
• Fails
• Dorthy
• Martin
• Harold
• Camping

[4iner2]

I understand that sweatshops could have a more positive moral impact than they do, but can someone explain how they damage the general welfare of the workers (not just in some instances, but broadly)? If a person in undeveloped Asia were to come to the conclusion that working in a sweatshop was bad, they could simply choose not to work there. And to argue (as some do) that they're forced by circumstances to work there is to say that they would be worse off without the sweatshop at all.

[SisyphusRedeemed]

@4iner2 They're often forced by more than circumstance. They're often threatened with rape, abuse, ostracism, violence against their families and even death. They are subject to dangerous working conditions, often in ignorance of the long term affects on their health. They are exploited, deceived, threatened, abused, poisoned, crippled and disposed of. If you want to know more, just google 'sweatshops' and see. Here's a sample: [dot]businessweek[dot]com/2000­/00_40/b3701119[dot]htm

[4iner2]

Do you by any chance know what the magnitude (in percent) of the use of coercion to keep workers in sweatshops is?

[SisyphusRedeemed]

@4iner2 I can't give you a percentage, no, but I'm sure there are informed estimates out there. It's hard to know, of course, because there's a lot of secrecy, it's hard to know how to define 'coercion' operationally, hard to measure it, and hard to have a total count of sweatshops in the world. Suffice to say, it's my impression that the things I describe here are very common, but not ubiquitous.

[SisyphusRedeemed]

@kimberlyliles Yeah, I've heard that argument before. I'm not absolutely opposed to sweatshops; some are worse than others. But at the same time we shouldn't just shrug it off and say 'eh, it could be worse' because if we do then that makes it more likely that they'll all get worse. We have to incentivize companies by rewarding the ones that treat their workers well and punishing those that don't, otherwise they'll treat them all likes slaves. But that takes research and effort.

[SisyphusRedeemed]

@LeGaben It's a metaphor, dude. The idea is the same psychological mechanisms that drove them to err (and refuse to admit it) lead us to do the same. My goal was to use their folly to cast light on how those same mechanisms apply to us, so we can learn from their mistakes.

[ilovemeanltty1]

LAIR LAIR LAIR YOU LI IT IS 2012 AND THE WORLD IS NOT GOING TO END SHUTTTTTTTTTTT UPPPPPPPPPPP

[RakaTheTenacious]

@RakaTheTenacious

Essentially one will be forced to choose between confidence with cognitive dissonance and humility without it, the former will be the better salesman and may get the advantage. Ridicule can keep confidence based in reality. The alternative is to be lead by master frauds who care more about power than efficacy.

I hope to admit my mistakes when reason and evidence proves otherwise. I'll denounce those who do not, and ridicule those who openly advocate blind faith.

[RakaTheTenacious]

@SisyphusRedeemed

The schadenfreude is justified.

Your argument necessitates a conflict of interest. You argue that one should leave it to the individual to resolve their own cognitive dissonance, but it may not be in ones' interests to do so. When an opinion serves my purposes and inflates my ego, it can become my most cherished belief despite its falsity, as you imply. I may choose success over integrity.

continued ->>>

[Adrenalin844]

i survived an end of the world? This must be... damn, i lost my count, stupid christians and other idiots...

[Pianofy]

At the start, I thought you were going to be talking about the psychological phenomenon of giving more attention to pessimistic world views over optimistic world views.

For example, global warming. What if it's science wrong? Then everything is fine. What if we're right about global warming? Then we need to save the world!

Our chance of survival increases if we pick the most dangerous object to focus on, thus evolution has made us exactly like that.

Be pessimistic and you'll survive!

[andyfromsheldon]

Excellent video. I've been trying to put this sort of thing into words for as long as I can remember, now, you've given me the words I've been looking for. Cognitive dissonance.

This sort of mentality does indeed lead some of the most intelligent people down paths of utter stupidity and some of the most moral people down paths of utter immorality.

[dramlee01]

The message here is that we are all immoral and stupid, what we try to do is accept as little immorality and stupidity in our characters.

[4iner2]

Ok thanks for the info.