There's a special kind of supervillain in the first season of the Netflix show "Jessica Jones"; a man who can dominate the will of other people, at least for a couple hours a time. His life is dull, since he gets everything he wants, which is plausible and tells us that the ability to control others like that is hardly a sensible wish.
The opposite, laying out assumptions, facts, reasoning, conclusions - only to achieve absolutely zero effect (in private, business or public affairs) all too-often - is not exactly fulfilling either, of course. It's particularly frustrating if you can tell time and time again that even if someone has read your report, your article, or listened to your argument, he or she may still be 100% unaffected and stick to a different preferred answer without the slightest ability to support it with facts and reasoning the way you did.
Back when I was about 20 I looked at all the nonsense in the world and thought that the world could be improved if one would only cut through the nonsense with knowledge, logic and some inspiration.
Back when I was about 30 I amassed the confidence in knowledge, logic and inspiration to begin trying to disseminate it for real. Professionally and in matters of public interest publicly.
Now I understand that for decades I underestimated one huge and all-important ingredient; the ability to convince. Sadly, this ability is given to or found by people irrespective of the quality of knowledge and reasoning. Some utter sociopaths, people with narcissistic personality disorder and lots of people who simply don't have the well-being of others (or even their entire society) in mind possess a greater ability to convince people than most genius researchers with great ideas.
So here's the update:
It takes a coincidence of philanthropy (or at least social leanings), knowledge, reasoning, some inspiration and the ability to convince others easily to improve the world by much. Well, this or another kind of huge luck.
Now it's abundantly clear to me why the human world is such a mess in so many places and perspectives. It may take a couple thousand more years till enough such coincidences have happened. And then there will likely still be some *#%$€=(! with the gift to convince and mess it up again.
S O
I would disagree with reasoning not being linked to the ability to convince. I would argue that even in the most wrong headed-simplistic arugement there is a reasoning behind it that is able to persuade people. Just because we can't understand or they cant articulate the reasoning behind their decision doesn't mean there isn't any. I would argue that any concious decicison is made by reasoned thought, even if that reasoning is wrong/thought to be wrong. For example the choice to eat either an orange or an apple it comes down to simple preference but even behind that preference is some kind of reasoned logic.
ReplyDeleteI would argue the main reason that a genius struggles to get a great idea to take off may be due to their inability to communicate their idea at the intellectual level of the person they are trying to persuade, coupled with the fact that its not until after the fact that an idea is proven to be great. Though I will acknowledge the level of reasoning/debate seen in recent electoral events has been very poor. For a while now debate,reasoned thought and freedom of expression have been comming under attack, at least in the UK. This is coupled with a lack of accountability of decisions made by people in power, turning a large number of people to not partake in the system. At the same time any candidate who stands has massive intrusion into their personal lives, has the job utterly take over their life and gets paid a paltry amount for doing it relative to the private sector, is it any wonder we get such poor people as politicians?
The problem with "social leaning" is that many people who have this characteristic have it with a certain view in mind, for example Mark Zuckerberg is happy to give away his fortune, while at the same time minimising the company tax and denying society the right to spend the money as they decide.
R.F
By "reasoning" I implied an uninterrupted, cogent line of reasoning. Everybody has a thought process behind all of his or her opinions, but all-too often it's interrupted (the activity -> ??? -> profit! kind of thing) or terminally flawed due to omissions (a typical problem with economic theory thinking; you can get any result if you omit all factors that run against the preferred conclusion).
DeleteRegarding the special case of Zuckerberg; it seems the philanthropy is his thing while the tax dodging is his wife's thing.
I take your point about possible omissions though we can't be certain if these omissions are down to, biased thought, not being aware or them taking them into account but they not swaying their mind. Also does bias thought count if to reach that point one must have had unbiased thought to reach that biased view in the first place, if you get my meaning? I Don't quite follow your arguement about the interuption of thought process though.
DeleteThe problem is that a lot of socially leaning people have that same double standard as Zuckerberg, where there social leanings are based on their world view one which they won't allow for society to differ.
R.F
Think of it as domino stones. One stone falls on another, another, another ... but to some people one stone falling may push over a stone in the other room. There's no uninterrupted logical series between the original idea and the supposed end effect.
DeleteAn example from policy; abstinence policies against teen pregnancy. Many people think that promoting abstinence ireduces teen pregnancy, assuming that promoting this actually keeps them from copulating. In reality one empirical study after another shows that this is not the case; the link between the original measure and the desired end effect is broken because of a wrong assumption. This is an example where a refusal of reality (omission of a fat) leads to a wrong conclusion, and it's also an example of "action -> ??? -> success!".
I have observed that omission of facts is a popular shilling technique; biased people use their supposed authority (rank, "prestigious" think tank, pundit status, title) to deceive people with assertions, simulations or studies that lead to a predictable biased result, but are wrong because key factors were omitted.
Do you believe the main charateristic of someone that has the ability to convince is derieved from their authority, or position, or is it something else that makes them so good at getting people to agree to their idea/viewpoint?
DeleteR.F
It's the easiest to convince if you don't encounter an existing opinion on the subject and if your conclusion is pleasant, maybe even entertaining.
DeleteIt's hard for me to convince because I don't think it's worthwhile to write about areas where I agree with the mainstream. So by default I write about issues where the reader is unlikely to agree easily.
It's little different on the job; people who ask for reports or advice usually have an idea how that should look like. In worst case they ask for input because they were told to do so, not because they want input.
Life is so much easier and pleasant when you can make decisions yourself and ignore other people's well-founded objections at will.
Such phases are part of life. Human fallibility enables sociopaths to fish and combined with chance they succeed from time to time. History is full of such cases in which lie after lie boldly lied into the face of truth gives power to an expert liar which is supremely skilled from long practice to lie convincingly.
ReplyDeleteOne can just hope that in this particular case the persons does 'only' continue along the Berlusconi way and doesn't veer towards the Mussolini path. It sounds cynical but his paid underage girls at least kept him from focusing too much on destroying further the republic.
On a personal level it's always key to look past failures at past successes. There is always something to be proud of. Many of your blog entries have been brilliant, in my humble opinon.
Firn
Stated the above I hope that I'm wrong. Sadly so far similar successes in the last years by similar men and parties promised bad and delivered worse. In our little ways we have act to influence our own way.
ReplyDeleteFor humanity hope dies last and hope we always must.
Firn
>Now it's abundantly clear to me why the human world is >such a mess in so many places and perspectives. It may >take a couple thousand more years till enough such >coincidences have happened.
ReplyDeleteI told you so some time ago and the main and most important conclusion from this is to work with the world and the circumstances as they are. Often your arguments and your political beliefs has a false fundament - because you build them on a view of the world and the human nature, that is not true. Your false sight on the human nature has lead you often in the past to false conclusions. Your optimistic and positive thinking about humans, democracy, human rights, freedom and so on are sometimes realy far from reality. And will therefore not work.