> Qualitative research doesn’t solve the problem of one group of people being really, really excited to share their opinions, while another group isn’t. As long as that bias exists, it’ll percolate down to whatever you do.
> There is just more disagreement and dissension than you would know unless you took the time to reach out to people and speak to them in a more relaxed way.
That's been my biggest problem with most conversation I have. Nuance has been lost.
> fake consensus that can become very misleading
It's PREFERENCE FALSIFICATION / Social desirebility bias: Preference falsification is the act of misrepresenting one’s wants under perceived social pressures. It shapes collective decisions, orients structural change, sustains social stability, distorts human knowledge, and conceals political possibilities. Preference falsification is the act of communicating a preference that differs from one's true preference. The public frequently convey, especially to researchers or pollsters, preferences that differ from what they truly want, often because they believe the conveyed preference is more acceptable socially. It include the unexpected fall of communism, the paucity, until recently, of open opposition to affirmative action in the United States, and the durability of the beliefs that have sustained India’s caste system:
Why would anyone admit to being a [Insert anything against the establishment/mainstream media narrative]? You just get vilified and attacked.
I know several people and many qualified people (doctors) who got banned from YouTube, FB, IG, Twitter, Reddit and got "Disinformation" label slapped on their posts. Even on HN itself, there was a strange stink in the responses to a few of my comments simply stating that we shouldn't simply ignore this theory. Most people were responding with links to places like Snopes, Politifact, NYTimes, WaPo, MSNBC etc - places which have shown their biases several times in history but people kept trusting them as "authoritative" sources. The "fact checkers" were doing nothing more than narrative control but it was enough to chastise people. Some were really mean comments. I would expect such responses from Reddit but I wasn't expecting it on HN. The biggest irony was that we were being accused of being in a cult.
Does anyone think these platforms will now go back and "uncensor" those accounts? Will apologies be issued? I doubt it.
> On the one hand they need to grow their pool of talent and make the non majority to feel comfortable
It isn't useful to make people comfortable in a way that is easily destabilized by other information (be it opinion or scientific research). It's actually terribly fragile and it does a real disservice to people.
> I took a two day workshop on communications at work (not NVC). They did a survey of the class: How many people think facts, and not feelings should be the focus of a discussion? And how many felt the opposite (focus should be on feelings, not facts)
That is endemic with society today is that people don't seem to think facts important.
Also a two day communication workshop on how to talk to people. You have bigger problems than how to communicate at work.
> You've already alienated half of the population. Good luck at resolving a conflict with them.
And that is their problem. Why is it mine? If you are an adult you should be able to talk about things as a matter of fact. If you cannot you are not an adult. Some people don't grow up past 16 years old. That is their failing and not mine.
> But I'm crazy to think that half the population will spend the effort to get there. A big chunk of them don't view it as a desirable goal. It's a laudable aspiration for me to try to make them think that way, but unless I want to make it my life's mission, I need to focus on getting results now, and that means discussing their emotions, and realizing that in doing so I'm not going for an inferior approach.
Sure. You have a choice as to whether you want to work with those people or not. I don't like working with those people so I minimise the amount of time I spend working with them if possible.
> Oh, and people who say feelings are irrelevant? Let me completely dismiss them in a meeting and suggest mildly that they're perspective likely is due to a lack of competence. Most of them will not perform well for the rest of the meeting. Quite a few of them will have issues with me in the long run.
There is a difference between openly hostile (which is what your example is) and talking about things as a matter of fact.
>generally results from distilling a more complex view into a simplified statement
couldn't agree more. it's so frustrating seeing this everywhere online. this isn't twitter, you can write as much as you want. I read comments online to try and understand other viewpoints, and I can't do that without substance.
> But if the discussion actually influence real-world decisions then it matters a great deal what people actually believe
I really don't understand why more people are not getting this.
It can be plenty consequential in the real world, I said from the start of this thread that someone could be arguing a popular opinion that nobody in the room happens to hold.
This happens all the time in silicon valley as an example: a bunch of educated, comparatively wealthy, mostly white men make decisions. Maybe they are not very in touch with the opinions of the vast majority of humans who fall outside that category. What I am advocating for this case is the ability to have empathy for those who are unlike you, step outside your biases and adopt an argument that is not your own. This is a good skill. People are falling over themselves trying to call that lying and universally bad or nearly so.
> once an organization reaches a certain size, these discussions become impossible because the average level of a discussion is just so terrible (and there will always be a minority who actually don't want to engage with anyone else, they just want to burn it down)
I can relate with this based on my experience. Setting proper goals and incentive solves not all but many problems. But with big enough and diverse crowd there will be always some issues.
>That said, I can’t imagine a successful adversarial collaboration with the psychologists who published some of the horrible unreplicable stuff from the 2005-2020 era. They just seem too invested in their claims, also they achieved professional success with that work and have no particular motivation to lend their reputations to any work that might shoot it down.
So my takeaway is that working with people that disagree with you is beneficial, provided they're not so invested in their opinions that it becomes a social issue.
It feels like that's the obvious goal of collaboration in general... People of differing views coming together to make a more complete view. Is that wrong?
> Maybe it's too much to ask that we say "different things work for different groups of people"?
Weak opinions make for weak conversation, especially between strangers. All the participants need the ability to appreciate nuanced positions in order to gain value from weak opinions.
This isn't unrelated, either; it's one of the reasons that cliques form in the first place. The extreme position is inevitably simpler than moderate ones, and thus acts as a more solid common ground for group formation. And it's also why we have institutional structures: things like accredited universities and portfolios and interview loops: they help filter for people who can appreciate the relevant nuance so that milder and deeper conversations are easier to come by.
> That we're unable to learn from the silent majority of experts casts an unusual light upon online discussions.
This has been a problem with (and not just) online discussions since...well...ever. What is discussed the loudest or most frequent, isn't necessarily the most important topic in the field.
> No one wants to be in a group where people share opinions that they dislike.
The relevance of this is way overstated. Most people haven't formed opinions on most topics and just want to hear different viewpoints so they can form an opinion.
> It’s just human nature. Why do you think private Facebook groups are so popular?
Because people have specific interests they want to pursue and engage with other enthusiasts, without being inundated with other crap. Might as well ask why subreddits are popular.
> if someone was a ___ or a ___ I would be really uninterested in their opinions on pretty much anything because they're obviously ___
Dismissing one’s ideas based on group membership is a terrible strategy for truth-seeking. It’s a root of all kinds of problems we see with team-based politics where both sides have turned their brain off and largely accept the entire slate of talking points their side serves up.
> I just read an article the other day saying that the majority of Americans don't feel comfortable stating their opinions in public.
Sure but I am not necessarily concerned about all of those people. For example, I think the majority of Americans still don't believe in systemic racism. Like they don't believe it exists. If they're afraid to share such anti-scientific beliefs in public, then I consider that a good start.
> lots of people are there who lack a background in early internet culture or academic culture
I think this hits it. Many (most?) people just aren't used to having people disagree with them. Let alone voice those disagreements and be expected to defend their beliefs and explain why they think they're right.
For many people the way they think is correct, just is correct. It's not something that needs defending or even investigating. It's just how things are.
Perhaps the problem is fundamentally how many different people social media exposes us to. And maybe if you weren't exposed to that in your formative years, it's a hard thing to get used to.
> This kills our creativity because we are just thinking about the same stuff that every other person is getting recommended at this moment.
I agree with you on “no time to think our own thoughts” but I really don’t think this part about algorithms is true. 50 years ago, people were “recommended” way less stuff. Most televisions had less channels than there are videos on your YouTube homepage. And your page is different than mine.
I mean, I wouldn’t have even seen this comment of yours. Maybe in a letter to the editor?
It’s the extreme diversity inside non-diversity that’s the problem. The monotonous novelty. Want an opinion on last week’s F1 race? Sure, here’s a hundred from a hundred people. Video about pottery in Greece? Have a thousand of those, all slightly different, all engaging in their own way. And pick the political opinion of your choice and I can find more people than an ancient Human would meet in their entire lifetime all acting as if this obviously true. It’s enough to convince your brain that anyone who thinks differently is a danger and should be immediately exiled from the tribe.
>share their thoughts and react to a news, pretty much exactly like you are doing.
While it's somewhat 'natural' to share a thought, I never share it because I want to share it. I'm way too conscious about my time to merely share a topic.
>1. I think diversity is a completely useless metric. 2. I am in favor legalizing discrimination. 3. I believe we should not help people who want to commit suicide.
>I don't consider any of these opinions to be controversial.
Isn't the 'hard' opinion ( Or the opinion that they generally pander to?)of the majority by definition 'controversial' ?
Side note on 1): people who insist on diversity (or play along with the diversity card), will never do well in the long run in an area where competence is important. So it's one of the traits (among many others) that I use to size people up and decide who to associate with. Often when there is one fundamental difference, there are likely to be many other fundamental differences.
> A lot of our fundamental disagreements are about subjective values, and we distract ourselves by thinking the issue is actually about facts.
Originally yes, and if we could all agree on that separation we would probably have an easier time. But subjective values have definitely clouded a whole lot of peoples acceptance of facts in the objective part of the spectrum. That's the real issue.
I really enjoy political discussions on how someone else thinks we should optimize for individual freedom or collective utility or what is the most effective way to reach a goal based on some values and premise.
I haven't encountered such a discussion in years. Most things boil down to entirely disprovable bs people encounter on whatever facebook (or otherwise) rabbit hole they've decided to live in.
Pretty good TLDR from the end of the article.
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