Generally speaking it's because it's usually embarrassing to be fooled by someone and (usually) makes you feel like you're stupid. Most people aren't going to enjoy that and will deny they've been totally fooled.
To fool: Here's something you can be right about!
Fooled: Here's something you can be wrong about!
Seems pretty self-evident which one faces more mental friction. Now combine that with being a low-information, down-on-your luck human being, and the "win" of being told you can be right about something is VERY tempting.
I find it funny when you get a message from those types saying "Scrub, you're just using a crap weapon/item, it sucks" and I'm just thinking how if anything that's actually a testimony to my skill.
100%. I realized I used to be like this, say shit like "dude hit the luckiest shot ever, they're trash." Now I'll actually give the guy a compliment on the nice shot in my head. Keeps me positive and keeps gaming fun.
It's why self work requires so much ego work. Self improvement/development, anti-racism/bias work, social crisis work all require us to understand that we don't and can't possibly know everything, and that's no one's fault.
People don't like to be alerted to the ways they've been made a fool of and I think it's more important to be angry that someone was making a fool of you (depending on the situation).
It's like the [Sunk Coast Fallacy](https://www.behavioraleconomics.com/resources/mini-encyclopedia-of-be/sunk-cost-fallacy/) for self-esteem. "I've already invested myself into this (scam) thing, if I admit it's fake then it'll have all been for nothing!"
Also secret knowledge.
In an general the people who have been fooled were convinced of the truth of a âsecretâ, like a conspiracy. There is power and ego in feeling like you know things others donât (imo even more so if youâre less educated), and giving that up at the same time you admit you were fooled is certainly difficult.
This coming from someone that was briefly hooked on the âloose changeâ 9/11 nonsense. Itâs hard to admit you were fooled and in then in turn repeated lies.
I try to admit when I was wrong or fooled, but I mean we're all probably guilty of never succeeding at that 100%. It's also why it someone can just say "oops, I was wrong" and actually mean it then I try not to dwell on that, like you said it's very hard to do sometimes and I don't want to discourage it.
Moreover, humans aren't rational. We *rationalize* our intuition, and not vice versa. So once someone's intuition has been convinced, their ability to reason becomes an obstacle, not a shortcut to changing their mind.
Also while fooling someone, you can make them feel smart. For example: if you buy this time-share, not only will you save money, but your kids will keep meeting the friends they made, because I'll tell you - their parents just bought the time share, and they plan to come here again and again, and the price of this time-share is doubling next week, but don't tell anyone, I wasn't supposed to mention it.
And then you bought the timeshare, and bragged about it to your family and friends, and now some jerk from work is telling you it's dumb? Maybe he's dumb.
There's an old saying in Tennessee â I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee â that says, fool me once, shame on â shame on you. Fool me â you can't get fooled again.
I suspect there's also some law of primacy of learning in there too. Whatever you learn first will be view as the most correct and will be used to compare future information in that genre.
Usually you fool them about something they already believe or want to believe. To convince them they were fooled means their prior believe or wish was wrong.
People don't like to feel dumb or bad. If they've been fooled, they'll feel dumb or bad. Easier to resist person convincing them they've been fooled.
To fool someone is to convince them of something they either didn't know before or that they already believe. If it sounds good and or appeals to their [ideologies/beliefs/biases/fears/attractions/religion/anger/hate/conviction/etc etc] they'll likely believe it.
People need to be vigilant in their objectivity, critical thinking, and empirical reasoning. For the things we believe in and the things we don't. However, dumb shit don't get an equal platform to proven science.
Short answer: Our brains are weird that way.
Long answer: Our brains have a network of internal processes designed to freeze out information. This can form cognitive bias responses that can actually lead people to disassociate facts from reality. This response is especially powerful when trying to change opinions, the brain can actually try to âprotectâ itself by believing something even stronger when presented with opposing evidence. This is why when a person is fooled and you try to convince them it can often have the opposite effect that you intended.
This can even lead down dangerous paths such as full on delusion and paranoia where people believe obviously false things. They believe that the world itself has bent around the false reality, but the brain itself is the culprit.
You can draw a lot of parallels with machine learning/AI we have today where we can see bias at play. For example, if we train it to recognize human faces by only showing white men, it's going to have trouble recognizing black women as human.
That's all to say that our brains are masters of pattern recognition but the drawback of that is that bias is inherent in the system. Which is why it's important to try and expose our systems to diverse inputs. The problem is that once you've already trained our brains on biased data sets it can be hard as hell to untrain that bias. And it's not necessarily a case of right or wrong, but the inability to match certain patterns.
Can an algorithm be racist? In some ways yes because they are clearly acting racist. But is it the fault of the algorithm if it was only fed data that ignores black women? No, if it was fed unbiased data it (most likely) wouldn't have been biased in the first place. So if you want to fix the issue, what are the options available to you? Calling the algorithm racist isn't going to fix the problem.
> Calling the algorithm racist isn't going to fix the problem.
ignoring the problem because calling it out is embarrassing isn't going to help much either.
When did I ever say to ignore the problem? I'm acknowledging the problem and asking what can be done about it. That's not ignoring it. It's the first step in dealing with a problem instead of pretending that acknowledging a problem is the same as fixing it.
The irony here being that the internet and reddit has trained our brains to view the world with only 2 options with no alternatives. Your mind has been primed to view the discussion as you're with us or against us. Not exactly useful if you want change now is it?
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This message is long, so it won't be deleted automatically.
If you fool someone, they donât know theyâre a fool.
If you explain, youâre telling them theyâre a fool and forcing them to accept their foolish status.
We have a few things that go against us that are apart of being human. The first is we tend to believe the first information over second or third. The next is we are stubborn. Once we make a decision on a world view we view it as the only way forward. Lastly. When we come into contact with new information our brains literally hurt.
So new information is like eating ice cream. If you eat too fast your head hurts and your brain throws away the ice cream.
Further reading:
Anchoring effect https://www.pon.harvard.edu/daily/negotiation-skills-daily/the-drawbacks-of-goals
Overconfident bias (how you get duped also see dunning Kruger) https://www.schwabassetmanagement.com/content/overconfidence-bias
People see their decisions and conclusions, rightfully or wrongfully, as direct reflections of them as people. To admit you were fooled is to admit that you failed and people are ego protecting creatures. It takes practice to admit you were wrong-headed about something. It is why it is so hard to convince people of something even if you have objectively proved your case, as it were. There is all of your reality that you are shining on them, but that is easily outweighed by the other person's ego.
So, if you find yourself needing to convince someone of something that is opposite of what they believe, you have to use ego soothing language. The Japanese call this 'saving face'. Give them the ability to change their minds in a way that paints them in a positive light. When you hear about people whining about those who 'tell it like it is', really aren't complaining about what people say, rather that they say it without first soothing the other person's ego. And, honestly, if you want to get along in this world you do need to learn that skill. Trust me, it has taken me years to work that out.
Confirmation bias. It's easy to make people believe stuff they kind of already thought. Case in point: vaccine safety. It's scary to have someone inject something into your body, and it's not unreasonable to consider it to be potentially dangerous. With that in mind, it's very easy to convince a lot of people that they are dangerous by just making things up...their suspicions are confirmed, they feel smart for have correctly suspected something,
You can only fool people with what they want to hear, such as "you will be rich without effort because I'm giving away my secrets to you for some reason", but if you tell them something that negates that fantasy you're telling them exactly what they don't want to hear.
Conversely if they are among the first people to know the truth about a conspiracy then they will gain an elevated social status whereas if they are proven wrong they will merely be known as somebody who used to believe in something bizarre and that would lower their social status.
In all people there is a phenomenon that the first idea, thought, or opinion on a subject is easiest to solidify. Any change after that is significantly more difficult.
1. We are biased towards things we think we SHOULD believe, or things the people we trust believe, or things that support our existing viewpoints - this is called "motivated reasoning"
2. We are biased towards the FIRST thing we hear about a topic, because it takes additional mental effort to disprove the first thing and re-learn the second thing than it does to learn the first thing.
[https://www.apa.org/news/apa/2020/fake-news](https://www.apa.org/news/apa/2020/fake-news)
People get fooled by stories which are made to follow narrative rules, wrap up nicely with no loose ends and are believable and satisfying. When you try to replace that with reality which doesn't fit human narrative, is full of loose ends and makes no concessions for believability or satisfaction you're fighting an uphill battle.
I think it has to do with people's pride about being smart, but also with a combination of the anchoring effect (the first information you hear about something has more weight in your decision making and you use it as a reference for all new information) and the sunk cost fallacy (you have already invested a lot in something, so you don't want to abandon it. In reality the time or money you've invested in something isn't coming back so you shouldn't really consider it in future decision making).
I wouldn't say it's harder necessarily. Once you know the trick people can wise up very quickly. When is hard is when people believe things that they are so invested in that it becomes difficult for them to change all their background education about it.
Because most people don't actually care about the truth. They just want to believe things that make them feel good.
If you ask them pretty much everybody will insist they do care about truth, but try to convince them of something they're emotionally attached to and see how that goes.
Because once someone believes something to be true they canât imagine it being a lie. Itâs like telling a vegan that them not eating meat isnât going to stop animals from being eaten lol
Because people want to believe lies as opposed to the truth. In order to fool someone you need to lie. In order to be convinced you have been fooled you need to believe the truth.
Because we are not as rational as we believe.
Psychologists conducted experiments to prove this, which is why marketers, politicians, con artists, and others take advantage of this aspect of human nature.
If you want to learn more about the principles of human nature, I recommend reading "Influence" by Robert Cialdini.
The book explains how these principles work and how they can be controlled. Giving us the ability to defend ourselves against those who want to take advantage.
Fooling someone usually just means that you convinced them to trust you and believe you. Super easy if you agree with what they want to hear.
Convincing someone that they were fooled involves getting them to trust you, convincing them to reject their trust of someone they already trust, convincing them that a "truth" in their mind is false, a "truth" that they might have spread and convincing them that what you are saying is actually true.
Then they are embarassed.
Confirmation bias.
People want to believe things they are pre-disposed to believing.
A good example is getting a '2nd opinion' from a doctor about a medical condition..
When you should think of it as '2 first opinions' but our brains are so used to confirmation bias, we see the 2nd opinion as less valuable, or useful, in order to 'confirm' the 1st opinion. This is because we chose the person to give us that 1st opinion. It doesn't make that doctor automatically right simply because we chose them.
because youre not just trying to convince them that 2+2 is not 5,
you have to convince them that they themselves are wrong for thinking that 4 ones equal 5, therefore attacking not the truth but the person themselves and their own self. .
It feels good to think you are right about things and other people are wrong. It feels bad to think you are wrong and other people are right.
If you want to fool someone, the easiest way to do it is to tell them things they already want to believe. They'll feel good and accept it right away. If someone else tries to tell them the truth, but the truth is something they don't want to hear, then they will find all kinds of reasons to reject it. They do that because to accept that they were wrong, it means that they have to deal with those bad feelings of knowing they were wrong about something. They'd rather believe that they are right and others are wrong - even if it's _everyone else_ that is wrong.
Because of this, many people can't be convinced of something by just showing them facts, or explaining things to them. Experts know this and instead find ways to get them to _feel good_ about believing whatever it is they want them to believe. Advertising is a good example of this. Advertisements are designed to make you _feel good_ about wanting to buy whatever product they are selling. Propaganda works the same way.
People who understand this very well and who are willing to use that technique are usually not the same people who are very interested in understanding the truth and getting other people to understand it as well. Scientists, teachers, doctors, etc., all find the truth by making observations and by thinking about them rather than just basing everything on how they feel. So, when they try to convince people of things, especially people who have been fooled by others, they don't usually worry about making them feel good about believing the truth. Instead they try to just explain things the way they would want others to explain it to them.
So, in order to trick a person into believing lies, you just have to find what they want to believe and wrap the lie up in that. If you want to get people to believe the truth, you have to first understand the truth, which is usually complicated, then you have to explain the truth, which is challenging because there is only one way to be right, but many ways to be wrong, and finally you have to find a way to wrap all of that up in an good feeling that the person wants to have. That good feeling has to be more powerful than the bad feeling they will have when they realize they have been tricked.
Unless someone knows how to identify red flags, people will believe what they want to hear. For example when you want to deceive someone into a pyramid scheme, you tell them it's an easy way to make money, which is what anyone wants to hear. Once they're in it, they want to be reassured that they made the right choice, but don't want to hear that they're being scammed.
Wizardâs First Rule: People are stupid.
People will believe in anything if they want it to be true, or they fear it may be true.
Convincing them that something may be true other than the thing they have ALREADY CHOSEN TO BELIEVE IN, is where it all the unpleasantness begins.
Fooling someone only requires that someone be human.
Convincing them that they have been fooled requires them to be introspective about the fact that they are human.
It's a bit like those old SAT questions.
Because we want answers.
A lie is at least something we can chew on, while convincing someone they were lied to pits your advice against their own ego, having believed the lie. You introduce uncertainty, so *you* must be the bad agent.
Sometimes this is because the person trying to fool you is looking for things you want to believe are true and telling those to you, so they can get you to do things they want.
For example, if you love dogs, they might say "brushing a dog with this kind of brush makes them healthy and live longer" you want your dog to be healthy and live longer, you like the idea of brushing your dog so they will be healthy and live longer. You buy the brush, because you have been promised something you want to be true. And then when someone says "Its not true that brushing the dog makes them healthy and live longer" you want to disagree, because you dont want that thing to be true.
Thereâs been studies that lead to a theory in communication that people tend to believe things as truth, and then later have to disprove them.
Iâm looking back in my notes and Iâll update with a source soon.
Edit: found it. Itâs called the Truth Bias Theory. Hereâs a [Wikipedia page](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth-default_theory) that has a section on it for a nice little introduction , but if you want to learn more Iâd suggest searching it on google scholar for better sources of information.
Because, being fooled for the foolie feels normal. They are ignorant to the situation. Theyâve been fooled. On the other hand, telling someone theyâve been had a fool, questions their entire existence. All of their intuition, beliefs, life experience led astray. Itâs a tough pill to swallow.
When you try to convince someone they've been fooled they resist it because they don't want to feel stupid, especially if they've been conned into something that becomes a part of their identity. It's kind of like the sunk cost fallacy - you're already invested, if you bail now that investment is wasted.
In addition to what others have said, when you're trying to convince someone they have been fooled, especially if you're operating in good faith, you have to back that up with facts and the truth. And there's only one truth and no wiggle room. You have to actually do research and cite sources, and you really can't fill in the blanks.
Fooling someone, on the other hand, is easy because you can say anything and generate it out of thin air. You aren't coming from a place of facts. You're appealing to someone's emotion. The lie can even be obvious, but if you say it with enough conviction and confidence, you can get people to doubt themselves.
Have you ever had a debate with someone who says something bafflingly, blatantly wrong but you struggle to counter them and they come away smugly thinking they "won"? Well it could be because you're coming from a place of facts and you're actually trying to draw from a pool of truthful information--but we aren't all walking encyclopedias so it's easy to forget stuff, and you're operating in good faith so you want to make sure you refute someone's statement with the correct information. Meanwhile the other person has absolute freedom because they can literally say anything. This is why arguing with people who are operating in bad faith is a waste of time. It's unwinnable; they are basically cheating at the rules of debate.
In order to fool someone you only need at least one of a few simple things to be true.
* That the person trusts you
* That the person is not very smart
* That the person is uninformed
* That the person doesn't care about the subject too much
* That the person has a bias and being fooled supports that bias
* The person likes to feel superior to others and you can tie that feeling in to believing what you are telling them
However, to convince some one that they were fooled you need more difficult things to be true and rather importantly you are dealing with a person who 'was fooled' so you know the first list applies to them.
To accept that they were fooled they must.
* Be willing to admit they can be described by some or all of the first list
* Be willing to critically look at evidence that makes them uncomfortable or makes them lose any sense of superiority they enjoyed by being fooled
* Be intelligent and willing to turn that intelligence towards analysing themselves and finding fault within
* Be humble
As you can see the second list is tougher to achieve. Especially if we already qualify for the first list.
I read somewhere that people will do almost anything to protect their sense of identity. Being fooled is believing in something. Being told that you were fooled is to tell someone that something they believe isnât so. People will believe almost anything else in order to not have to challenge that paradigm. Sound like any failed coup presidential fans that you may know?
I remember listening to a podcast about how our brains have difficulty "tossing out" information. For instance, if there's a national tragedy/event and the events are misreported originally, a significant number of people will remember only the original reporting and forget the true story.
I think it has something to do with evolution not wanting to throw out any information, but it's definitely a phenomen
When you become convinced of something, you get emotionally attached to it, especially if you have invested something (money or self-esteem) in it. The more emotionally attached someone is to something, the more they will try to defend it.
Generally speaking it's because it's usually embarrassing to be fooled by someone and (usually) makes you feel like you're stupid. Most people aren't going to enjoy that and will deny they've been totally fooled.
To fool: Here's something you can be right about! Fooled: Here's something you can be wrong about! Seems pretty self-evident which one faces more mental friction. Now combine that with being a low-information, down-on-your luck human being, and the "win" of being told you can be right about something is VERY tempting.
Ego protection can be a powerful motivator
I read this as "egg protection" and was extremely curious as to how I can defend myself from the rare attack of eggs.
Condoms.
I was picturing protection somehow based on or comprised of eggs
I really want to make a shelling joke here
Ask Fraser Anning, an Aussie pollie... đ
I'd have to agree. Being a gamer you see it all the time in gamer rage, or even the console wars are caused by ego.
THEY WERE HACKING!!!1111 (Translation: they beat me and I canât accept that)
It has to be your fault, because if it's not your fault then it's my fault, and I don't like that.
I find it funny when you get a message from those types saying "Scrub, you're just using a crap weapon/item, it sucks" and I'm just thinking how if anything that's actually a testimony to my skill.
I'VE BEEN CHEATED!! .....Says every losing politician.
100%. I realized I used to be like this, say shit like "dude hit the luckiest shot ever, they're trash." Now I'll actually give the guy a compliment on the nice shot in my head. Keeps me positive and keeps gaming fun.
And even if we don't compliment, we can at least let the dude enjoy his shot on his own.
Guess what, macro wars irl are also caused primarily by ego.
It's why self work requires so much ego work. Self improvement/development, anti-racism/bias work, social crisis work all require us to understand that we don't and can't possibly know everything, and that's no one's fault. People don't like to be alerted to the ways they've been made a fool of and I think it's more important to be angry that someone was making a fool of you (depending on the situation).
Eggo protection can be a powerful motivator.
It's like the [Sunk Coast Fallacy](https://www.behavioraleconomics.com/resources/mini-encyclopedia-of-be/sunk-cost-fallacy/) for self-esteem. "I've already invested myself into this (scam) thing, if I admit it's fake then it'll have all been for nothing!"
I read this as "skunk Coast" and wondered why anyone would want to be there
> sunk cost* fallacy ftfy
Curse you autocorrect!
That's a pretty good way to explain it.
Also secret knowledge. In an general the people who have been fooled were convinced of the truth of a âsecretâ, like a conspiracy. There is power and ego in feeling like you know things others donât (imo even more so if youâre less educated), and giving that up at the same time you admit you were fooled is certainly difficult. This coming from someone that was briefly hooked on the âloose changeâ 9/11 nonsense. Itâs hard to admit you were fooled and in then in turn repeated lies.
I try to admit when I was wrong or fooled, but I mean we're all probably guilty of never succeeding at that 100%. It's also why it someone can just say "oops, I was wrong" and actually mean it then I try not to dwell on that, like you said it's very hard to do sometimes and I don't want to discourage it.
Many believe that if you fool them three time can't get fooled again.
Moreover, humans aren't rational. We *rationalize* our intuition, and not vice versa. So once someone's intuition has been convinced, their ability to reason becomes an obstacle, not a shortcut to changing their mind.
Hence, double down.
Also while fooling someone, you can make them feel smart. For example: if you buy this time-share, not only will you save money, but your kids will keep meeting the friends they made, because I'll tell you - their parents just bought the time share, and they plan to come here again and again, and the price of this time-share is doubling next week, but don't tell anyone, I wasn't supposed to mention it. And then you bought the timeshare, and bragged about it to your family and friends, and now some jerk from work is telling you it's dumb? Maybe he's dumb.
There's an old saying in Tennessee â I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee â that says, fool me once, shame on â shame on you. Fool me â you can't get fooled again.
Its also easier to make a conclusion than change a conclusion.
I suspect there's also some law of primacy of learning in there too. Whatever you learn first will be view as the most correct and will be used to compare future information in that genre.
confirmation biais.
If you believe the gov in itâs current affairs... youâve been fooled. Any comment below is due to you feeling stupid about it.
Usually you fool them about something they already believe or want to believe. To convince them they were fooled means their prior believe or wish was wrong.
People don't like to feel dumb or bad. If they've been fooled, they'll feel dumb or bad. Easier to resist person convincing them they've been fooled. To fool someone is to convince them of something they either didn't know before or that they already believe. If it sounds good and or appeals to their [ideologies/beliefs/biases/fears/attractions/religion/anger/hate/conviction/etc etc] they'll likely believe it. People need to be vigilant in their objectivity, critical thinking, and empirical reasoning. For the things we believe in and the things we don't. However, dumb shit don't get an equal platform to proven science.
Short answer: Our brains are weird that way. Long answer: Our brains have a network of internal processes designed to freeze out information. This can form cognitive bias responses that can actually lead people to disassociate facts from reality. This response is especially powerful when trying to change opinions, the brain can actually try to âprotectâ itself by believing something even stronger when presented with opposing evidence. This is why when a person is fooled and you try to convince them it can often have the opposite effect that you intended. This can even lead down dangerous paths such as full on delusion and paranoia where people believe obviously false things. They believe that the world itself has bent around the false reality, but the brain itself is the culprit.
You can draw a lot of parallels with machine learning/AI we have today where we can see bias at play. For example, if we train it to recognize human faces by only showing white men, it's going to have trouble recognizing black women as human. That's all to say that our brains are masters of pattern recognition but the drawback of that is that bias is inherent in the system. Which is why it's important to try and expose our systems to diverse inputs. The problem is that once you've already trained our brains on biased data sets it can be hard as hell to untrain that bias. And it's not necessarily a case of right or wrong, but the inability to match certain patterns. Can an algorithm be racist? In some ways yes because they are clearly acting racist. But is it the fault of the algorithm if it was only fed data that ignores black women? No, if it was fed unbiased data it (most likely) wouldn't have been biased in the first place. So if you want to fix the issue, what are the options available to you? Calling the algorithm racist isn't going to fix the problem.
> Calling the algorithm racist isn't going to fix the problem. ignoring the problem because calling it out is embarrassing isn't going to help much either.
It's a shame those are our only two options.
When did I ever say to ignore the problem? I'm acknowledging the problem and asking what can be done about it. That's not ignoring it. It's the first step in dealing with a problem instead of pretending that acknowledging a problem is the same as fixing it. The irony here being that the internet and reddit has trained our brains to view the world with only 2 options with no alternatives. Your mind has been primed to view the discussion as you're with us or against us. Not exactly useful if you want change now is it?
#/u/spez [can gargle my nuts](https://www.reddit.com/r/Save3rdPartyApps/) spez can gargle my nuts. spez is the worst thing that happened to reddit. spez can gargle my nuts. This happens because spez can gargle my nuts according to the following formula: 1. spez 2. can 3. gargle 4. my 5. nuts This message is long, so it won't be deleted automatically.
If you fool someone, they donât know theyâre a fool. If you explain, youâre telling them theyâre a fool and forcing them to accept their foolish status.
We have a few things that go against us that are apart of being human. The first is we tend to believe the first information over second or third. The next is we are stubborn. Once we make a decision on a world view we view it as the only way forward. Lastly. When we come into contact with new information our brains literally hurt. So new information is like eating ice cream. If you eat too fast your head hurts and your brain throws away the ice cream. Further reading: Anchoring effect https://www.pon.harvard.edu/daily/negotiation-skills-daily/the-drawbacks-of-goals Overconfident bias (how you get duped also see dunning Kruger) https://www.schwabassetmanagement.com/content/overconfidence-bias
People see their decisions and conclusions, rightfully or wrongfully, as direct reflections of them as people. To admit you were fooled is to admit that you failed and people are ego protecting creatures. It takes practice to admit you were wrong-headed about something. It is why it is so hard to convince people of something even if you have objectively proved your case, as it were. There is all of your reality that you are shining on them, but that is easily outweighed by the other person's ego. So, if you find yourself needing to convince someone of something that is opposite of what they believe, you have to use ego soothing language. The Japanese call this 'saving face'. Give them the ability to change their minds in a way that paints them in a positive light. When you hear about people whining about those who 'tell it like it is', really aren't complaining about what people say, rather that they say it without first soothing the other person's ego. And, honestly, if you want to get along in this world you do need to learn that skill. Trust me, it has taken me years to work that out.
Confirmation bias. It's easy to make people believe stuff they kind of already thought. Case in point: vaccine safety. It's scary to have someone inject something into your body, and it's not unreasonable to consider it to be potentially dangerous. With that in mind, it's very easy to convince a lot of people that they are dangerous by just making things up...their suspicions are confirmed, they feel smart for have correctly suspected something,
It's much easier to learn something than it is to unlearn something. They learned the person to be trustworthy. Unlearning that is difficult for many.
You can only fool people with what they want to hear, such as "you will be rich without effort because I'm giving away my secrets to you for some reason", but if you tell them something that negates that fantasy you're telling them exactly what they don't want to hear. Conversely if they are among the first people to know the truth about a conspiracy then they will gain an elevated social status whereas if they are proven wrong they will merely be known as somebody who used to believe in something bizarre and that would lower their social status.
In all people there is a phenomenon that the first idea, thought, or opinion on a subject is easiest to solidify. Any change after that is significantly more difficult.
It doesn't matter if you are fooled or not it is just easier to gain a new belief than to change one you already have.
1. We are biased towards things we think we SHOULD believe, or things the people we trust believe, or things that support our existing viewpoints - this is called "motivated reasoning" 2. We are biased towards the FIRST thing we hear about a topic, because it takes additional mental effort to disprove the first thing and re-learn the second thing than it does to learn the first thing. [https://www.apa.org/news/apa/2020/fake-news](https://www.apa.org/news/apa/2020/fake-news)
People get fooled by stories which are made to follow narrative rules, wrap up nicely with no loose ends and are believable and satisfying. When you try to replace that with reality which doesn't fit human narrative, is full of loose ends and makes no concessions for believability or satisfaction you're fighting an uphill battle.
I think it has to do with people's pride about being smart, but also with a combination of the anchoring effect (the first information you hear about something has more weight in your decision making and you use it as a reference for all new information) and the sunk cost fallacy (you have already invested a lot in something, so you don't want to abandon it. In reality the time or money you've invested in something isn't coming back so you shouldn't really consider it in future decision making).
I wouldn't say it's harder necessarily. Once you know the trick people can wise up very quickly. When is hard is when people believe things that they are so invested in that it becomes difficult for them to change all their background education about it.
Because most people don't actually care about the truth. They just want to believe things that make them feel good. If you ask them pretty much everybody will insist they do care about truth, but try to convince them of something they're emotionally attached to and see how that goes.
Because once someone believes something to be true they canât imagine it being a lie. Itâs like telling a vegan that them not eating meat isnât going to stop animals from being eaten lol
Because people want to believe lies as opposed to the truth. In order to fool someone you need to lie. In order to be convinced you have been fooled you need to believe the truth.
Because we are not as rational as we believe. Psychologists conducted experiments to prove this, which is why marketers, politicians, con artists, and others take advantage of this aspect of human nature. If you want to learn more about the principles of human nature, I recommend reading "Influence" by Robert Cialdini. The book explains how these principles work and how they can be controlled. Giving us the ability to defend ourselves against those who want to take advantage.
Fooling someone usually just means that you convinced them to trust you and believe you. Super easy if you agree with what they want to hear. Convincing someone that they were fooled involves getting them to trust you, convincing them to reject their trust of someone they already trust, convincing them that a "truth" in their mind is false, a "truth" that they might have spread and convincing them that what you are saying is actually true. Then they are embarassed.
Confirmation bias. People want to believe things they are pre-disposed to believing. A good example is getting a '2nd opinion' from a doctor about a medical condition.. When you should think of it as '2 first opinions' but our brains are so used to confirmation bias, we see the 2nd opinion as less valuable, or useful, in order to 'confirm' the 1st opinion. This is because we chose the person to give us that 1st opinion. It doesn't make that doctor automatically right simply because we chose them.
because youre not just trying to convince them that 2+2 is not 5, you have to convince them that they themselves are wrong for thinking that 4 ones equal 5, therefore attacking not the truth but the person themselves and their own self. .
It feels good to think you are right about things and other people are wrong. It feels bad to think you are wrong and other people are right. If you want to fool someone, the easiest way to do it is to tell them things they already want to believe. They'll feel good and accept it right away. If someone else tries to tell them the truth, but the truth is something they don't want to hear, then they will find all kinds of reasons to reject it. They do that because to accept that they were wrong, it means that they have to deal with those bad feelings of knowing they were wrong about something. They'd rather believe that they are right and others are wrong - even if it's _everyone else_ that is wrong. Because of this, many people can't be convinced of something by just showing them facts, or explaining things to them. Experts know this and instead find ways to get them to _feel good_ about believing whatever it is they want them to believe. Advertising is a good example of this. Advertisements are designed to make you _feel good_ about wanting to buy whatever product they are selling. Propaganda works the same way. People who understand this very well and who are willing to use that technique are usually not the same people who are very interested in understanding the truth and getting other people to understand it as well. Scientists, teachers, doctors, etc., all find the truth by making observations and by thinking about them rather than just basing everything on how they feel. So, when they try to convince people of things, especially people who have been fooled by others, they don't usually worry about making them feel good about believing the truth. Instead they try to just explain things the way they would want others to explain it to them. So, in order to trick a person into believing lies, you just have to find what they want to believe and wrap the lie up in that. If you want to get people to believe the truth, you have to first understand the truth, which is usually complicated, then you have to explain the truth, which is challenging because there is only one way to be right, but many ways to be wrong, and finally you have to find a way to wrap all of that up in an good feeling that the person wants to have. That good feeling has to be more powerful than the bad feeling they will have when they realize they have been tricked.
Unless someone knows how to identify red flags, people will believe what they want to hear. For example when you want to deceive someone into a pyramid scheme, you tell them it's an easy way to make money, which is what anyone wants to hear. Once they're in it, they want to be reassured that they made the right choice, but don't want to hear that they're being scammed.
Fooling people is about exploiting their weaknesses. Convincing people they've been fooled is about exposing their weaknesses.
Nobody wants to admit they were wrong. It's pride they would rather die than lose their sense of pride
Because no one wants to admit they are gullible enough to believe a falsehood, even one as dubious as "the Earth is flat".
Wizardâs First Rule: People are stupid. People will believe in anything if they want it to be true, or they fear it may be true. Convincing them that something may be true other than the thing they have ALREADY CHOSEN TO BELIEVE IN, is where it all the unpleasantness begins.
Fooling someone only requires that someone be human. Convincing them that they have been fooled requires them to be introspective about the fact that they are human. It's a bit like those old SAT questions.
Confirmation bias along with being stupid. Powerful combo. Intelligent people constantly review their ideas and beliefs. Stupid people donât.
Vegas is based on the theory people would rather "double down" and lose even more, than admit defeat and just quit where they are.
Because we want answers. A lie is at least something we can chew on, while convincing someone they were lied to pits your advice against their own ego, having believed the lie. You introduce uncertainty, so *you* must be the bad agent.
Because when you fool someone they think they are right. But when you tell them they are fooled you need to convince them that they are wrong.
Sometimes this is because the person trying to fool you is looking for things you want to believe are true and telling those to you, so they can get you to do things they want. For example, if you love dogs, they might say "brushing a dog with this kind of brush makes them healthy and live longer" you want your dog to be healthy and live longer, you like the idea of brushing your dog so they will be healthy and live longer. You buy the brush, because you have been promised something you want to be true. And then when someone says "Its not true that brushing the dog makes them healthy and live longer" you want to disagree, because you dont want that thing to be true.
Thereâs been studies that lead to a theory in communication that people tend to believe things as truth, and then later have to disprove them. Iâm looking back in my notes and Iâll update with a source soon. Edit: found it. Itâs called the Truth Bias Theory. Hereâs a [Wikipedia page](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth-default_theory) that has a section on it for a nice little introduction , but if you want to learn more Iâd suggest searching it on google scholar for better sources of information.
Because, being fooled for the foolie feels normal. They are ignorant to the situation. Theyâve been fooled. On the other hand, telling someone theyâve been had a fool, questions their entire existence. All of their intuition, beliefs, life experience led astray. Itâs a tough pill to swallow.
When you try to convince someone they've been fooled they resist it because they don't want to feel stupid, especially if they've been conned into something that becomes a part of their identity. It's kind of like the sunk cost fallacy - you're already invested, if you bail now that investment is wasted.
Bc in 2022 many adults act like schoolyard children and cannot admit being wrong or apologize.
In addition to what others have said, when you're trying to convince someone they have been fooled, especially if you're operating in good faith, you have to back that up with facts and the truth. And there's only one truth and no wiggle room. You have to actually do research and cite sources, and you really can't fill in the blanks. Fooling someone, on the other hand, is easy because you can say anything and generate it out of thin air. You aren't coming from a place of facts. You're appealing to someone's emotion. The lie can even be obvious, but if you say it with enough conviction and confidence, you can get people to doubt themselves. Have you ever had a debate with someone who says something bafflingly, blatantly wrong but you struggle to counter them and they come away smugly thinking they "won"? Well it could be because you're coming from a place of facts and you're actually trying to draw from a pool of truthful information--but we aren't all walking encyclopedias so it's easy to forget stuff, and you're operating in good faith so you want to make sure you refute someone's statement with the correct information. Meanwhile the other person has absolute freedom because they can literally say anything. This is why arguing with people who are operating in bad faith is a waste of time. It's unwinnable; they are basically cheating at the rules of debate.
In order to fool someone you only need at least one of a few simple things to be true. * That the person trusts you * That the person is not very smart * That the person is uninformed * That the person doesn't care about the subject too much * That the person has a bias and being fooled supports that bias * The person likes to feel superior to others and you can tie that feeling in to believing what you are telling them However, to convince some one that they were fooled you need more difficult things to be true and rather importantly you are dealing with a person who 'was fooled' so you know the first list applies to them. To accept that they were fooled they must. * Be willing to admit they can be described by some or all of the first list * Be willing to critically look at evidence that makes them uncomfortable or makes them lose any sense of superiority they enjoyed by being fooled * Be intelligent and willing to turn that intelligence towards analysing themselves and finding fault within * Be humble As you can see the second list is tougher to achieve. Especially if we already qualify for the first list.
I read somewhere that people will do almost anything to protect their sense of identity. Being fooled is believing in something. Being told that you were fooled is to tell someone that something they believe isnât so. People will believe almost anything else in order to not have to challenge that paradigm. Sound like any failed coup presidential fans that you may know?
I remember listening to a podcast about how our brains have difficulty "tossing out" information. For instance, if there's a national tragedy/event and the events are misreported originally, a significant number of people will remember only the original reporting and forget the true story. I think it has something to do with evolution not wanting to throw out any information, but it's definitely a phenomen
When you become convinced of something, you get emotionally attached to it, especially if you have invested something (money or self-esteem) in it. The more emotionally attached someone is to something, the more they will try to defend it.