Comment by TeMPOraL | Hacker News Reader

Comment by TeMPOraL | Hacker News Reader

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The scenario I had in mind was not debate, just information exchange. Imagine a person meeting friends in a bar, or at a dinner party. They're likely to exchange stories they read about in the news. "So this politician said $outrageous-thing!" (taken outside of context, but who cares), says the person. "Oh yeah, all X are bad, have you heard of $event-that-never-actually-happened?", replies the person B. The conversation goes on. Ultimately, little to no truth was exchanged, but people bonded together. Fiction served its social function.

IME, this is how most not-directly-impactful knowledge is used by people. I've been in countless such situations, and it's painful for people with stronger affinity to truth. Unfortunately, under the guise of "good manners", society teaches you to shut up.

We shouldn't avoid debate. We just need to ensure that people debating are there to discover the truth, and not just pick up morsels to share at dinner parties.

>Imagine a person meeting friends in a bar, or at a dinner party. They're likely to exchange stories they read about in the news. "So this politician said $outrageous-thing!" (taken outside of context, but who cares), says the person. "Oh yeah, all X are bad, have you heard of $event-that-never-actually-happened?", replies the person B. The conversation goes on. Ultimately, little to no truth was exchanged, but people bonded together. Fiction served its social function.

If I hear something that seems right and I start repeating it, I generally try to go check if I am talking rubbish or not. If I find out that I am, I stop repeating the thing, or I include the truth next to the story, if the story is entertaining enough in and of itself. I tried to explain why I do this, while having a recent discussion with a visitor about the Navy vs Lighthouse story - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lighthouse_and_naval_vessel_ur... and was told that what I was doing was anti-social and that I wasn't helping anyone by being interested in the truth of things that people have said. I tried to explain that I was doing it to satisfy my own curiosity for the main part, and this completely floored them. They could not understand the motivation of being personally interested in the reality of a story, for them the only value was if they liked the story.

Interesting - I've heard this, but always as a joke. It never occurred to me that anyone could actually believe it. I am not saying that you did that but I can imagine how someone explaining to the laughing audience that this event did not really happen would be kind of anti-social.

There is no good way to explain it to them. You do it at the moment the story is told, you're seen as a killjoy and a smartass. You wait until after the meeting to correct the person who told it, and (unless you're really good friends with them) you'll likely offend them ("why would you correct me on something so trivial?!"). You could try and wait a couple of days, and then stage a sudden discovery ("oh, I'll be damned, I just read that $story is not actually true!"), but the objection of would-be offended person is still technically valid - why are you expending so much effort on something so trivial?

So in the end, this stuff gets largely uncorrected.

>You do it at the moment the story is told, you're seen as a killjoy and a smartass.

I have long found the fact that 'trying to be smart' is an insult in our society, to be a source of both bewilderment and depression. I remember being utterly confused when even the teachers would use it at school. I'd ask them why we were at school, if we were not trying to be smart? Which would then get me into trouble, presumably for trying to be smart.

After a while I got bitter about this and my response turned into; 'Yes I am. Tell me, how is trying to be thick working out for you?', which still got me into trouble, but with more entertaining results.

Yeah, it is. Which circles back to my original comment - regular people don't care about being right except in things directly and immediately impacting their lives.

Note however that in both cases they (and generally all humans, to some extent) care about their relative status; in most circumstances (especially when in a group), correcting someone will be seen as an attempt to diminish their social status.

It's unfortunate that this is the case, and a lot of people who honestly value being correct have to struggle with getting the handle on this whole status mechanism. I'm not even blaming most people that much here; I do my best to always accept corrections well, and I still at times feel bad or get angry when someone points out that I'm talking nonsense.

Some things are both harsh and good, and disillusionment is one of them.

In the moment, I can be very combatative and do not tend to fold easy, but if someone demonstrates to me conclusively that I am talking utter bollocks, I appreciate that I have learned something and I try to remember to thank them.

>'It never occurred to me that anyone could actually believe it.'

Am from the UK and I have heard that story for years from a variety of people who do seem to completely believe it, as it is usually brought up to give an example that shows Americans being stupid, and the motive of 'aren't we better' would not be there if they thought that the story was false. I didn't know the truth of it but thought it was a funny story, so had gone to look it up a while back.

Is also usually brought up by the same people who will crow about Americans not understanding the concept of irony or sarcarsm, again to demonstrate the supposed superiority of UK culture. I have taken to pointing out that saying that tells me nothing about Americans, but does demonstrate that the person I am talking to presumably never reads any books.

and that's why I hate people and think bonding is for animals, not for Sapiens.

Except that we are animals. Something tells me that not acknowledging this might be related to your hatred of people ?

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