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posted ago by SmiggieBalls ago by SmiggieBalls +67 / -4

I've noted something among people who seem to be on the left side of the IQ spectrum, regardless of political persuasion, and that is being unable to hold the ideas of exceptions and rules in their minds simultaneously. Basically imagine a scenario where X is true 99% of the time, but Y is true 1% of the time. There are a lot of people who will see the 99% and then firmly believe "X is true all of the time" while there are others who will see the 1% and firmly believe "X cannot be true because Y is possible". They wrap themselves up in the emotional satisfaction of being entirely committed to 'their side' of the issue, to the point where they cannot even visualize the inverse. Take women in politics or in emergency services as an example. It is a provable fact that the vast majority of women are more easily influenced by emotional appeals or are willing to fall into groupthink in order to stay in the current in-group. Likewise it is a provable fact that the vast majority of women are physically less capable then men. Where we see this exception/rule vs. rule/exception play out is when we run into Imp types on one side where they believe all, 100.00% of women fit that mold exactly, or the more common "well I know a woman who is really strong or really competent, therefore we should let them all do it".

They don't seem to be able to think on a high enough level to formulate "yes, this result is so likely as to be functionally universal, to the point where it's not worth risking at all, but it is technically possible that another result could happen".

I hand you a burlap sack with 100 scorpions inside and tell you to reach in and grab the one that I pulled the stinger off of and if you get the right one, I'll give you a thousand dollars. A bad deal for you overall, but it is still technically possible to win. The real crux of the issue is how many stingers do I have to pull off to make you willing to do it? What if it's 90-10? 80-20? 70-30? And so on.

You an probably think out what you'd do, and what the ratio would have to be in order for you to take that risk, if that were a real situation I put you in. But I find when it's more detached ideas like "should women be allowed to serve in public office" a huge portion of people aren't able to even think like that. To them it's either "no, all women should be banned because none of them can do it" or "of course they should, women are capable of being just as reasonable and competent as a man". When the answer a lot closer to the truth is "no, women should be banned because most of them can't do it and it's not worth the risk. But it is still technically possible to find a rare one who can."

But that's just an off the cuff example, not the main point. The main point is that there seem to be a lot of people are more willing to emotionally commit to being fully on board with something, even if it means denying reality, to the point where they can't admit or even understand that while the result of the decision may be right, the facts of how they arrived at it could be wrong.

Do I want to live in a black neighborhood? No. Well how many does it take to be considered a "black neighborhood"? 1? A whole family? three families? And so on. Bring this up and it probably won't take long to run into either "All blacks are _____" or a "Race isn't a real factor, it's purely character" True Believer. I think the foundation of that is that their brain can't work hard enough to accept both rules and exceptions, and that both can exist for good reasons at the same time. They default to lower level simplistic thinking which is really just feeling and go full in on that because it feels good.

Anyways, just a random thought I had. Though I'm curious if anyone has noticed this, or if you disagree.