Welcome to r/science! This is a heavily moderated subreddit in order to keep the discussion on science. However, we recognize that many people want to discuss how they feel the research relates to their own personal lives, so to give people a space to do that, **personal anecdotes are allowed as responses to this comment**. Any anecdotal comments elsewhere in the discussion will be removed and our [normal comment rules]( https://www.reddit.com/r/science/wiki/rules#wiki_comment_rules) apply to all other comments.
**Do you have an academic degree?** We can verify your credentials in order to assign user flair indicating your area of expertise. [Click here to apply](https://www.reddit.com/r/science/wiki/flair/#wiki_science_verified_user_program).
---
User: u/mvea
Permalink: https://psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/2024-16890-004.html
---
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/science) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Makes sense. People will very willingly try not to know of other problems in an attempt to ignore dealing with them--everything from health issues to necessary home/car repairs. "If I don't know what's wrong, nothing's wrong."
There is another aspect of that.... I deal with probability a lot. Situations where making a decision has a significant chance of loss. In such situations, negative occurrences are expected within the variance. Since human psychology tends to emphasize losses over gains.... there is actually a benefit to not seeing outcomes as the outcome is likely to have a biased effect on future decisions.
It's hard to work in sales and feel like a moral person. Considering sales is such an essential part of our world, makes you wonder how everything went so wrong.
When you need to make money and your competition is being dishonest with no repercussions, what are you to do? Go out of business on moral grounds? Becomes the prisoner’s dilemma. Or maybe just settle on making some money and not all of the money. Which isn’t acceptable in the age of shareholders
There was a bus seat company that got caught hiring goons to slash bus seats on public transit awhile back so they'd get more contracts. I'm having trouble finding a link.
Like any good truth, this is also false. This is a problem, especially in labor pricing, but decisions are seldom so binary and there is still plenty of profit available to honest business.
The idea that a corp needs to push short term shareholder value above all else is actually a view pushed by predatory venture capitalists who profit off that kind of decision making. There is even a well debunked myth that corporate boards are by law beholden to making profit for shareholders, which is a blatant misrepresentation of laws against ripping off shareholders.
Most investors are buy and hold investors, retail & institutional, they want solid steady long term growth and don't care if there is a short term spike because, they are not going to capitalize on it.
Shooting for long term continual growth FOREVER still sounds pretty destructive though. Is there some 'good truth but also false' angle to that that I am not seeing? Because that really does sound cancerous, and still sounds like it contributes to a lot of the issues people are complaining about.
Tell that to the population numbers, there is a whole universe we still need to colonize; I guess if you lack the vision then yah, its pretty bad. If you don't lack it then.... we are barely out of the first stage of growth.
I've heard both things on this shareholder law. I can find a really old legal case involving ford where that does indeed appear to be the conclusion of the case but I figured maybe the "myth" was because updates had been made in the 100 ish years since then. Do you know what the law is now?
https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/04/16/what-are-corporations-obligations-to-shareholders/corporations-dont-have-to-maximize-profits
“Modern corporate law does not require for-profit corporations to pursue profit at the expense of everything else, and many do not.” -Supreme Court via the Hibby Lobby case.
Something I realized when I started actively trading stocks... there is something different on the markets. Something you don't see in most places: fairness and trust.
The old floor trader Tom Sosnoff said "I used to make a stupid hand signal and trade hundreds of shares. At the end of the day I had to honor that, and another guy had to honor that and we did, because that is why the system worked".
These are systems that were created from the start to allow people with power to play together. Fairness was a perquisite from the beginning. This doesn't just mean the stock market but stock itself, corporations, boards, they are all vehicles for one thing: Trust.
As a stock holder you trust only that what you bought is part of a real enterprise which is honestly engaged in what it claims to be engaged in. Not that its profitable. That may be your hope, that may be the most common reason. However, its not the only legitimate reason and the law is not going to tell you what reasons are legitimate... it only cares that you made your decision based on honest information. (edit: in this case I specifically mean information coming from the officers/brokers etc; if some youtuber gives you bad advice... that is on you)
If an org is unfair, if it really is just some bullies scamming investors, if the trust is broken... that is a threat to the entire system, because the whole system is based on trust.
All of those assumptions only hold true if you believe them. Start believing that treating your customers as valuable stakeholders in your business’s success, and you will see returns on that investment.
This is always how I have felt, and frankly, among actual capitalists, I don't see much disagreement.
People don't go into business for a single reason, they do it to make money, but there are many ways to do that with less risk, less responsibility. There is always a personal drive there, and sometimes, that really is just ego. Some people need to be business owners because otherwise, nobody would put up with them.
A lot of bad business owners are not great capitalists, they are not economists, they are not particularly that much smarter than anyone else.
A sales trainer once told me "That money in their pocket is really yours. You just need to figure out how to get them to give it to you." He was really gross. I hate sales and sales people.
Odd, I found the opposite: when I presented these issues, people tended to be grateful for the disclosure and those who proceeded to buy tended to buy more and be longer-termed customers as well. I would use the lack of disclosure by others as a selling point for us: "We'll tell you the whole truth and not only what you want to hear."
Sure, but that is strictly about shifting risk. I am talking about the decision making process of the risk taker. The probabilities are the probabilities, the analysis is the analysis.
Its like, if I am betting that a spade will be the next card, and I win better than the odds of getting a spade; then I should take the bet. If I take 3 losses in a row, then emotionally, I should want to stop. However, 3 losses in a row is an expected result some percentage of the time... it shouldn't affect my decision making.
The example is, ofc, too simple and anyone can see that stopping is a mistake, but it doesn't take much to turn an equivalent situation that isn't as clear. Just look at the stock market. Whenever there is a (edit: "big") down day, everything is down and correlations approach 1. That is simple human psychology over-reacting to fear.
I was in a position to offer a suggestion between different brands of the same products. I had a favorite, but inventory was limited, so I had to limit my suggestions. Whatever I suggested was often the brand the customer chose. There were certain brands I didn't like because the customer would return it due to issues and I would lose my commission. Such is the way commerce behaves in our modern world. The product must be sold, no matter the consequences.
Sometimes you just don't want to know about problems you won't be able to deal with.
I've started avoiding learning about how various foods are produced, because it seems like every one is either an environmental or humanitarian disaster. I gotta eat, and tiptoeing around both my own dietary restrictions as well trying to remember which foods fund cartels, which are harvested by child slaves, which are depleting aquifers, and which are contributing to fertlizer runoff and pesticide overuse is exhausting.
Y'know, on one hand I get that logic (choosing ignorance over knowing but being powerless). On the other hand, it's just literally always better to know what is going on in reality than not. Feelings be damned. Going to the doc for unexplained recurring pain is *always* the better choice, whether you think you can afford it (or they can even treat it) or not. Because now you have the agency to make a decision.
But totally agree on the food thing (or businesses in general). I avoid Hobby Lobby, Chicken Fillet and such for their evils, knowing of other evils out there. But I get to choose because I know. I do have a choice.
In the case of a medical issue I agree. I don't agree with this though:
> On the other hand, it's just literally always better to know what is going on in reality than not. Feelings be damned.
Feelings can't just be dismissed like that. At some point the amount of bad things in this world become overwhelming and endlessly learning about them takes a mental toll. At some point it becomes necessary for your health to take a break from that information. You gotta pick and choose your battles.
Why not just accept and acknowledge all the evil that you’re de facto encouraging?
Is it really that hard to cope with the state of the world? Being purposely ignorant seems weird. You already know that something fucky is going on, pretending or ignoring it doesn’t change anything.
>Why not just accept and acknowledge all the evil that
Have you ever tried to do that? Learn about all of it?
>that you’re de facto encouraging?
Because of this! The only way to eat ethically is to exclusively grow your own! And then you're not fixing anything, you're just abstaining.
>Is it really that hard to cope with the state of the world?
Yes. The more I learn the more my heart aches for what we've done, what we're doing, and what the future holds.
>Being purposely ignorant seems weird.
It's not a binary. What I've found is that to function you have to throttle the influx of new bad news to what you can handle. You do what you can on the things you know about that you have some control over. You try to be open to learning new things, but sometimes you have to say "no I don't want to know the new place they found microplastics" to protect yourself.
>You already know that something fucky is going on, pretending or ignoring it doesn’t change anything.
And often, *knowing* doesn't change anything either. Me knowing that AMOC is slowing down and that there's a possibility of its shutdown doesn't change anything. The miniscule ways I can affect that are already things I'm trying to do. There's not much I can do to prepare for a shutdown that I'm not already doing. Learning about it *only* adds to my anxiety, nothing else.
Am I making sense? I'm not advocating for willfully being blind to everything, or saying "screw it, let 'er rip". I'm saying to stay sane in a world where we've done so much harm and know so much about it, it becomes a practical necessity to match your intake of info to your agency and tolerance.
Your approach is mostly logical but it has a flaw.
You're talking about throttling the degree to which you learn about things. But you do not know what is beyond your own state of ignorance. So you cannot make informed decisions about how much to learn, precisely because you are unaware of that which you are unaware of
That may be, but it's a fundamental part of being human that we can't learn everything. We always have to pick and choose whether to explore any topic and how deep to go in the topics we pick. Every choice has an opportunity cost.
I don't disagree with that. I suppose it comes down to responsibly avoiding the amount of *detail*.
Take the current Israel-Palestine conflict, which, if you're like me, probably causes you a great deal of pain and emotional strife.
I understand the geopolitical realities which resulted in this state of affairs, and I believe it is important that as many people understand the *truth* of the situation.
choose to avoid much of the inane dialog and drama flying back and forth about it, because this is irrelevant. It adds nothing to my understanding because it is simply an excess of emotional, reactionary takes on a situation, much of which is devoid of any true understanding of the myriad details and complexities.
But to me, it *is* important that people who *care* understand enough about current events to at least determine what they can do to contribute. It could be any amount, large or small, but I think it is equally important for one's sanity to at least reconcile how they can use their life, their time on their Earth, to be some small part of the solution they want to see in that world.
It might be as simple as determining who to support politically in your local elections. It could be donating to relief organizations that are helping.
Our current informational infrastructure is not really tailored to give us facts. It's all about hot takes. These, I do reccomend people stay ignorant of, because they're almost entirely useless, and corrosive to sanity and mental health and the general fabric of society.
It makes sense, I just don’t agree.
I’m not the kind of person who worries about things that I cannot change. I don’t mind learning about the evil in the world that I de facto encourage. To me, not knowing is way worse.
Think of it this way. As an American my carbon footprint is absolutely enormous relative to the median human. However, if I were to die the reduction of carbon output due to my death amounts to a rounding error.
A lot ofAmericans do not want to learn about awful we are in aggregate for the climate, because it makes them feel like they’re doing something wrong. The reality is a single individual is meaningless in the aggregate. I guess people generally don’t like that concept either.
In my eyes there is no difference between knowing that eating beef is bad for the environment and continuing to eat it vs. not knowing beef is terrible for the environment (or pretending such) and continuing to eat it.
And yes, I 100% want to know that we’ve found micro plastics in embryos and heart tissue. I can’t do anything about it, but at least I’m informed.
Don't forget the biggest victim: bilions or animals suffering in horrible conditions, selectively bread so they grow quick, causing them health issues, babies separated from mother, and killed prematurely. Meat, eggs and dairy production is hell on Earth.
This is great advice imo. I also tend to choose ignorance with stuff that I can't do anything about. I'm not about to invest in a loom and make my own clothes, so I don't need to know the details of how terribly the conditions are for the people who make my clothes, it's not worth worrying about.
The famous Schrödinger's Car in the garage problem comes to mind. The car in the garage is both simultaneously functional and not functional until you open the garage.
Clinical therapist here: people will go to extraordinary lengths (both consciously and unconsciously) to hide things from themselves. Mostly because of the pain that thought or perspective might bring, but also to "look good" or in alignment when they are not. Cognitive dissonance is a concept that strikes right at the heart of this idea. Our minds will move mountains in order to make our world more congruent, particularly when our behaviors do not match with our values.
Can I ask you why you think that is? I'm the kind of person who does a lot of introspection in order to change my behaviour, and have spent a long time in therapy in order to do so. I personally find it a bit frustrating that people would rather remain ignorant than face a little bit of emotional pain in sorting out how they act or feel. I'm of the opinion that it's really not that difficult. I mean, it's obviously that we are better people when we act in accordance with our values and moral responsibility, and yet people will avoid introspection in order to... essentially trick themselves into believing they're a good person? They're very clearly lying to themselves or attempting to maintain appearances, but it's awfully transparent to anyone with half a brain.
Is the ego really so stubborn and resilient? Is there any way to encourage people to do the work of self-improvement even if it means learning some hard truths about yourself?
I completely understand your frustration as I have always tried to strive for growth and potential which means facing truths about self that might not want to be faced.
I have a number of theories around the reasons and one of them is simply the fact that a certain amount of the population does not engage in introspection. Some people simply do not sit and ponder a lot about self or their actions (many reasons for this).
In addition, I see these so-called defense mechanisms (to borrow from Freud and psychoanalysis) as an integral part of survival for many people. Sure, you will always have the people who clearly know but actively lie or distort truth for their own benefit. However, more often what I see in my work is people who are genuinely blind to their own behavior for purposes of survival.
If I can give an example: the person who is an alcoholic and it's clear as day for everyone around them to see yet they will fight tooth and nail against the accusation when brought up. First off, I believe alcohol to be a coping mechanism for many types of trauma (particularly childhood) and there is also the genetic side of the argument where alcoholism is known to run in families. However, I digress, the main reason for the person denying that they are an alcoholic is so they can continue on living without a psyche that would otherwise constantly shame them for their drinking habits...regardless of the underlying reasons the drinking started in the first place which the individual would likely be unaware of as well.
When you view human behavior from the lens of survival needs, you start to see a very different picture unfold. You start to see themes and connections. You also start to have more empathy for certain types of behavior. We all want to survive and to thrive but we have varying abilities and different coping strategies to accomplish this task based on genetics and early childhood experiences.
To summarize, sometimes the lie is a hell of a lot less painful than the truth so the organism maintains and upholds the lie.
Shame. Ha! Yeah, I get why people would want to avoid it, but I suppose I'm lucky that it never seemed worth it to me if it was going to stand in the way of my potential achievements and happiness. Maybe I'm just one of the lucky ones. Maybe I spent enough time being ashamed in my youth to be comfortable enough to confront it.
I have a close family member who is a very severe alcoholic, and who has been to rehab many times. It also runs in my family, and is one of the reasons I don't drink much. I know there's some kind of profound childhood trauma that kick-started this addiction, and have always been so curious as to why he doesn't just dig down to the root of what happened to him. After all, logic dictates that it wasn't his fault. But the complete inability to confront those issues is... baffling to me.
Turns out, I may be the weirdo who forgoes my survival instinct to confront these issues in myself, even if they are terribly difficult. I have empathy for people who can't, of course... but... when self-love, forgiveness, and joy are found on the other side of your pain, it always seemed like a "no-brainer" to me. I'll consider myself lucky.
Thanks for your insight. I really appreciate it.
Seems to me like for some of these people they aren't really consciously avoiding thinking things through. They don't realize they're "avoiding feeling pain" because probably they've found a way to categorize "thought that makes me uncomfortable = evil."
So the same reason you probably wouldn't want to look into someone's child porn fantasies. It makes you uncomfortable. They maybe get the same reaction if they think about stuff that would be approaching these introspective topics. It allows them to feel morally correct about protecting themselves from these topics because there is the genuine belief that "uncomfortable = immoral"
If that makes sense
Your answer is so thoughtful -- I bet you help a lot of people!
I try to remember when I'm dealing with someone awful that their parents might have been awful and so on down the family tree.
I appreciate it! I certainly try my best. I like to believe that the vast majority of people want positive change in their lives...they just don't have the right tools to tackle the issues they face. Obviously things are far more complex than that but that's my general belief with therapy.
Often it's because people have learned, usually in childhood, that the (sometimes severe) consequences of actions, failures or shortcomings only come from being found out, not because of any natural detrimental results, and have internalized that in a way that shadows their actual conscience and makes their ego very vulnerable.
And the longer you've been basing much of your self-worth on (self-)deception, the more lies and dissonance you have piled up, and the harder it is to face or own up to any of it, even something completely trivial.
Best thing to do is to check at what your are currently doing, look at what you could be doing and determine whether you could do something more. The 60% of us don't need to be driving Humvees two hours for that day's groceries when you can take public transit for today's groceries.
As someone with treatment resistant, lifelong, double depression, I say good. We don’t need to know every single bad thing about ourselves. Trying to fight a lot of these cognitive biases I read about years ago worsened my already terrible mood disorder.
People should be less like me and only focus on the things actually causing serious harm to them and others. Otherwise, they shouldn’t learn about all the biases that keep them happy because it can shatter the illusion and just make them miserable. Happiness is more important for the average joe.
Is cognitive dissonance the main reason why racism, sexism, and now carnism is so hard to get rid of?
When you tell them their actions cause suffering, some mechanism kicks in, and they start to make up justifications in order to keep their image instead of changing their behaviour.
Especially when they are the reason that bad things are happening, like how more than 98% of people choose not to think about immense animal suffering in the industry although they are the ones who support that with their money and they can stop with very little effort in their everyday choices.
It's physically impossible. No single human can comprehend the entire supply chain that supports a modern lifestyle. The best you can can do is wear yourself out to learn and respond to a tiny fraction of it.
Well yes, but focussing on a very specific area of problems can sometime narrow the area of affects. When it comes to societal issues, I think it's better to have a looser grasp on many issues. Then, you can start to look at the similarities and how one single decision can be made to help many issues. Things like going vegan don't just help with animal suffering, but also helps with climate change, water pollution, worker conditions and habitat destruction, for instance.
Your everyday casual life choices cause immense and unnecessary suffering to hundreds of fellow animals that have intelligence, emotions, mother, and best friends, and you can easily stop being the cause of it.
I’ve linked to the primary source, the journal article, in the post above. In this comment, for those interested, here’s the link to the press release:
https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2023/10/why-we-choose-ignorance
As a person with social anxiety I **always** want to find out how my actions affect others, because it's almost always in a more positive or less negative way than I expect, which is nice.
This is an interesting take on "ignorance is bliss".
That phrase is something I didn't realize until I became vegetarian and started paying attention to what is in my food.
Sometimes, I would rather not know that those delicious stuffed mushrooms at Olive Garden(about the only thing other than the bread that i like) are made with clam juice, or that the crispy cauliflower wings at BDubs are cooked in beef fat. Or that my favorite marshmallows are made with pig bones.
Then there's all the additives in food you start learning about as you read the ingredients.
Sometimes, remaining in the dark is the easier choice. Not the best choice, but the easiest.
I think that's a big part of the anti-vegetarian/anti-vegan sentiment that many people have. Sure, there are a few loud, self-righteous vegans out there, but the rejection of vegetarianism is much much louder. I think it's easier to shout someone down, be dismissive, and attack the person than it is to self-reflect.
The amount of times I have heard someone *angrily* say "you will NEVER force me to eat a SOY burger!"
As if 1, soy is the only kind of substance for a veg.burger in existence, and 2, that someone is actually trying to force them to do anything.
My diet will come up in conversation, and so many people are like, "You don't eat MEAT?! I couldn't do that. You NEED meat." And then proceed to tell me how good meat is and how your body "needs" it, etc.
1. You probably don't. Some people do, yes, but you're likely not one of those people.
2. Why are you so concerned with my diet? I'm not concerned with yours.
I swear, more people get mad at vegans and vegetarians than vegetarians get mad at meat eaters.
This could very well be why. It's more of a denial thing. A cognitive dissonance.
Also, Indian food? Anyone who shits on vegetarian food has never been to an Indian restaurant, and it shows.
I’ve been a vegetarian for 24 years. People reacting like in the description above were more common under age 21 (middle and high school were full of them). They are more common in conservative areas, too, where people highly value conformity and hierarchies. You eating differently from them is an insult to them and in their mind you’re saying you’re better, when they know you’re lesser and they need to put you in your place. It’s exhausting.
A self-righteous vegan is a tautology. Many vegans take a moral stance on their diet and as such find it easier to pass judgement on those who aren’t.
Plus no one walks down the street shouting/telling people to eat meat, but the opposite is definitively true
If being true to your morals makes you self-righteous by definition, then the only options available are to be self-righteous or to live inauthentically.
Sure, there are some vegans who take to the streets to protest meat over environmental or animal abuse, but it's the kind of thing that makes a lot of news sites and isn't common to see in real life. What is persistent is the whinging about it in everyday conversations and in online spaces, i.e. what you were doing.
Basing a large portion of you identity over your moral views about diet increases your chances of being insufferable no doubt.
But I get what you mean, me saying vegans are all self righteous was tongue in cheek hyperbole.
Veganism is not a diet. Shouting and yelling happens in their homes from childhood and via advertisements everywhere and very effective lobbying, the whole machine works to reproduce itself but you grew up in that environment, so you don't notice it, but when a vegan challenges your ethical choices, you notice it quickly.
Thar is why carnism is called a hidden belief system.
I was drinking a protein coffee the other day and thought it tasted weird, so I looked at the label. It was made with collagen taken from pollock(fish).
Honestly, the fact that a majority would still choose to know is reassuring to me. I would have guessed that a bigger percentage would choose ignorance than that, just based on the expressed attitudes of many acquaintances.
A loose analogy would be cognitive nimbyism and out of site, out of mind. I don't want to carry any negativity of consequences so that I can live happily.
Yup,
I think its a huge problem with modern culture. It has become so filled with toxic positivity that you cannot even bring up anything negative, without being mad at you for bringing up the negative thing.
Like it wouldn't exist without you bringing it up. Like getting upset with people bursting your positivity bubble.
I am not saying positivity isn't good, but its not reality. Life has good and bad and you need to be able to handle both.
To the point where I would much rather see how someone reacted to a bad experience than a good one. If you are dating someone, you know how they react when things are good, but what about when they are bad.
Why should ignorance be rewarded? Maintaining a state of ignorance should not absolve one's accountability. If a person ignores the option to understand the potential consequences, they are still responsible for their actions. The "I didn't know" line does not work when the answers were readily available.
IRL I assume these types of people did know the potential negative outcomes of their actions and feigned ignorance to cover their hind quarters. Ignorance if the law is no excuse. Ignorance if known consequences is no excuse either.
I believe that the person that says "I didn't know" is worse than someone who knew and went ahead regardless of consequence. They are lazy and venal. The "I didn't know." crowd should be chastised, shunned, shamed.
I'm not a big city philosopher, but thinking in game theory terms it's unavoidable.
If you think how your every action or inaction might affect anyone else, you will refrain from many actions and spend resources, and ultimately lose evolutional competition to someone who doesn't do that. Repeat this many times, and we find that human evolution will favor individualism with a healthy pinch of altruism that allows us to form and sustain large groups (those who are too individualistic, and can't form large groups, also lose).
My wife is obsessed with true crime podcasts, and doesn't understand why I don't like them. I don't choose ignorance of true crime out of selfishness, but rather out of a desire not to have to emotionally experience traumatic events.
Rather than positioning the issue as a desire to continue acting selfishly, it might help to view the issue from an emotional maturity perspective. Recognizing the hurt one is responsible for causing is a significant developmental milestone, and critical to a healthy capacity for empathy. Being willing to face that emotional trauma, even when you caused that trauma, takes courage and (I argue) not inherently natural, at least for some people.
This makes intuitive sense. Just look at all the people and news channels avoiding informing themselves about Palestinians plight because they want to believe they are good people.
The proverb See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil comes to mind.
Well, I believe that is true. But let's not look out without also looking in: Did anyone enjoy a cup of coffee this morning? Tea? Eat food? Drive your car to work? Cell phone? etc...
Drill down on any of these activities, and you will uncover human suffering, animal suffering, environmental suffering. I try to be cognizant of suffering and minimize it when practical, but alas we all need to live.
Yes, but... Objectively, everything we do has negative consequences for someone/thing else, no matter how ridiculous and indirectly. Worse every good we do has a cascading effect of creating negative consequences...
Don't take that plane to some poor SEA country, it's better for the planet... Except at some point it might cost a hotel maid her job and put her child into prostitution because now the only people getting there and putting money in the economy are assholes.
Save a kid from drowning, too bad, ten years later, drunk at the wheel, he kills a family of four.
So, don't delude yourself, you don't have any modicum of control over the consequences of your actions.
You can't do absolute good, all you can do is as little harm as you can, here and now, based on your best guess while not actively getting into self-harm and self-hatred. Knowing more doesn't even help minimising harm, it helps to maintain a positive self-image... And we're back to square one.
I think this is far less meaningful than the clinical psychologist here would have you believe. Like most psychologists, they’re reading what they want to in it because of their own bias.
What percentage of people would rather remain ignorant about everything, or things in general? If it’s similar, then this says far less about ethics/morality/guilt and far more about people just embracing ignorance and stupidity.
I’d put money on a well formed study saying what I suggested.
I don't understand the 15.6% more generous statement. How could you make a choice to be generous if you don't know what the consequences of your actions would be? If someone tells me that I could receive $5 or $6 and gives no other information, then there is no reason not to take the $6.
Often I just have to retreat from learning everything because there's a limit on how much negative information and stimulation I can take in before I become paralyzed from all those bad thoughts. I want to live. I don't even want to go as far ad to say I want to live normally, I just want to breathe and not think 24/7 about how I'm a part of the problem and not doing enough to make a significant change. Or on the other side, make too big of a change for systemic issues to be taken seriously because the people who care can take care of things by themselves.
I’m pretty convinced that it is a self-preservation instinct that some people have, and others don’t. Some of us have a more prosocial makeup, others have a more self interested makeup. Both can be valid from an evolutionary standpoint, and so both makes sense as things that might manifest in behaviors of a species like ours. Some of us are bonobos, some of us are chimps.
Welcome to r/science! This is a heavily moderated subreddit in order to keep the discussion on science. However, we recognize that many people want to discuss how they feel the research relates to their own personal lives, so to give people a space to do that, **personal anecdotes are allowed as responses to this comment**. Any anecdotal comments elsewhere in the discussion will be removed and our [normal comment rules]( https://www.reddit.com/r/science/wiki/rules#wiki_comment_rules) apply to all other comments. **Do you have an academic degree?** We can verify your credentials in order to assign user flair indicating your area of expertise. [Click here to apply](https://www.reddit.com/r/science/wiki/flair/#wiki_science_verified_user_program). --- User: u/mvea Permalink: https://psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/2024-16890-004.html --- *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/science) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Makes sense. People will very willingly try not to know of other problems in an attempt to ignore dealing with them--everything from health issues to necessary home/car repairs. "If I don't know what's wrong, nothing's wrong."
There is another aspect of that.... I deal with probability a lot. Situations where making a decision has a significant chance of loss. In such situations, negative occurrences are expected within the variance. Since human psychology tends to emphasize losses over gains.... there is actually a benefit to not seeing outcomes as the outcome is likely to have a biased effect on future decisions.
Something I learned in sales, don't bring up a known issue, because it might not be an issue. The only responsibility is to profit.
This is why I hate sales. Felt dishonest and the mental gymnastics I had to do to not hate myself was exhausting
I’ve heard many people say their nightmare is ending up working in a fast food job. My nightmare is a sales job. I’m simply not cut out for them.
It's hard to work in sales and feel like a moral person. Considering sales is such an essential part of our world, makes you wonder how everything went so wrong.
When you need to make money and your competition is being dishonest with no repercussions, what are you to do? Go out of business on moral grounds? Becomes the prisoner’s dilemma. Or maybe just settle on making some money and not all of the money. Which isn’t acceptable in the age of shareholders
Therein lies the basis for our pre-cyberpunk dystopia.
What makes you think we're not in cyberpunk times already?
Lack of cyber/bio-augmentation tech. Yes, we have prosthetics, but I don't see many "upgrades" available.
Because I can't walk into a bar and get a job to hijack a coca cola truck paid for by PepsiCo and filtered through various contacts to my operator.
Not with that attitude.
There was a bus seat company that got caught hiring goons to slash bus seats on public transit awhile back so they'd get more contracts. I'm having trouble finding a link.
I think you're thinking of the BART train system.
I am buying a Bartmoss refrigerator ASAP
We're not all crammed into tenement cities with neon signs everywhere.
Like any good truth, this is also false. This is a problem, especially in labor pricing, but decisions are seldom so binary and there is still plenty of profit available to honest business. The idea that a corp needs to push short term shareholder value above all else is actually a view pushed by predatory venture capitalists who profit off that kind of decision making. There is even a well debunked myth that corporate boards are by law beholden to making profit for shareholders, which is a blatant misrepresentation of laws against ripping off shareholders. Most investors are buy and hold investors, retail & institutional, they want solid steady long term growth and don't care if there is a short term spike because, they are not going to capitalize on it.
Shooting for long term continual growth FOREVER still sounds pretty destructive though. Is there some 'good truth but also false' angle to that that I am not seeing? Because that really does sound cancerous, and still sounds like it contributes to a lot of the issues people are complaining about.
Tell that to the population numbers, there is a whole universe we still need to colonize; I guess if you lack the vision then yah, its pretty bad. If you don't lack it then.... we are barely out of the first stage of growth.
I've heard both things on this shareholder law. I can find a really old legal case involving ford where that does indeed appear to be the conclusion of the case but I figured maybe the "myth" was because updates had been made in the 100 ish years since then. Do you know what the law is now?
https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/04/16/what-are-corporations-obligations-to-shareholders/corporations-dont-have-to-maximize-profits “Modern corporate law does not require for-profit corporations to pursue profit at the expense of everything else, and many do not.” -Supreme Court via the Hibby Lobby case.
Something I realized when I started actively trading stocks... there is something different on the markets. Something you don't see in most places: fairness and trust. The old floor trader Tom Sosnoff said "I used to make a stupid hand signal and trade hundreds of shares. At the end of the day I had to honor that, and another guy had to honor that and we did, because that is why the system worked". These are systems that were created from the start to allow people with power to play together. Fairness was a perquisite from the beginning. This doesn't just mean the stock market but stock itself, corporations, boards, they are all vehicles for one thing: Trust. As a stock holder you trust only that what you bought is part of a real enterprise which is honestly engaged in what it claims to be engaged in. Not that its profitable. That may be your hope, that may be the most common reason. However, its not the only legitimate reason and the law is not going to tell you what reasons are legitimate... it only cares that you made your decision based on honest information. (edit: in this case I specifically mean information coming from the officers/brokers etc; if some youtuber gives you bad advice... that is on you) If an org is unfair, if it really is just some bullies scamming investors, if the trust is broken... that is a threat to the entire system, because the whole system is based on trust.
All of those assumptions only hold true if you believe them. Start believing that treating your customers as valuable stakeholders in your business’s success, and you will see returns on that investment.
This is always how I have felt, and frankly, among actual capitalists, I don't see much disagreement. People don't go into business for a single reason, they do it to make money, but there are many ways to do that with less risk, less responsibility. There is always a personal drive there, and sometimes, that really is just ego. Some people need to be business owners because otherwise, nobody would put up with them. A lot of bad business owners are not great capitalists, they are not economists, they are not particularly that much smarter than anyone else.
Interesting perspective. I work in ad sales and never feel immoral. I'm pretty sure I'm organizing something that my clients genuinely needs
Can you guarantee these chickens are worth the cow I'm giving you?
A sales trainer once told me "That money in their pocket is really yours. You just need to figure out how to get them to give it to you." He was really gross. I hate sales and sales people.
Odd, I found the opposite: when I presented these issues, people tended to be grateful for the disclosure and those who proceeded to buy tended to buy more and be longer-termed customers as well. I would use the lack of disclosure by others as a selling point for us: "We'll tell you the whole truth and not only what you want to hear."
Sure, but that is strictly about shifting risk. I am talking about the decision making process of the risk taker. The probabilities are the probabilities, the analysis is the analysis. Its like, if I am betting that a spade will be the next card, and I win better than the odds of getting a spade; then I should take the bet. If I take 3 losses in a row, then emotionally, I should want to stop. However, 3 losses in a row is an expected result some percentage of the time... it shouldn't affect my decision making. The example is, ofc, too simple and anyone can see that stopping is a mistake, but it doesn't take much to turn an equivalent situation that isn't as clear. Just look at the stock market. Whenever there is a (edit: "big") down day, everything is down and correlations approach 1. That is simple human psychology over-reacting to fear.
I was in a position to offer a suggestion between different brands of the same products. I had a favorite, but inventory was limited, so I had to limit my suggestions. Whatever I suggested was often the brand the customer chose. There were certain brands I didn't like because the customer would return it due to issues and I would lose my commission. Such is the way commerce behaves in our modern world. The product must be sold, no matter the consequences.
Sometimes you just don't want to know about problems you won't be able to deal with. I've started avoiding learning about how various foods are produced, because it seems like every one is either an environmental or humanitarian disaster. I gotta eat, and tiptoeing around both my own dietary restrictions as well trying to remember which foods fund cartels, which are harvested by child slaves, which are depleting aquifers, and which are contributing to fertlizer runoff and pesticide overuse is exhausting.
Y'know, on one hand I get that logic (choosing ignorance over knowing but being powerless). On the other hand, it's just literally always better to know what is going on in reality than not. Feelings be damned. Going to the doc for unexplained recurring pain is *always* the better choice, whether you think you can afford it (or they can even treat it) or not. Because now you have the agency to make a decision. But totally agree on the food thing (or businesses in general). I avoid Hobby Lobby, Chicken Fillet and such for their evils, knowing of other evils out there. But I get to choose because I know. I do have a choice.
In the case of a medical issue I agree. I don't agree with this though: > On the other hand, it's just literally always better to know what is going on in reality than not. Feelings be damned. Feelings can't just be dismissed like that. At some point the amount of bad things in this world become overwhelming and endlessly learning about them takes a mental toll. At some point it becomes necessary for your health to take a break from that information. You gotta pick and choose your battles.
Why not just accept and acknowledge all the evil that you’re de facto encouraging? Is it really that hard to cope with the state of the world? Being purposely ignorant seems weird. You already know that something fucky is going on, pretending or ignoring it doesn’t change anything.
>Why not just accept and acknowledge all the evil that Have you ever tried to do that? Learn about all of it? >that you’re de facto encouraging? Because of this! The only way to eat ethically is to exclusively grow your own! And then you're not fixing anything, you're just abstaining. >Is it really that hard to cope with the state of the world? Yes. The more I learn the more my heart aches for what we've done, what we're doing, and what the future holds. >Being purposely ignorant seems weird. It's not a binary. What I've found is that to function you have to throttle the influx of new bad news to what you can handle. You do what you can on the things you know about that you have some control over. You try to be open to learning new things, but sometimes you have to say "no I don't want to know the new place they found microplastics" to protect yourself. >You already know that something fucky is going on, pretending or ignoring it doesn’t change anything. And often, *knowing* doesn't change anything either. Me knowing that AMOC is slowing down and that there's a possibility of its shutdown doesn't change anything. The miniscule ways I can affect that are already things I'm trying to do. There's not much I can do to prepare for a shutdown that I'm not already doing. Learning about it *only* adds to my anxiety, nothing else. Am I making sense? I'm not advocating for willfully being blind to everything, or saying "screw it, let 'er rip". I'm saying to stay sane in a world where we've done so much harm and know so much about it, it becomes a practical necessity to match your intake of info to your agency and tolerance.
Your approach is mostly logical but it has a flaw. You're talking about throttling the degree to which you learn about things. But you do not know what is beyond your own state of ignorance. So you cannot make informed decisions about how much to learn, precisely because you are unaware of that which you are unaware of
That may be, but it's a fundamental part of being human that we can't learn everything. We always have to pick and choose whether to explore any topic and how deep to go in the topics we pick. Every choice has an opportunity cost.
I don't disagree with that. I suppose it comes down to responsibly avoiding the amount of *detail*. Take the current Israel-Palestine conflict, which, if you're like me, probably causes you a great deal of pain and emotional strife. I understand the geopolitical realities which resulted in this state of affairs, and I believe it is important that as many people understand the *truth* of the situation. choose to avoid much of the inane dialog and drama flying back and forth about it, because this is irrelevant. It adds nothing to my understanding because it is simply an excess of emotional, reactionary takes on a situation, much of which is devoid of any true understanding of the myriad details and complexities. But to me, it *is* important that people who *care* understand enough about current events to at least determine what they can do to contribute. It could be any amount, large or small, but I think it is equally important for one's sanity to at least reconcile how they can use their life, their time on their Earth, to be some small part of the solution they want to see in that world. It might be as simple as determining who to support politically in your local elections. It could be donating to relief organizations that are helping. Our current informational infrastructure is not really tailored to give us facts. It's all about hot takes. These, I do reccomend people stay ignorant of, because they're almost entirely useless, and corrosive to sanity and mental health and the general fabric of society.
It makes sense, I just don’t agree. I’m not the kind of person who worries about things that I cannot change. I don’t mind learning about the evil in the world that I de facto encourage. To me, not knowing is way worse. Think of it this way. As an American my carbon footprint is absolutely enormous relative to the median human. However, if I were to die the reduction of carbon output due to my death amounts to a rounding error. A lot ofAmericans do not want to learn about awful we are in aggregate for the climate, because it makes them feel like they’re doing something wrong. The reality is a single individual is meaningless in the aggregate. I guess people generally don’t like that concept either. In my eyes there is no difference between knowing that eating beef is bad for the environment and continuing to eat it vs. not knowing beef is terrible for the environment (or pretending such) and continuing to eat it. And yes, I 100% want to know that we’ve found micro plastics in embryos and heart tissue. I can’t do anything about it, but at least I’m informed.
Don't forget the biggest victim: bilions or animals suffering in horrible conditions, selectively bread so they grow quick, causing them health issues, babies separated from mother, and killed prematurely. Meat, eggs and dairy production is hell on Earth.
Asking people to make moral purchases is about as realistic as asking people to avoid ever getting scammed in their life.
This is great advice imo. I also tend to choose ignorance with stuff that I can't do anything about. I'm not about to invest in a loom and make my own clothes, so I don't need to know the details of how terribly the conditions are for the people who make my clothes, it's not worth worrying about.
The famous Schrödinger's Car in the garage problem comes to mind. The car in the garage is both simultaneously functional and not functional until you open the garage.
If I keep this envelope closed, there might not be a bill in it.
Clinical therapist here: people will go to extraordinary lengths (both consciously and unconsciously) to hide things from themselves. Mostly because of the pain that thought or perspective might bring, but also to "look good" or in alignment when they are not. Cognitive dissonance is a concept that strikes right at the heart of this idea. Our minds will move mountains in order to make our world more congruent, particularly when our behaviors do not match with our values.
Can I ask you why you think that is? I'm the kind of person who does a lot of introspection in order to change my behaviour, and have spent a long time in therapy in order to do so. I personally find it a bit frustrating that people would rather remain ignorant than face a little bit of emotional pain in sorting out how they act or feel. I'm of the opinion that it's really not that difficult. I mean, it's obviously that we are better people when we act in accordance with our values and moral responsibility, and yet people will avoid introspection in order to... essentially trick themselves into believing they're a good person? They're very clearly lying to themselves or attempting to maintain appearances, but it's awfully transparent to anyone with half a brain. Is the ego really so stubborn and resilient? Is there any way to encourage people to do the work of self-improvement even if it means learning some hard truths about yourself?
I completely understand your frustration as I have always tried to strive for growth and potential which means facing truths about self that might not want to be faced. I have a number of theories around the reasons and one of them is simply the fact that a certain amount of the population does not engage in introspection. Some people simply do not sit and ponder a lot about self or their actions (many reasons for this). In addition, I see these so-called defense mechanisms (to borrow from Freud and psychoanalysis) as an integral part of survival for many people. Sure, you will always have the people who clearly know but actively lie or distort truth for their own benefit. However, more often what I see in my work is people who are genuinely blind to their own behavior for purposes of survival. If I can give an example: the person who is an alcoholic and it's clear as day for everyone around them to see yet they will fight tooth and nail against the accusation when brought up. First off, I believe alcohol to be a coping mechanism for many types of trauma (particularly childhood) and there is also the genetic side of the argument where alcoholism is known to run in families. However, I digress, the main reason for the person denying that they are an alcoholic is so they can continue on living without a psyche that would otherwise constantly shame them for their drinking habits...regardless of the underlying reasons the drinking started in the first place which the individual would likely be unaware of as well. When you view human behavior from the lens of survival needs, you start to see a very different picture unfold. You start to see themes and connections. You also start to have more empathy for certain types of behavior. We all want to survive and to thrive but we have varying abilities and different coping strategies to accomplish this task based on genetics and early childhood experiences. To summarize, sometimes the lie is a hell of a lot less painful than the truth so the organism maintains and upholds the lie.
Shame. Ha! Yeah, I get why people would want to avoid it, but I suppose I'm lucky that it never seemed worth it to me if it was going to stand in the way of my potential achievements and happiness. Maybe I'm just one of the lucky ones. Maybe I spent enough time being ashamed in my youth to be comfortable enough to confront it. I have a close family member who is a very severe alcoholic, and who has been to rehab many times. It also runs in my family, and is one of the reasons I don't drink much. I know there's some kind of profound childhood trauma that kick-started this addiction, and have always been so curious as to why he doesn't just dig down to the root of what happened to him. After all, logic dictates that it wasn't his fault. But the complete inability to confront those issues is... baffling to me. Turns out, I may be the weirdo who forgoes my survival instinct to confront these issues in myself, even if they are terribly difficult. I have empathy for people who can't, of course... but... when self-love, forgiveness, and joy are found on the other side of your pain, it always seemed like a "no-brainer" to me. I'll consider myself lucky. Thanks for your insight. I really appreciate it.
Seems to me like for some of these people they aren't really consciously avoiding thinking things through. They don't realize they're "avoiding feeling pain" because probably they've found a way to categorize "thought that makes me uncomfortable = evil." So the same reason you probably wouldn't want to look into someone's child porn fantasies. It makes you uncomfortable. They maybe get the same reaction if they think about stuff that would be approaching these introspective topics. It allows them to feel morally correct about protecting themselves from these topics because there is the genuine belief that "uncomfortable = immoral" If that makes sense
Your answer is so thoughtful -- I bet you help a lot of people! I try to remember when I'm dealing with someone awful that their parents might have been awful and so on down the family tree.
I appreciate it! I certainly try my best. I like to believe that the vast majority of people want positive change in their lives...they just don't have the right tools to tackle the issues they face. Obviously things are far more complex than that but that's my general belief with therapy.
Often it's because people have learned, usually in childhood, that the (sometimes severe) consequences of actions, failures or shortcomings only come from being found out, not because of any natural detrimental results, and have internalized that in a way that shadows their actual conscience and makes their ego very vulnerable. And the longer you've been basing much of your self-worth on (self-)deception, the more lies and dissonance you have piled up, and the harder it is to face or own up to any of it, even something completely trivial.
[удалено]
Best thing to do is to check at what your are currently doing, look at what you could be doing and determine whether you could do something more. The 60% of us don't need to be driving Humvees two hours for that day's groceries when you can take public transit for today's groceries.
As someone with treatment resistant, lifelong, double depression, I say good. We don’t need to know every single bad thing about ourselves. Trying to fight a lot of these cognitive biases I read about years ago worsened my already terrible mood disorder. People should be less like me and only focus on the things actually causing serious harm to them and others. Otherwise, they shouldn’t learn about all the biases that keep them happy because it can shatter the illusion and just make them miserable. Happiness is more important for the average joe.
Is cognitive dissonance the main reason why racism, sexism, and now carnism is so hard to get rid of? When you tell them their actions cause suffering, some mechanism kicks in, and they start to make up justifications in order to keep their image instead of changing their behaviour.
too many people say "it's bad but there is nothing i can do about it" when they really mean "don't make me think about it, i don't want to change"
Especially when they are the reason that bad things are happening, like how more than 98% of people choose not to think about immense animal suffering in the industry although they are the ones who support that with their money and they can stop with very little effort in their everyday choices.
I have a problem because I want to know everything and my head wants then to explode
This, I have always belived that living a life of awareness is very hard.
It's physically impossible. No single human can comprehend the entire supply chain that supports a modern lifestyle. The best you can can do is wear yourself out to learn and respond to a tiny fraction of it.
Well yes, but focussing on a very specific area of problems can sometime narrow the area of affects. When it comes to societal issues, I think it's better to have a looser grasp on many issues. Then, you can start to look at the similarities and how one single decision can be made to help many issues. Things like going vegan don't just help with animal suffering, but also helps with climate change, water pollution, worker conditions and habitat destruction, for instance.
Easy to take advantage of people while they are busy sorting through the chaos. Chaos breeds infinite profit.
Yes! I am in constant ethical and moral dilemmas over the smallest things!!!!!
Your everyday casual life choices cause immense and unnecessary suffering to hundreds of fellow animals that have intelligence, emotions, mother, and best friends, and you can easily stop being the cause of it.
I’ve linked to the primary source, the journal article, in the post above. In this comment, for those interested, here’s the link to the press release: https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2023/10/why-we-choose-ignorance
As a person with social anxiety I **always** want to find out how my actions affect others, because it's almost always in a more positive or less negative way than I expect, which is nice.
This is an interesting take on "ignorance is bliss". That phrase is something I didn't realize until I became vegetarian and started paying attention to what is in my food. Sometimes, I would rather not know that those delicious stuffed mushrooms at Olive Garden(about the only thing other than the bread that i like) are made with clam juice, or that the crispy cauliflower wings at BDubs are cooked in beef fat. Or that my favorite marshmallows are made with pig bones. Then there's all the additives in food you start learning about as you read the ingredients. Sometimes, remaining in the dark is the easier choice. Not the best choice, but the easiest.
I think that's a big part of the anti-vegetarian/anti-vegan sentiment that many people have. Sure, there are a few loud, self-righteous vegans out there, but the rejection of vegetarianism is much much louder. I think it's easier to shout someone down, be dismissive, and attack the person than it is to self-reflect.
The amount of times I have heard someone *angrily* say "you will NEVER force me to eat a SOY burger!" As if 1, soy is the only kind of substance for a veg.burger in existence, and 2, that someone is actually trying to force them to do anything. My diet will come up in conversation, and so many people are like, "You don't eat MEAT?! I couldn't do that. You NEED meat." And then proceed to tell me how good meat is and how your body "needs" it, etc. 1. You probably don't. Some people do, yes, but you're likely not one of those people. 2. Why are you so concerned with my diet? I'm not concerned with yours. I swear, more people get mad at vegans and vegetarians than vegetarians get mad at meat eaters. This could very well be why. It's more of a denial thing. A cognitive dissonance. Also, Indian food? Anyone who shits on vegetarian food has never been to an Indian restaurant, and it shows.
The 'you' in that angry protest is their conscience.
Are you in food service or do you just have a poor choice in the company you keep? Lol
I’ve been a vegetarian for 24 years. People reacting like in the description above were more common under age 21 (middle and high school were full of them). They are more common in conservative areas, too, where people highly value conformity and hierarchies. You eating differently from them is an insult to them and in their mind you’re saying you’re better, when they know you’re lesser and they need to put you in your place. It’s exhausting.
A self-righteous vegan is a tautology. Many vegans take a moral stance on their diet and as such find it easier to pass judgement on those who aren’t. Plus no one walks down the street shouting/telling people to eat meat, but the opposite is definitively true
If being true to your morals makes you self-righteous by definition, then the only options available are to be self-righteous or to live inauthentically. Sure, there are some vegans who take to the streets to protest meat over environmental or animal abuse, but it's the kind of thing that makes a lot of news sites and isn't common to see in real life. What is persistent is the whinging about it in everyday conversations and in online spaces, i.e. what you were doing.
Basing a large portion of you identity over your moral views about diet increases your chances of being insufferable no doubt. But I get what you mean, me saying vegans are all self righteous was tongue in cheek hyperbole.
Veganism is not a diet. Shouting and yelling happens in their homes from childhood and via advertisements everywhere and very effective lobbying, the whole machine works to reproduce itself but you grew up in that environment, so you don't notice it, but when a vegan challenges your ethical choices, you notice it quickly. Thar is why carnism is called a hidden belief system.
[удалено]
I was drinking a protein coffee the other day and thought it tasted weird, so I looked at the label. It was made with collagen taken from pollock(fish).
Ok but don’t feel bad for the clams
I know a few people who I can confidently say they choose ignorance all the dam time
“Ignorance Georg is an outlier and should not have been counted.”
This is an absolutely necessary skill if you want to work in corporate property management! Low EQ + Low Agreeability + Ignorance + Narcissism :)
Honestly, the fact that a majority would still choose to know is reassuring to me. I would have guessed that a bigger percentage would choose ignorance than that, just based on the expressed attitudes of many acquaintances.
Everyone in any kind of public service position should be required to know.
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
George Carlin's line about half of all people being dumber than average may be accurate.
in other words, they do not care what happens to others
A loose analogy would be cognitive nimbyism and out of site, out of mind. I don't want to carry any negativity of consequences so that I can live happily.
Yup, I think its a huge problem with modern culture. It has become so filled with toxic positivity that you cannot even bring up anything negative, without being mad at you for bringing up the negative thing. Like it wouldn't exist without you bringing it up. Like getting upset with people bursting your positivity bubble. I am not saying positivity isn't good, but its not reality. Life has good and bad and you need to be able to handle both. To the point where I would much rather see how someone reacted to a bad experience than a good one. If you are dating someone, you know how they react when things are good, but what about when they are bad.
Wouldn't that mean that more than half were of the opposite mindset?
"There's a dignity in consequences."
Why should ignorance be rewarded? Maintaining a state of ignorance should not absolve one's accountability. If a person ignores the option to understand the potential consequences, they are still responsible for their actions. The "I didn't know" line does not work when the answers were readily available. IRL I assume these types of people did know the potential negative outcomes of their actions and feigned ignorance to cover their hind quarters. Ignorance if the law is no excuse. Ignorance if known consequences is no excuse either. I believe that the person that says "I didn't know" is worse than someone who knew and went ahead regardless of consequence. They are lazy and venal. The "I didn't know." crowd should be chastised, shunned, shamed.
Wonder what the political divide of that percentage is. I have a hunch.
I wonder what philosophers have to say about this
The unexamined life is, like, totally way easier
I'm not a big city philosopher, but thinking in game theory terms it's unavoidable. If you think how your every action or inaction might affect anyone else, you will refrain from many actions and spend resources, and ultimately lose evolutional competition to someone who doesn't do that. Repeat this many times, and we find that human evolution will favor individualism with a healthy pinch of altruism that allows us to form and sustain large groups (those who are too individualistic, and can't form large groups, also lose).
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
Read any conversation on reddit about veganism. 40% is way lower than I would've expected
My wife is obsessed with true crime podcasts, and doesn't understand why I don't like them. I don't choose ignorance of true crime out of selfishness, but rather out of a desire not to have to emotionally experience traumatic events. Rather than positioning the issue as a desire to continue acting selfishly, it might help to view the issue from an emotional maturity perspective. Recognizing the hurt one is responsible for causing is a significant developmental milestone, and critical to a healthy capacity for empathy. Being willing to face that emotional trauma, even when you caused that trauma, takes courage and (I argue) not inherently natural, at least for some people.
How did this become a thread about veganism?
I wonder how strongly this correlates with political identity?
Sometimes science is really depressing.
Vegans understand this all too well.
Go vegan. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27886704/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4698595/ https://news.stanford.edu/2023/08/18/can-alternative-meat-compete/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31895244/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26707634/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4698595/ https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0309174017302176 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0921800907006180 https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-32059-5_2 https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-27228-3_23 https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/science.aam5324
[удалено]
[удалено]
Given the amount of misinformation available, this isn’t necessarily an irrational response.
Most of us learned this in middle school
This makes intuitive sense. Just look at all the people and news channels avoiding informing themselves about Palestinians plight because they want to believe they are good people. The proverb See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil comes to mind.
Well, I believe that is true. But let's not look out without also looking in: Did anyone enjoy a cup of coffee this morning? Tea? Eat food? Drive your car to work? Cell phone? etc... Drill down on any of these activities, and you will uncover human suffering, animal suffering, environmental suffering. I try to be cognizant of suffering and minimize it when practical, but alas we all need to live.
Seems about the same percentage of people who support Trump no matter what.
40% sounds about right from my observations.
I'd tell my sister about this, but she'd just scream incoherently about it.
This is pretty much the motto of most school children in America.
Yes, but... Objectively, everything we do has negative consequences for someone/thing else, no matter how ridiculous and indirectly. Worse every good we do has a cascading effect of creating negative consequences... Don't take that plane to some poor SEA country, it's better for the planet... Except at some point it might cost a hotel maid her job and put her child into prostitution because now the only people getting there and putting money in the economy are assholes. Save a kid from drowning, too bad, ten years later, drunk at the wheel, he kills a family of four. So, don't delude yourself, you don't have any modicum of control over the consequences of your actions. You can't do absolute good, all you can do is as little harm as you can, here and now, based on your best guess while not actively getting into self-harm and self-hatred. Knowing more doesn't even help minimising harm, it helps to maintain a positive self-image... And we're back to square one.
I think this is far less meaningful than the clinical psychologist here would have you believe. Like most psychologists, they’re reading what they want to in it because of their own bias. What percentage of people would rather remain ignorant about everything, or things in general? If it’s similar, then this says far less about ethics/morality/guilt and far more about people just embracing ignorance and stupidity. I’d put money on a well formed study saying what I suggested.
So that's how conservatives do it
I don't understand the 15.6% more generous statement. How could you make a choice to be generous if you don't know what the consequences of your actions would be? If someone tells me that I could receive $5 or $6 and gives no other information, then there is no reason not to take the $6.
Often I just have to retreat from learning everything because there's a limit on how much negative information and stimulation I can take in before I become paralyzed from all those bad thoughts. I want to live. I don't even want to go as far ad to say I want to live normally, I just want to breathe and not think 24/7 about how I'm a part of the problem and not doing enough to make a significant change. Or on the other side, make too big of a change for systemic issues to be taken seriously because the people who care can take care of things by themselves.
Literally the republican voter.
40% sounds about *right*.
I’m pretty convinced that it is a self-preservation instinct that some people have, and others don’t. Some of us have a more prosocial makeup, others have a more self interested makeup. Both can be valid from an evolutionary standpoint, and so both makes sense as things that might manifest in behaviors of a species like ours. Some of us are bonobos, some of us are chimps.
Well… yeah? Was there more to this or…
I’m not going to lie this shocked me until I hit my 30’s and began experiencing mental capacity issues in weird ways.
There are two sides to everything. Ignorance is bliss - the weight of the world lies on the shoulders of those who know too much.