Shortform

Dean Valentine

This is a special post for quick takes by Dean Valentine. Only they can create top-level comments. Comments here also appear on the Quick Takes page and All Posts page.

When someone says something like "The left went crazy and drove me to the far right!", they're not (usually) relaying a neutral history of their intellectual development. Same when they reply to your post about animal welfare claiming that it "made them want to eat meat even more."

Instead, what they're usually doing is two things:

Asserting that they have the momentum on their side, the same way as you might send a radio broadcast during a war that says "your comrades are defecting!"
Issuing a threat on behalf of their coalition. "If you keep propagandizing then more people like me will do the opposite of what you want!"

The threat and/or cheer-leading gains credibility by not being explicit about the motivation, and portraying it as an uncoordinated decision. But that also means that explaining to the person that rational people don't get negatively polarized is unlikely stop them from saying these bizarre-sounding things.

To evaluate this, you need to have known that person in the past. I know some people who say stories like "I was always X, but recently I have suddenly switched to Y", but I also knew them a few decades ago and their attraction towards Y was always there, so that hearing about them switching to Y came as no surprise to me, or rather only the specific timing was surprising.

People seem to be quite bad at knowing what made them do what. Many of their beliefs are just post-hoc rationalizations.

2Viliam7mo

I disagree about the meta-evidence. (Though I agree that the person may actually believe it.) If you were in a position X, and after receiving a lot of evidence you switched to Y, it could mean that the truth is way beyond Y... or it could mean that you have overreacted and the truth is somewhere between X and Y... or it could mean that you have updated precisely and the truth is approximately Y. All these options are plausible. Even the fact that you received a lot of evidence for Y could mean that Y is correct... or that you have accidentally entered an echo chamber of Y. You could even have left the echo chamber for X and entered the echo chamber for Y. My general point is that your current position is what you believe is the best position. But including your history how you got there, that's double-counting evidence. Your history how you got there is already a part of why you are there. (Aaaah, this does not explain my point well, but I can't find good words right now.)

1lilkim20257mo

At the very least, this does not sound so trivially true that it can be stated as a premise. If I'm a normal person living in a healthy, happy society, my political views are likely to amount to: * "Make minimal changes only where obvious inefficiency is present. Don't rock the boat; the cost of losing what we currently have exceeds the likely benefits of experimenting with anything too different." Indeed, generations who grew up during a time of world-historic comfort and prosperity tend to be very moderate, in a way that infuriates people of more radical inclinations. However, if you grow up during a time of turmoil and uncertainty, and you identify the cause of this turmoil/uncertainty to be a certain political group, then your views are likely to amount to: * "Do whatever it takes to remove this group from power, and prevent it from regaining power. A more moderate society failed on the basis that it allowed them to ruin it." This generally involves embracing a slate of policies that they dislike, simply on the basis that people generally dislike policies that disenfranchise them. Assuming (and this is a big assumption) that the fact-finding of our subject was correct, and the group that negatively polarized them genuinely is responsible for social decline, then adjusting one's politics from don't-rock-the-boat centrism to reaction meant to steel society against the people who rocked the boat is a rational response. It simply amounts to updating your worldview in response to evidence that your previous slate of preferred policies wouldn't work.