Human minds are simple. They aren’t good with probability, statistics, volumes, or anything not linear. They are though amazing storytellers, fundamentally a human mind may just be that, a persistent story. In storytelling we simplify things into a finite set of groups, namely the groups we belong to and the ones we do not. Typically anything involved with the self is good and anything opposing the self is bad. Anything affirming one’s view or story is accepted easily, if not automatically and anything opposing one’s story is nearly impossible to accept regardless of its validity.
But that isn’t god given. You can learn, you can try your mind to not be so one-dimensional. The problem is that most people on this planet are complete morons and the school system is failing them.
You can only learn if you truly believe that you don’t already know the truth. The issue with anti-intellectuals is that they honestly believe they already know everything there is to know about the topics they’ve taken a stance on. You probably don’t bother verifying that 1+1=2, and an anti-vaxxer doesn’t bother researching vaccines, because they’re just as confident in their stance on them as you are in your stance that 1+1=2.
Human minds are simple. They aren’t good with probability, statistics, volumes, or anything not linear. They are though amazing storytellers, fundamentally a human mind may just be that, a persistent story. In storytelling we simplify things into a finite set of groups, namely the groups we belong to and the ones we do not. Typically anything involved with the self is good and anything opposing the self is bad. Anything affirming one’s view or story is accepted easily, if not automatically and anything opposing one’s story is nearly impossible to accept regardless of its validity.
But that isn’t god given. You can learn, you can try your mind to not be so one-dimensional. The problem is that most people on this planet are complete morons and the school system is failing them.
You can only learn if you truly believe that you don’t already know the truth. The issue with anti-intellectuals is that they honestly believe they already know everything there is to know about the topics they’ve taken a stance on. You probably don’t bother verifying that 1+1=2, and an anti-vaxxer doesn’t bother researching vaccines, because they’re just as confident in their stance on them as you are in your stance that 1+1=2.
Its just entropy, challenging views is a higher entropy activity. Not changing them, the mind literally requires less energy and thermal dissipation.