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posted by Fnord666 on Saturday April 01 2017, @12:39AM   Printer-friendly
from the I'll-tell-you-tomorrow dept.

Gullibility occurs because we have evolved to deal with information using two fundamentally different systems, according to Nobel Prize winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman.

System 1 thinking is fast, automatic, intuitive, uncritical and promotes accepting anecdotal and personal information as true. This was a useful and adaptive processing strategy in our ancestral environment of small, face-to-face groups, where trust was based on life-long relationships. However, this kind of thinking can be dangerous in the anonymous online world.

System 2 thinking is a much more recent human achievement; it is slow, analytical, rational and effortful, and leads to the thorough evaluation of incoming information.

While all humans use both intuitive and analytic thinking, system 2 thinking is the method of science, and is the best available antidote to gullibility. So, education tends to reduce gullibility and those who receive scientific training in critical, sceptical thinking also tend to be less gullible and less easily manipulated.

Differences in trust can also influence gullibility. This may be related to early childhood experiences, with the idea that trust in infancy sets the stage for a lifelong expectation the world will be a good and pleasant place to live.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 01 2017, @10:14AM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 01 2017, @10:14AM (#487558)

    Easy now comrade. Those on the right do not understand that we on the glorious left are more successful than they will ever be. What conservative government could ever achieve the financial success of Cuba or Venezuela? What right wing government could ever hope to achieve the successes of the USSR, China and Cambodia? All the time we associate the right with the nazi holocaust while we continue using the language of tolerance to prime people for mass extermination and collective oligarchy. Stupid conservatives will never even call us out!

  • (Score: 2) by aristarchus on Saturday April 01 2017, @10:21AM (2 children)

    by aristarchus (2645) on Saturday April 01 2017, @10:21AM (#487562) Journal

    Gullible? Criminally stupid? Can you imagine what would have been the death toll in the Soviet Union, during the Great Depression, if the Czar had still been in power? Do you not realize the great lack of progress made by Franco's Spain (he's still dead, by the way.) Yes, you could try to say something about the left, using examples that more or less are under a war-time economy because of the nasty and vicious and stupid, and just plain mean, persecution by the right wing Capitalist class. But that would mean that you are gullible. If you are not, you are not being paid enough!

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 01 2017, @10:54AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 01 2017, @10:54AM (#487573)

      Easy comrade. We will shortly rise and cull [wikipedia.org] the plain mean oppressors of the proletariat. [spectator.co.uk]

    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday April 01 2017, @02:37PM

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday April 01 2017, @02:37PM (#487625) Journal

      Can you imagine what would have been the death toll in the Soviet Union, during the Great Depression, if the Czar had still been in power?

      Without the Holodomor [wikipedia.org] killing at least a couple million Ukrainians? Lower death toll.

  • (Score: 2) by sjames on Saturday April 01 2017, @01:53PM

    by sjames (2882) on Saturday April 01 2017, @01:53PM (#487612) Journal

    Yep. We all know that you can drown in too much water. So no water for anyone ever again! That's the key to solving our drowning problem.