How do you decide who you're going to believe?

[user27357]

Okay, Im in, climate change. Yep, it's changing. Some of us contribute by burning fossil fuels, yep. But that huge uncontrolled fission reaction sending us energy in the form of radiation across the spectrum is a pretty big unknown factor too.
Here it is as it was laid out to me: If the earth was a basketball, how much space would all of us humans occupy? A peach pit? A cherry pit? An apple seed? Actually we occupy the same space as roughly 3 spores of e. coli bacteria. We are very very tiny in comparison to the size of the earth, and compared to the sun we are immeasurably close to nothing. If we can affect the way our earth accepts and retains that radiation it is bombarded with 24/7 we are pretty amazing as micro organisms go.
I have no problem with trying to save our planet and I am not a denier, we have an amazingly finely balanced system here and we can and do tip it off center, some. We should stop. But if we think shipping components from all over the world on oil burning freighters so we can drive electric cars that consume electricity from a coal fired generator is helping, well we just arent thinking very clearly is all.
Most of the people in this world heat their homes and their food using wood fires or by burning fossil fuels. Clean sources of electricity are available if not popular. There are some big solvable problems available and that's where the smart effort should be focused.
But in reality, I think the focus will be on making money from people who want to help and will do all they can to help—lots of money, but I think in reality, very little help.

 

[scout86]

To turn this into a discussion of an individual issue like climate change is kind of getting off track. I think I'm more interested in that "step back" process @Friday mentioned.

Here's a different example.

I have a client who's an accountant. She's smart, and I'd expect someone in her line of work to operate in a pretty fact based way. I like her, in spite of the fact that a lot of our views are polar opposite. She is a fan of Alex Jones, he of "the Sandy Hook school shooting was fake" fame. This came up in conversation one day. I asked if she had considered how hard it would be to fake a school shooting? Ok, you can have "crisis actors" to play the roles of victims etc. But wouldn't the whole town (it's clearly and demonstrably a real town) have to be in on it? First responders? Schools? Churches? Clergy? Media? Funeral homes? Cemetery boards? Grave diggers? Wouldn't they all have to be in on it and agree to keep quiet for all these years? Her response? "Well, he didn't say it WAS fake he said it COULD BE fake." (He actually said it was fake, if memory serves, but that's kind of beside the point.) The point is, she apparently believes him. She also believes a bunch of other people that I don't think are believable. She's totally entitled to believe anyone she wants.

My point, I guess, is that this apparently normal, reasonably intelligent person has decided that Alex Jones is a credible source of information. I've decided he's not. I can't for the life of me see how anyone could think he's credible, but they do. How does that work? (Granted, we're all fallible and we all make mistakes. This seems like it goes a little beyond that.) I'm pretty sure she's as baffled by my lack of belief as I am by her belief. Going back to climate change, for a second, I'm not so much curious about WHAT people believe as I am in how they decide WHO they believe, since often we don't, individually, have the expertise to decide based on our own understanding of the facts and ideas that are out there. I'm just starting to think that a lot of disagreements come down to who you chose to believe. Some people, apparently, believe that the moon landing was fake. How do they decide they believe that? For a long time, I thought I could believe my ex-husband too. I suppose I wasn't skeptical enough. But, getting people to the point where they don't think anything can be trusted as "true"....that's actually a goal of propaganda, to make it easier to manipulate and control a population.

For the record, I'm totally willing to discuss climate change (if the forum permits that kind of thing). But it was just an example, not the topic.

 

[user27357]

But it was just an example, not the topic.

right you are!
As I posted long ago on here I always look at the motivation when deciding how to calibrate the BS sensor. Somehow it was easier when the money/power/ego link thing was a simple easy line drawn between the potential liar and the source of the thing that might be motivatingd them to lie. Now it's all a convoluted mess and the link to the money could be as simple or difficult to discern as asking "why would anyone lie about Sandy Hook" and not knowing why without drawing our own weird conspiracy theory conclusions!
The money is the easiest one but even that is weird now- The big lie gets lots of mouse clicks and re tweets and even news coverage and that gets more clicks and tweets and news coverage and at some point some commercial entity would rather put a link on your website than pay for a TV commercial or sponsor a sports team so there you are, tell the big lie, get the big commercial interests to throw the big money at you. Maybe.
It's not easy anymore, and it is going to get harder as the motivations become more convoluted isn't it?

 

[Abstract]

Hey Scout. Stuff like this also has the ability to get under my skin in a visceral way. And like you said, is linked to trauma for me in various ways. Potentially. I used to obsess over empathy for one thing. That is part of it for me, although I know your topic is how we each decide what is truth and what isn't.

The reality is that truth is like anything else when it comes to humans - its in the eye of the beholder. We don't see with our eys only. We largely see with our brains. Our brains interpret and filter the information the eyes harvest.

I'm my opinion some people are WAY better at being objective when harvesting and interpreting information than others. Part of that is due to personality, part of it is influenced by empathy and part maybe how our brains work. But maybe it is also largely dependant on motivation. If it helps our feeling of safely or power, isn't managing what our brains can tell us. We have all done that when it comes to trauma.

For me, one of my coping mechanisms was fact checking and logic. Maybe studying any sort of science helps this? When I saw others not using logic it really got me on a visceral level. The pandemic fried my brain as I looked at certain people's responses and was confronted by how much some people choose to look past logic and fact checking and believe truly unusual things. Like - what kind of world are we living in and is this the end!

Then I later decided that a lot of things are down to anxiety or the need to find a sense of safety and even community. And what we think of as fact is always just our best guess. Even mathematical "truths" are influenced by politics.

Post pandemic I've managed to get to a new level of acceptance that my logical confort blanket may not be there or what I thought it was. That a large part of the population don't even try to think of things in those terms.

I now just try not to think too much about how people decide on a ttruth. I just prioritise in my life. It's easier to have acceptance of other people's individual way of interacting with the world if I look at it from a distance and concentrate on what I need to manage.

When it comes to safety and who I trust, I am really cautious these days. I don't have the energy or brain space to manage more drama in my life so I am trying to avoid pathological people! That's not always possible (see your husband for context), but so far so good. I'm dealing with a family member at present, but that's another story.

I look for red flags. If I see a red flag I avoid according to the severity of the risk. That's my first priority. I really hold myself accountable and look at what people say or do very intently if I am going to be interacting with them. I remember you advising me that you don't do business or you charge more if one of your clients is difficult. It's like that.

But for me, I look at logic. I fact check. I look at what people say, their body language etc. I don't rush into handing them access to my personal experience or my life.

So many life lessens I've learned on the way.

To me people believing things is a little like the empathy story. People believing (what I think) are extreme illogical things and people not having empathy for others feelings, used to fry my brain and still does if I'm not careful. So I try to accept that there are no shoulds in the world. We are all different. We will always have people with personalities of all flavours in the world.

But we can all physically see the same thing, and yet see something totally different. The human brain. And our agenda influences what we interpret.

 

[scout86]

I know your topic is how we each decide what is truth and what isn't.

That got me thinking. I don't know if I'm wondering how people decide what they think is true. It's related..... Is wondering how people decide who they're going to believe the same as wondering how they decide what's true? Definitely related. Deciding who you're going to believe is maybe kind of a shortcut. If you decide you can believe someone, then maybe you can walk away from the complexity of discerning "truth" for yourself and just decide "I'm with them" and move on without having to think.. That's an aspect of all this I hadn't considered before.

When I saw others not using logic it really got me on a visceral level.

I can relate to that! I'm guessing that's because not accurately assessing information has led to bad outcomes. Bad outcomes that were bad enough to lead to PTSD, in a few cases. I suppose this reaction is related to my brain's idea that "If I can just read things right THIS TIME, things will be better." (Sometimes that might actually that might actually work out. LOL)

The money is the easiest one but even that is weird now-

True that! In the case of my Alex Jones supporter client. I'm guessing she overlooked how much money he's made peddling lies..... I wonder, could he have made as much money peddling "truths"? I guess I also wonder if people like him think they ARE speaking the truth or if they flat out know they're making stuff up and are fine with tricking people. And, sometimes I wonder if the people who follow them maybe know the whole thing is made up and they're just in it because it's kind of fun and there's that whole human desire to belong to something. You're right, it IS complicated. On a lot of levels.

My T used to tell me that most people avoid "thinking" because it's too much work. The very idea drove me a bit nuts. First, because "thinking" is something I think of as "fun", but also, I suppose, because of the whole "accurately assessing the situation is a matter of life and death". thing. I knew quite believed him when he said most people try to avoid having to think. I wasn't sure what point he was trying to make, but I suspected he was just messing with me. Maybe not? LOL

 

[user27357]

Scout86 said:
First, because "thinking" is something I think of as "fun”

a little further- i might actually get a shot of endorphin when i discover a truth, or when i think i have. Educators look for the rapid intake of a breath by a student as a sign that they just “got it”. I like it when I “get it”. It feels good.
I was told that this little reward treat is the goal of a lot of internet searches, and internet addiction as it was called at the time was an obsessive search for the next reward stimulus. I dont know when internet addiction became “ doom scrolling” but I have heard that term tossed about lately.
So maybe the motivation for some if the internet lies is to feed the legions of doom scrollers looking for their endorphin fixes. Better lies? More breath intake. Consistent rewards offered up and easily found for the seekers? A wider path is beaten to your door. And over time there is a growing legion awaiting your latest offering and you can earn your living preaching lies to the anxiously waiting choir. Nothing new there.
Truth? I dont know. I hate that it might be, but maybe.
It is getting messy

 

[scout86]

@enough , THAT is something I never thought of, for sure. Scary thought, but worth considering.

 

[Friday]

So, a good friend of mine from the tropics who had no experience with cold+hot=steam, whether it’s hot breath in winter, or screaming hot metal in freezing cold sky, literally zero experience… bought into the whole “jet trails” thing. So I decided to run with it. Okay. I KNOW it’s false, but let’s assume it’s real. Then what? We bury ourselves so deep underground we’re not affected? And acquire our air, from where? Live our lives, how? For how long? Let’s get practical. Do you have the means to do so? If Not? You’ve decided to be miserable? f*ck that noise.