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Comment by toomuchtodo | Hacker News Reader

Critical thinking skills immunize you against the disbelief of provable facts and rational thought processes (assuming reasonable mental health state). Emotional intelligence is a component though, for sure.

You need both the skills and the desire to seek the truth versus accepting whatever information galvanizes your preexisting belief and value systems. High hill to climb.

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That’s nonsense.

People believe what they want. I’ve seen many smart successful programmers spouting off crazy conspiracy theories.

Being smart and successful doesn’t mean you can think critically and challenge your belief and value systems. They are mutually exclusive. Kanye West is successful, you make what you will of the rest of his personality.

Quite the contrary, many successful people believe they and they alone are responsible for their success, despite their contribution being less than that of others.

I agree with your point, but Kanye West has known mental issues.

The same could be said for a non insignificant amount of the population. It’s far more common than one might think, and it’s important to internalize to understand the environment one is operating in.

https://www.cdc.gov/mentalhealth/learn/index.htm (Control-F “How common are mental illnesses?”)

GP's statement was "You need... the desire to seek the truth" instead of reinforce what you already believe. In other words you, or let's say people, will choose, based on your desire, or let's say want, to believe one way or another.

Your statement was "People believe what they want."

You're both saying the same thing.

Critical thinking? I don't see how this helps with an apparent bug in human thought process.

You and I could easily weave conspiracy using ordinary facts.

Weaving is not what critics do. Critics try to tear things apart and see if they hold up.

People who believe in conspiracy theories are more likely to be critical thinkers.

People who can't think critically never believe in conspiracy theories. They believe the official story every time.

I've never understood this argument against conspiracy theories. Conspiracy theories are the ultimate form of critical thinking.

I think you're conflating contrarian thinking with critical thinking. Believing in conspiracy theories does not imply a well-reasoned path to belief. Critical thought requires not only analyzing a position from contrary points of view, but also judging the objective likelihood of each point of view being true, and then picking the view that is most likely to be true. Stopping at picking a contrary point of view is more like subscribing to a religion than performing critical thought.

> Critical thought requires not only analyzing a position from contrary points of view

I don't disagree with you, I'm just stopping right here. Like you said, it's a requirement. So contrarians are more likely to have it.

It's just a technical truth. It doesn't mean they're more likely to be right or that they have a better grip on reality. They just have one of the prerequisites, so they're more likely to have the thing.

I think it's an example of the old addage that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. I agree with you that conspiracy theories require a degree of critical thinking. But it's necessarily flawed or incomplete thinking. If someone understands (explicitly or intuitively) Bayesian reasoning for instance, they're going to be less likely to believe conspiracy theories than someone who thinks 'less critically'.

Necessarily?

Are there no conspiracies? Are all conspiracy theories necessarily untrue?

I don't really care about the group analysis stuff. Not gonna apply that kind of reasoning to anyone I come across.

I think the term "conspiracy theory" is most commonly used to refer to untrue conspiracy theories. That's how I meant it in that comment. Obviously yes, conspiracies do sometimes exist, and one could have theories about them.

I hope you are being sarcastic because I completely disagree with what you are saying. Critical thinking requires you to gather data, analyze it, and come out with a logical conclusion. In addition when faced with new facts you should be able to re-evaluate your conclusion and change.

People who believe in conspiracy theories rarely, if ever, change their minds. Everything is controlled by some small group that is pulling the strings.

Oh no, that you have gotten completely wrong. Very few conspiracy theories survive even a modicum of critical thinking.

Critical thinking doesn’t mean to never believe authorities. It means to actually be able to judge the evidence and the sources yourself.

A lot of facts is ultimately based on trust.

Despite knowing the flaw of scientific institutions, I still trust scientists in general for ground truth facts, even when they get things wrong.

Hell, when I follow a known expert lecture and followed the citations for just the first lecture, I found minor errors or discrepancies.

I don't understand the major theories at the gut theories. I don't have degrees or the knowledge needed to understand them. I haven't followed the citations and look at the facts.

And the thing is: nobody in the world have time to follow the citations and see if it match up with what everybody else said, let along actually verify the raw facts and follow the thought process of the original scientists.

That being said. I am pretty sure that the modern world is based on a system of rational thought and technology built on the accumulated knowledge of generations of scientists.

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