Why are people so oblivious to how the world works?

[Kharakov]

The mention of food got the brain into the 'pleasure of food, it's time to eat mode' and the thoughts flowed from that stimulus. Pavlov, et al.

Or: the devil.

Simply apply Ockham's razor. End of story.

Ok. I glance at this damn thread, look at this post, feel hungry, and my dad (at my parent's until tomorrow) says "what do you want for dinner?".

I blame Perspicuo.

 

[Perspicuo]

 

[Angry Floof]

The two points that come to my mind are how our brains work and the lack of cultural value on critical thinking skills.

Our brains evolved in small groups for far longer than we've had this tribe of seven billion, made so not just by population growth but by information and travel technology. You truly have to live in very remote areas or places with little or no technology to avoid this reality or to be unaware of the world at large. But it's cool because brains' top skill is adaptation, plasticity. It might hurt a lot in the process, and the fearful among us might make things very difficult in the transition, but our brains will adapt eventually and expand our monkeysphere to a global awareness of our human family rather than just a few hundred while the other billions are regarded as cardboard cutouts, not really real humans that need to be considered "us." (Provided we survive long enough.)

Although excellent tools of thought have been at our disposal for thousands of years, critical thinking and self-questioning don't seem to be high on the list of values in any culture I know of. Most people don't really learn about it until college, if they do go to college.

In my most idealist fantasy, I see children everywhere at a very young age learning critical thinking, mindfulness, self-honesty, cosmic view, cultivation of compassion, and other practices that empower them to rely on their own conscience first, with taught traditions being of secondary influence and open to questioning. Imagine preschoolers everywhere learning to attend to their own emotions and reactions and not just having their emotions and reactions managed by grownups all the time. They wouldn't have to wait until adolescence to learn responsibility, or reach adulthood just to get tossed out into a complex world without sufficient skills to handle it all. With simple techniques and practices, from a young age, they'd be less reactionary, they would better deal with problems and emotions, they'd be less likely to develop problematic defense mechanisms, they'd be less afraid of the world, they'd be open to new experiences, they'd think more slowly and methodically, and they'd be more aware and present in any situation, and they'd be more compassionate and altruistic. The practices are easy and simple with excellent return on investment. They're now being used here and there in schools and day care centers, and I hope the trend explodes around the world.

 

[Perspicuo]

The two points that come to my mind are how our brains work and the lack of cultural value on critical thinking skills.

People do value "being smart".

They just don't know what it is. We call it "critical thinking" because we're a bit more informed. Common folk make fun of "the idiot", which is a role that circulates among members of the group. The idiot is one who defies conventional "wisdom": the one how is easily duped into bad business, the gay person, the tomboy, etc. They can't tell the difference between the social control they have become the meme-vectors of, and actual smarts.

Smart for the species means the ability to avoid noxious stimuli. Only. Seeing things as they really are is not part of the hardwiring. "Smart" means avoiding punishment.

That explains everything...

 

[rousseau]

Why are people so oblivious to how the world works?

This statement would be an assumption from your personal perspective? I am not aware of any specific research along those lines and I might counter with the observation that the world has always worked in much the same manner. It is the pace of technological change which is the current driver and stratification factor. Historically, it has been geography, resources and the ability of various individuals and groups to control how those resources are made available to the rest of the population.

We are a far greater sized population now and we are placing ever greater pressures on the ability of this planet to provide for us all. We are no different than any other species that has expanded beyond the carrying capacity of it's habitat. How cognizant an individual might be of this observation will greatly depend upon the circumstances of where they were born and the opportunities that have been made available to them.

As far as logical processing skills go, most species will opt for the path of least resistance and humans are no different. For that reason, most individuals will learn what skills they can to survive and possibly thrive, yet to actively lobby for change can be costly to the individual, at all levels, even in danger for their life in many countries.

Individually, I think many are aware of our precarious point in history. Collectively, we are largely still in denial.

Interesting to see some of the same sentiments reflected across many of the posts in this thread.

One of the reasons I thought UTR's post was so excellent was due to the framing of the issue as an energy problem. Not only is life tough enough for most people as is, but we also evolved in a world where energy and resources were scarce, and so our natural behaviour should be oriented in a way that conserves energy, rather than spends it on pursuits with a perceived loose coupling to survival.

Then getting back to the 'tough' point, many people out there even today still don't have the energy or resources to both maintain their life as well as acquire wisdom. The fact that any of us can post in this thread is a sign either of privilege, or a lot of luck.

So while there are many sub-issues and explanations, I feel like the 'energy' issue is the root of the problem.

 

[ryan]

With great knowledge comes great responsibility. Sorry but compassionate people who simply have more useful knowledge will become parents to the rest of the world. Vaccinate your kids because God isn't going to take away the diseases, there is manmade global warming, honey will not cure your cancer, if you don't stop eating junk food you will be sick, etc.

The urge to help people intellectually is probably why parts of the world never fell too far behind.

 

[Bronzeage]

Your question presumes someone knows the world works. Unless you are prepared to state how the world works and then compare to other's idea of the thing, we don't have much to go on.

 

[rousseau]

Your question presumes someone knows the world works. Unless you are prepared to state how the world works and then compare to other's idea of the thing, we don't have much to go on.

I'm confident that I know *a lot* more about how my environment operates than a great deal of the people I've known in my life. I don't know everything, but I know a lot. People that know a lot about the world are rare, people that know just enough about the world are common. The question is: why are there more of the latter than the former.

 

[Bronzeage]

Your question presumes someone knows the world works. Unless you are prepared to state how the world works and then compare to other's idea of the thing, we don't have much to go on.

I'm confident that I know *a lot* more about how my environment operates than a great deal of the people I've known in my life. I don't know everything, but I know a lot. People that know a lot about the world are rare, people that know just enough about the world are common. The question is: why are there more of the latter than the former.

I'm sure you know enough about your environment to operate efficiently, but is your life better than someone who knows just enough? As the philosopher Chef of South Park said, "Don't make me no never mind, long as my rent is paid on time."
The answer to your question is obvious. People worry about what is important to themselves, not what is important to you.

 

[rousseau]

I'm confident that I know *a lot* more about how my environment operates than a great deal of the people I've known in my life. I don't know everything, but I know a lot. People that know a lot about the world are rare, people that know just enough about the world are common. The question is: why are there more of the latter than the former.

I'm sure you know enough about your environment to operate efficiently, but is your life better than someone who knows just enough? As the philosopher Chef of South Park said, "Don't make me no never mind, long as my rent is paid on time."
The answer to your question is obvious. People worry about what is important to themselves, not what is important to you.

That knowledge isn't important to most people is obvious, that's the assumption I'm making when posing the question. The question is: why?

That's the equivalent of saying person [x] doesn't eat vegetables because they don't like them. That much is obvious, but we want underlying information, which has pretty much been covered already.

 

[Bronzeage]

I'm sure you know enough about your environment to operate efficiently, but is your life better than someone who knows just enough? As the philosopher Chef of South Park said, "Don't make me no never mind, long as my rent is paid on time."
The answer to your question is obvious. People worry about what is important to themselves, not what is important to you.

That knowledge isn't important to most people is obvious, that's the assumption I'm making when posing the question. The question is: why?

That's the equivalent of saying person [x] doesn't eat vegetables because they don't like them. That much is obvious, but we want underlying information, which has pretty much been covered already.

It is a matter of efficiency. Some people do not see a reason to ponder things over which they have no control and have little effect on their lives.

On the other hand, such a person might wonder why you expend mental energy on matters which appear superfluous to themselves. Many years ago there was a movie titled "White Palace" featuring Susan Sarandon, who plays the cashier at a hamburger stand. She is invited to dinner with an upper middle class liberal family and they ask her about politics. She replies,

It doesn't make any difference to me... who's in the goddamn White House. Merle Haggard could be made president, and I'll be in Shit City. I'll still be choking on burger grease.

To answer your question directly, as to why, they have other things to attend.

 

[rousseau]

That knowledge isn't important to most people is obvious, that's the assumption I'm making when posing the question. The question is: why?

That's the equivalent of saying person [x] doesn't eat vegetables because they don't like them. That much is obvious, but we want underlying information, which has pretty much been covered already.

It is a matter of efficiency. Some people do not see a reason to ponder things over which they have no control and have little effect on their lives.

On the other hand, such a person might wonder why you expend mental energy on matters which appear superfluous to themselves. Many years ago there was a movie titled "White Palace" featuring Susan Sarandon, who plays the cashier at a hamburger stand. She is invited to dinner with an upper middle class liberal family and they ask her about politics. She replies,

It doesn't make any difference to me... who's in the goddamn White House. Merle Haggard could be made president, and I'll be in Shit City. I'll still be choking on burger grease.

To answer your question directly, as to why, they have other things to attend.

Yes, that's more or less what I said a few posts above.

I'm confident that I know *a lot* more about how my environment operates than a great deal of the people I've known in my life. I don't know everything, but I know a lot. People that know a lot about the world are rare, people that know just enough about the world are common. The question is: why are there more of the latter than the former.

I'm sure you know enough about your environment to operate efficiently, but is your life better than someone who knows just enough? As the philosopher Chef of South Park said, "Don't make me no never mind, long as my rent is paid on time." The answer to your question is obvious. People worry about what is important to themselves, not what is important to you.

As for this, it's another conversation, but it's a false dichotomy. The options aren't: wise and depressed, or ignorant but blissed.

 

[Bronzeage]

[...

As for this, it's another conversation, but it's a false dichotomy. The options aren't: wise and depressed, or ignorant but blissed.

Wise and depressed, or ignorant but blissed are your judgments on other people. You think they should be more like you and ask why they are not. All you need is a sermon and you can be an evangelist.

 

[rousseau]

[...

As for this, it's another conversation, but it's a false dichotomy. The options aren't: wise and depressed, or ignorant but blissed.

Wise and depressed, or ignorant but blissed are your judgments on other people. You think they should be more like you and ask why they are not. All you need is a sermon and you can be an evangelist.

No, I don't think people should be more like me, I asked why people are not a certain way because it's a relevant question in a world where the majority of people are living in a shroud of darkness. I don't expect that people should become more wise, I was curious in understanding why they aren't. This thread seems to have come to the appropriate conclusion.

The conversation we're having now is an interesting one: are people who are less wise happier than people who are more wise. I think that's a false dichotomy. If you're curious to know why, feel free to ask.

 

[Bronzeage]

Wise and depressed, or ignorant but blissed are your judgments on other people. You think they should be more like you and ask why they are not. All you need is a sermon and you can be an evangelist.

No, I don't think people should be more like me, I asked why people are not a certain way because it's a relevant question in a world where the majority of people are living in a shroud of darkness. I don't expect that people should become more wise, I was curious in understanding why they aren't. This thread seems to have come to the appropriate conclusion.

The conversation we're having now is an interesting one: are people who are less wise happier than people who are more wise. I think that's a false dichotomy. If you're curious to know why, feel free to ask.

I thought the conversation was about why people who are more aware of the way the world works are better off than those who are less aware. If you think there is no advantage to being more aware, we may as well discuss the significance of Coke vs. Pepsi.

You keep throwing in these unsupported judgments about the population, such as "shroud of darkness." Do you have more data than your own observations?

 

[rousseau]

No, I don't think people should be more like me, I asked why people are not a certain way because it's a relevant question in a world where the majority of people are living in a shroud of darkness. I don't expect that people should become more wise, I was curious in understanding why they aren't. This thread seems to have come to the appropriate conclusion.

The conversation we're having now is an interesting one: are people who are less wise happier than people who are more wise. I think that's a false dichotomy. If you're curious to know why, feel free to ask.

I thought the conversation was about why people who are more aware of the way the world works are better off than those who are less aware. If you think there is no advantage to being more aware, we may as well discuss the significance of Coke vs. Pepsi.

You keep throwing in these unsupported judgments about the population, such as "shroud of darkness." Do you have more data than your own observations?

The original conversation was making no value judgements, at least that wasn't my intent.

As for the dichotomy of happiness you've introduced, there are pros and cons to both being less or more aware. In general, being more knowledgeable and wise usually means one is more capable of navigating a successful life, will have better relationships, have deeper experiences, and so on. On the side of that, however, may be much deeper seeds of doubt. On the other hand, someone who lacks much wisdom may experience both joy and doubt in the same way, but to a lesser degree of severity.

The dichotomy is a false one because anxiety isn't mutually exclusive to either group. Problems and anxiety are human things, it's how we're built. The question is what the problems are. All that said, I've never made a claim that one is better than the other, I was curious about the mechanics, not the consequences.

 

[Bronzeage]

I thought the conversation was about why people who are more aware of the way the world works are better off than those who are less aware. If you think there is no advantage to being more aware, we may as well discuss the significance of Coke vs. Pepsi.

You keep throwing in these unsupported judgments about the population, such as "shroud of darkness." Do you have more data than your own observations?

The original conversation was making no value judgements, at least that wasn't my intent.

As for the dichotomy of happiness you've introduced, there are pros and cons to both being less or more aware. In general, being more knowledgeable and wise usually means one is more capable of navigating a successful life, will have better relationships, have deeper experiences, and so on. On the side of that, however, may be much deeper seeds of doubt. On the other hand, someone who lacks much wisdom may experience both joy and doubt in the same way, but to a lesser degree of severity.

The dichotomy is a false one because anxiety isn't mutually exclusive to either group. Problems and anxiety are human things, it's how we're built. The question is what the problems are. All that said, I've never made a claim that one is better than the other, I was curious about the mechanics, not the consequences.

On what do you base your claim that a majority of people live in a shroud of darkness?

If we can determine what this shroud is, maybe we can determine how it got there, and how it works. That's a mechanical question.

 

[Speakpigeon]

the majority of people are living in a shroud of darkness.

You keep throwing in these unsupported judgments about the population, such as "shroud of darkness." Do you have more data than your own observations?

Data is difficult to get because most people live in a shroud of darkness.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

I wanted to stage that question, and also propose my own answer. I think there are a few reasons why most people are oblivious:

1) We start out as a blank slate and need to be given wisdom

- When we're born we literally know nothing, and need to be educated on how the world works. Given that the vast majority of education systems in the world aren't that great, and higher education almost always has massive entry barriers, most people are simply not exposed to wisdom, and so don't have the wisdom to.. well.. seek out more wisdom

2) The world is incredibly complex, and difficult to understand

- Have you ever tried to understand economics? It seems that a lot of economists barely understand economics. And that's just one field amongst a plethora of other fields, all with a huge number of sub-disciplines. Even if you were to dedicate all of the time you had in your life where you weren't just eating, sleeping, exercising, and going to the bathroom, to learning about a field, it might take you multiple years before you gain any type of wisdom about that field, and then you have hundreds of other disciplines left to learn

3) Many people have weak logical skills

- Not only is the world almost limitlessly complex, a vast majority of people don't seem to have the brain power necessary to map out greater frameworks about the world out of the plethora of facts that come at them. They're all smart enough to thrive, sure, but getting beyond knowing how to type, fill up a car with gas, and budget in groceries is a very slow process.

4) Caring about knowledge isn't 'normal'

- All over media we see images of sex, alcohol, whatever, but rarely do we see a nerdy guy with glasses reading a book. I don't know about anyone else, but when I was growing up I don't recall a lot of people I knew telling me they were just going to 'stay in and read' over the weekend. Everyone would have given them a pretty weird look.

5) Our ego usually takes a stance against criticism

- Ever tried to give someone advice? Sometimes it works, usually you find yourself in a defensive argument as whoever you're talking to tries to save face. What could have been a great learning moment and transfer of knowledge, becomes another person still being shrouded in darkness.

Those are a few barriers that I can think of. Is there anything else to add?

Yes. You're wrong.

The world is no much more complex than it ever was. What is definitely (increasingly) complex is modern society, i.e. it's gone up and up broadly since the beginning of tool making and the apparition of the first human language. However, this is not a problem for the species since social organisation has so far been able to adjust itself to deal with this increase in complexity.

Education as it is today may not be what most people would like for their own kids but it is still able to cope with the demands of this complex society in terms of highly skilled and specialised workers. So not really a problem either.

Most of us have broadly the same logical skills (that's my personal belief). What we don't have is the brainpower necessary to process complex processes, deal with stress and conflicting demands, and agonise over difficult moral choices. Brainpower is a physiological issue, though, not a logical one. Feed and train people properly and give them the apropriate life-style and they will demonstrate they have essentially the same logic and logical skills as the best among us.

Caring about knowledge requires brainpower too. Not an issue we wouldn't know how to solve if society really wanted to.

Ego is only a problem with people who are mentally sick, which may be just stress but also includes serious mental conditions. And of course most of the people you are talking about are precisely those with some, or even an accumulation, of mental issues.

So, if the problem was just a question of how to do it it could be solved if we wanted to. But we don't want to (collectively) and that's the real difficulty.

However, to go back to your question, human beings broadly prioritise problems depending on the problems themselves and on the resources available to them. The way the world works is way down in terms of priority for most people because they effectively have better things to do, not least attend to those problems that are closer in their environment and that they think they will be able to solve and which if solved would therefore be more likely to improve their lives more quickly. Our ancestors did just that and no more and that's why we exist at all now. Consideration for knowledge is always present but just increased in scope and extent with the more complex organisation of societies, in particular allowing intellectuals to spend their day without such anxieties as procuring food and shelter.

Society being essentially an organised body of human beings, we shouldn't wonder that people do not get to do exactly all the same things. For the time being at least, it suits society, somehow, that most people do not get to care much about knowledge and how the world works. But the same people, if they had been taken at a sufficiently young age, would have been able to do just that, possibly for some of them better than how it's done now. In essence, people are effectively reduced to being the component parts of society and it just happens that society does work with a big chunk of its population reduced to low-skilled jobs, limited and often very limited intellectual capabilities, short-span attention, low self-esteem, bad and often very bad life-style, and poor opportunities across the board. One could say that it is somewhat unfortunate that society should be able to work like this but it's a fact that it works well enough, at least for the time being, that there doesn't seem to be any real impetus to change the situation.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

Why am I thinking about a bacon cheeseburger melt on toasted ciabatta, with fresh lettuce, tomato, red onion, ketchup, light mustard w/horseradish and mayo?

Could I suggest a bottle of French red wine to go with it? A burgundy perhaps?
EB