Richard’s Reviews > How Minds Change: The Surprising Science of Belief, Opinion, and Persuasion > Status Update

The facts that a) Humans do better in collaboration than in individual reasoning, and b) Online "discussions" largely devolve to arguing with one's self, do not leave me much encouraged about the future.

Money quote, possibly of the book:

"He said the feeling of belonging, of acceptance, was more important to him at that point than any unusual detail. He became pliant, willing to suspend his disbelief to not feel alone."

Community inertia works not just with the rabidly racist. I will be curious to see if McRaney addresses this.

Early in the chapter on Westboro Church, and I'm struck by the parallels to A Well-Trained Wife in the use of religion as a tool of control. On the one hand, I see why people equate the two, but on the other, it feels like people are blaming the tool for how the craftsman used it.

"...there is a number, a quantifiable level of doubt when we admit we are likely wrong and become compelled to update our beliefs, attitudes, and values. Before we reach that level, incongruences make us feel more certain, not less."

Oh hey, it's the whole damn Internet.

And here we get to one of the dangers of our stovepiped echo chambers of information in modern media. If updating your mental model to adapt your beliefs requires not just one, but some preponderance of anomalies breaking the old model down, living in a bubble where such anomalies are never made available makes it impossible to change.

There's always a sort of recursive meta effect when reading about how thoughts happen biochemically. It's a little like being aware of your breathing.

"The full explanation for interpretation polarization requires a gestalt understanding of not just politics, but the psychology of reasoning, motivation, social costs, norms, beliefs, attitudes, and values, not just at the level of human interaction, but within individual brains, right down to neurons, hormones, and ganglia."

And here we begin to see why breaking echo chambers is so damn hard.

"The world, as you know experience it, is a simulation running inside your skull, a waking dream."

Man, Mage: The Ascension prepped me for so much in life.