Avoid Identifying With Anything?
From Paul Graham's recent essay:
I think what religion and politics have in common is that they become part of people's identity, and people can never have a fruitful argument about something that's part of their identity. By definition they're partisan.
Which topics engage people's identity depends on the people, not the topic. For example, a discussion about a battle that included citizens of one or more of the countries involved would probably degenerate into a political argument. But a discussion today about a battle that took place in the Bronze Age probably wouldn't. No one would know what side to be on. So it's not politics that's the source of the trouble, but identity. When people say a discussion has degenerated into a religious war, what they really mean is that it has started to be driven mostly by people's identities. . . .
The most intriguing thing about this theory, if it's right, is that it explains not merely which kinds of discussions to avoid, but how to have better ideas. If people can't think clearly about anything that has become part of their identity, then all other things being equal, the best plan is to let as few things into your identity as possible.
Most people reading this will already be fairly tolerant. But there is a step beyond thinking of yourself as x but tolerating y: not even to consider yourself an x. The more labels you have for yourself, the dumber they make you.
Via Andy McKenzie.
Pablo is dead right on everything else he studies and with his work on utilitarianism, but to assert that conservatives are inherently dumber is a diversion from his usual sterling arguments. The social conservatives-- opposed to gay marriage, for example-- were separated in the study from the libertarian conservatives (or "classical liberals" as Thomas Jefferson was) who hold that position for intellectual, not strictly emotional, reasons. The libertarian conservatives were smarter than the self-identified liberals according to the study.
I'm not sure whether the study broke liberals down into social conservative and socially liberal subsets, but it should have to be fair because let's keep in mind that many liberals also hold one or more of these positions (on abortion and gay marriage). It was an overwhelming number of Democrats, for example, who voted down California's gay marriage law last November.
Finally, the study only examined verbal skills, not math or science or any other type of skill that may contribute to intelligence.
Why?
"If people can't think clearly about anything that has become part of their identity, then all other things being equal, the best plan is to let as few things into your identity as possible."
First, it's impossible unless you make a really big effort to hack your mind on the metacognitive level f.e. mediating in a cave for 20 years.
Just staying on the cognitive level i.e. trying to change your thoughts, you will simply identify with other things, such as you will identify with an image of yourself being rational, objective etc. etc. - and then you have the same problem. So as it's nearly impossible (on the cognitive level), why even try?
Second, why should I or you want to "think clearly" in everything? IMHO rationality is a tool to be used whenever appropriate, not a holy cow to worship. When you are designing an airplane, you must design the aerodynamics ratioanally but you can design the interior decoration non-rationally: artistically for example. Rationality is a tool you use whenever it's useful.
So why should I want to think clearly about everything? Why shouldn't I f.e. identify with a football team and merrily allow my identification to cloud my judgement if that, on the whole, makes me happier?
That's my problem of the whole "Overcoming Bias" blog. It's normal to overcome biases in one or two things, in those things it's very important to get a correct answer. But why would we want overcome all biases? Would that make us happier? I doubt so.