Mikecr
Well-Known Member
It's referred to as an Appeal to Authority fallacy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority
Summarized as [a claimed authority's support is used as evidence for an argument's conclusion]
In my lifetime so far, I've noticed that those who engage in this are consistently weak in actual understanding. Otherwise, they would never need to reach for it.
There is another factor that steers our reloading community: Mob Mentality.
I can't find a reference to it now, but there is a recent study demonstrating that collective intelligence drops with numbers collaborating. This ultimately predicting that mobs are least likely to act with sound judgements. And also, that human democracy can never really work in our best interests.
It is a uniquely human flaw, and arguably a human strength(like greed), provided we act with awareness of it.
Much of that is common sense to the rational among us. No scientific evidence needed.
The hook that drew me in went something like this:
Take 1,010 people of average intelligence. Form 10 groups of 100 to collaborate for solutions with 100 difficult problems. Have the 10 remaining work individually on the same problems. They also tried this with variances to group sizes.
The result: The 10 individuals would always score higher, and the disparities always grew as group sizes were made larger.
It explains a lot of things I've suspected in my career, and historically.
For example, those good at taking tests know to assign highest weight to first impressions of the answers. Never let the little voices talk you into wrong answers.
It was not a group that invented the light bulb. And consider this; assuming the light bulb would have been invented, eventually, would a group have done it? How would a group do it? Is there any group today, any among humans, who can wipe their own butts, much less produce a product that is actually something new?
I say we're lucky to have people thinking for themselves, regardless of motivations (like greed).
Summarized as [a claimed authority's support is used as evidence for an argument's conclusion]
In my lifetime so far, I've noticed that those who engage in this are consistently weak in actual understanding. Otherwise, they would never need to reach for it.
There is another factor that steers our reloading community: Mob Mentality.
I can't find a reference to it now, but there is a recent study demonstrating that collective intelligence drops with numbers collaborating. This ultimately predicting that mobs are least likely to act with sound judgements. And also, that human democracy can never really work in our best interests.
It is a uniquely human flaw, and arguably a human strength(like greed), provided we act with awareness of it.
Much of that is common sense to the rational among us. No scientific evidence needed.
The hook that drew me in went something like this:
Take 1,010 people of average intelligence. Form 10 groups of 100 to collaborate for solutions with 100 difficult problems. Have the 10 remaining work individually on the same problems. They also tried this with variances to group sizes.
The result: The 10 individuals would always score higher, and the disparities always grew as group sizes were made larger.
It explains a lot of things I've suspected in my career, and historically.
For example, those good at taking tests know to assign highest weight to first impressions of the answers. Never let the little voices talk you into wrong answers.
It was not a group that invented the light bulb. And consider this; assuming the light bulb would have been invented, eventually, would a group have done it? How would a group do it? Is there any group today, any among humans, who can wipe their own butts, much less produce a product that is actually something new?
I say we're lucky to have people thinking for themselves, regardless of motivations (like greed).
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thank you again for the help a few years back that got me building good rifles
