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You know, this should only trick young kids as they genuinely believe taller = more. The fact that it probably tricks a ton of adults just suggests their critical thinking never made it past adolescence and we should be very concerned by that.
There's a book called "Thinking Fast and Slow" that talks about a bifurcation of the mental process between intuitive mental work and deliberative work. It goes through a bunch of examples of people with established credentials, careers in intellectual professions, and proven records of deliberative thought being tricked by relatively casual visual and verbal illusions.
Getting tricked by Tall Can isn't something you can "Critical Thinking" your way out of reflexively. It is something you have to exert continuous mental energy to achieve. When the overwhelming majority of your decisions are made reflexively, and even the process of stepping over from reflexive intuition to deliberative intuition is ultimately an intuitive process, you're going to get fooled more often than not. The only real defense is to intuitively train defensive behaviors, and that doesn't avert being fooled so much as it averts falling for the most common scams.
In the end, a handful of marketing flacks can consistently outwit any audience, because they can knowingly engage in a campaign of strategic deception more easily than you can reflexively catch every deceit thrown your way. What you need is a countervailing force. A regulatory agency dedicated to imposing transparency at the barrel of a gun can render calculated deceits more expensive to implement than they return in revenue.
But the "lolz, just don't fuck up" mentality is what leads to people getting gulled at industrial scales. You're not going to outsmart the professionals and its painfully naive to think otherwise.
Wow that is so fucking interesting. I gotta read that book. I think I have a messed up relationship between those two states if that makes sense
I don't know about "messed up", but its useful to understand when you're responding on reflex. The intuitive response is the normal response, with deliberative thinking tending to be the exception rather than the rule. So you can recognize the impulsive action as a problem. But you shouldn't see reflex as a problem. Reflexes are useful precisely because they let you make decisions quickly and effortlessly. Ask any pro-athlete.
Oh I don't mean it that way, I have always felt like I'm "on" too much of the time and it wears me out, especially in the years since my "big T" trauma event happened. It's at least partially hyper-vigilance, but I think it's also just how I am. Thats what I meant by messed up, it kind of seems like I'm in the deliberative state more than I "should" be (or what's average, whatever) and when the reflexive state happens it's not always at a helpful time.
Well, that sucks and I'm sorry to hear it. Yeah, could just be anxiety issues. I have a friend with a severe enough case who ended up getting on SSRIs to treat it and it genuinely turned around her personality immensely. That might go a bit above the raw psychology of Thinking Fast And Slow (or it might not, idk, I'm no doctor). But one of the things the book gets into is the real physical toll deliberative thinking takes. Chess professionals can burn calories comparable to a pro-athlete planning out their next move, for instance.
Yeah I definitely need to read this book. For me it's lead to a lifelong substance abuse issue (one month clean from my current DOC (I'm a polysubstance user), cannabis still but that's not a problem for me) in which I was self medicating my intense sensitivity to any and all stimuli including emotional (I'm extremely empathetic and have strong feelings at all times unless dulled by substances, yes that includes during sleep) as well as sensory (my dad noticed first when I was young, he said I was "more tactile " when I was in elementary and he was partially right and that how I thought of it until I learned more and developed a better understanding with better coping skills and habits), along with the way I think being pretty rigid in some ways, for example I became a militant atheist in elementary school; I later developed a more accurate understanding of my beliefs but as a child I strongly resisted attempts to proselytize to me and bring me to church and church classes or whatever it was and all kinds of shit that never made sense to me the way it was being explained by religious people who were not well informed but had strong feelings about the topic. I have rarely felt well understood even through years of various therapies and treatments with many providers for my many health issues, including the aforementioned substance abuse issue. This book sounds like it might help me understand myself at least. Thank you for sharing :)
Btw I was very underweight for years, I wonder if that has anything to do with what you mentioned about burning calories thinking. I am literally constantly explaining in my head what I'm doing as if someone was watching me and asking what I'm doing. I've gotten really good at explaining myself and during my addiction that came in handy, but now I can use it for good, like having this positive interaction with you :)
You know, this should only trick young kids as they genuinely believe taller = more.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-pound_burger?wprov=sfla1
Adults in Murica are just as dumb and unneducated
Essentially all of America's problems are because its population is so uneducated. We want simple answers to complicated questions because that's the best we can hope to understand. 52% of us can barely read at a 6th grade level FFS. The ignorance then allows us to entertain some pretty dark thoughts leading us to Trump.
Hmmmm while I agree a large uneducated population is a terrible problem, I would not say this is the cause. I would characterize it as a "condition" necessary to get this low.
I find just saying all problems are because of lack of education feels like an indirect way of saying "If I take advantage of you, it's only because you let me" which I believe leaves the evil-doers off the hook
Kind of like saying "the problem with school shootings is because kids are so soft and squishy, they are easily destroyed by bullets" (obviously I am exaggerating here to make my point clearer)
Except the evil doers are the ones specifically making sure people are uneducated.
I'm also curious what you would say is the cause? You argued against the point but didn't make any new ones.
Except the evil doers are the ones specifically making sure people are uneducated.
That is exactly the point I am making. I didn't argue against the point, I argued against the framing
So instead of framing it as "the population is uneducated" it would be framed as "oligarchs are keeping the population uneducated"...
So,
“Problems exist because there aren’t enough good people [with enough power].”
Or what can we state confidently?
Of course we are, our education system is designed to churn out undereducated, incapable of critical thought, silent, obedient cogs for the corporate machine.
Edit: made a typo
I want to point out that, especially after No Child Left Behind, we've actively worked to teach-to-the-test in public schools. That was a bipartisan compromise to make education "accountable" that ultimately worsened education. Obama's DoE helped, slightly, in 2015 adjustments but it's still no where near where it should be and made only worse by a push to get more charters and affordable private schools that don't understand pedagogy.
That is to say, uneducated isn't quite right as It's not a lack of education, but more of a misguided pedagogy that prioritizes rote memorization over deductive reasoning and critical thinking. It's not a lack of trying, but an avoidence of evidence based approaches.
And it has been humming
This doesn't really have anything to do with critical thinking, it's just that our brains work on estimations and approximations, although experience can balance it out.
Try this: draw a martini glass (inverted cone), and draw a line where you think it would be half full.
It will be wrong. Numberphile - Cones are messed up (YT)
That's more an argument in semantics. Developmental psych actually has this as a brain development stage, with the later stages being about critical thinking even if the earlier phase doesn't seem so. Experiments were done where children of various ages were tested on benchmarks such as volume and kids under a certain age failed almost universally (I forget the age, something like 5 or 6) in the same way that infants lack object permanence. Later, at 9 and around 13 (?) the same framework argues that the brain gets basic and advanced problem solving and critical thinking, although even that theory admits plenty of people skip that last milestone.
Your point is more a common logical (sensory?) fallacy that plenty of adults fall into, but isn't necessarily the same thing. At least, I think it is, I'm a bit busy right now to check and it's bad enough I'm typing this out instead of taking care of my own toddler, lol.
Fair, good point :)
People who bought cola before won't stop anyway. That has little to do with the shape
Cones are like runescape leveling, heard
Psst! Your comment has a typo that makes the joke not work. Just letting you know :)
How much critical thinking is going on in a supermarket? Anyway, the tall ones also warm faster 😡
Oh good point, another downside of the taller shape. More surface area = warms faster and uses more aluminum.
Critical thinking (or at least reasoning) is everywhere, even when people drive or do chores, an ounce of thoughtfulness at the very least makes a difference.
And yes, warm soda. Lol
The fact they kept the lid the same size probably helps the deception, especially once there's no old cans to compare it to. This could actually work out to be a good thing if people buy fewer sugary sodas while thinking they're drinking about the same
It surprises me none at all that a significant market share of an American brand are stupid enough to fall for it.
Makes me remember a study where conservatives fall for internet scams at like a 3x higher rate than everyone else lol