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Comment by mhh__ | Hacker News Reader

"People don't care about facts" is such an asinine reactionary way of thinking about macro dynamics in the world. It has no predictive power at all.

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We don’t. People are social. We care about what the people in our community think, whether it’s factually accurate or not is inconsequential. Those of us wasting our lives arguing on the internet in the pursuit of truth are a tiny minority of atypical people. People yearn for the warm embrace of affirmation, not the cold hard truth challenging them at every turn.

You have too many abstractions between you and understanding other people.

Most people in your country are actually not that different from you.

Well first you've got to define what is meant by "facts". Most people presume the word refers to some kind of community consensus, and then they immediately gatekeep what counts as the "community" among which the consensus is shared.

However the basis for fact is precisely predictive power, so it's actually more like the battle between science and superstition. Information that can directly empower a person is not necessarily information that will help them to feel more comfortable or confirm their biases.

Americans don't care about facts.

There's a reason why you have Creationists at the highest levels of government.

Unnecessary attacks like this don't help your cause and part of what has driven the other side to the point they are at.

Do you mean that OP is incorrect, or just impertinent? Just because you have to use a light touch does not mean your friend does not have a Problem. (And I'm speaking as an American)

"Look at what you made me do"

No, you never had any moral backbone and you are just looking at the first excuse to behave like the psycho you have always been.

The only other possible explanation is that you are stuck at the psychological maturity of a small child, throwing a destructive tantrum any time anyone opposes you.

Europeans are just as silly but mistake failure for sincerity. As a sad fantasist I'm immensely fond of Anglo culture but many brits are totally misaligned and insane.

It resembles Objectivism. "The facts are the facts and you should see them the same way I do or else!!"

More like “the facts are the facts and reality does not care if you don’t believe in it”. It’s a special kind of nihilism to want to stick it to the universe and insist on one’s own alternative reality like an overgrown angry teenager edgelord.

Ayn Rand was pretty insistent that we should be able to objectively ascertain the facts. Objectivism failed precisely because we're not really all that rational, and because apart from the irrational part of us there's also the fact that we can manipulate perception and gaslight others. If you're a newcomer to a pair of groups that vehemently disagree as to the facts you might soon find that you have to make a choice yourself as to which group to join, and suddenly you have to deal with social pressures not just facts. Do you want to be in the in-group or in the out-group? Can you deal with the shaming that goes with being in the out-group? Etc.

It's all so tedious, but this is what we humans are like.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/column-this-is-what-hap...

It’s true. Fact checking was found to scarcely impact misinfo.

I’m in the field and I am thinking of how to work without focusing on truth, because that’s how most humans work!

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