Julia Galef Discusses Intellectual Honesty

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Julia Galef visited South Park Commons on August 14 to share insights from her upcoming book on intellectual honesty.

[@stirlingblackwood]

The world would be a much better place if everyone listened to Julia's ideas and took them to heart.

[@ronaldlogan3525]

It is like the saying goes: The most important thing in human relationships is sincerity. Once you can fake that, you have it made. Only 10 percent of the time does anyone else actually care whether you are honest, or care enough to actually challenge you when you are dishonest. This is because the cost of these challenges is so great. The dishonest person is outraged at such challenges and can play the victim role and get the support of unsuspecting bystanders to defend the dishonesty and punish the challenger. Besides there "are very good people on both sides" puts the honest person in a position of "who am I to judge" and thus drop all challenges. the scout may have the best information but the soldier has the guns. So it is best if you can live in that 10% bubble where the people you know actually care about your honesty.

[@yes0r787]

But living in a comfort bubble is a short term thinking strategy, ultimately destructive in societies / the big picture.

[@ronaldlogan3525]

@@yes0r787 but nobody will stop you from living in a comfort bubble even if it leads to destruction. people have a right to be stupid in large groups

[@kaltkalt2083]

You have to be fully self aware (no autopilot) before you can ever be intellectually honest. This is why it’s so rare. It’s really not pleasant or normal to be fully self aware. Most people are not self aware at all. They can be angry without knowing it, let alone knowing why they’re angry.

[@GuinessOriginal]

I find it really hard to be self aware. Takes a lot of concentration and thinking, and it means I can't focus on other stuff. It's exhausting. I guess if you can make it a habit it might be easier but honestly, I'd rather just be around more accepting people

[@kaltkalt2083]

@@xdrowssap4456 well what I mean is, most people don’t even know that they’re lying. Or that they’re believing something because it feels good rather than is true.

[@hamfan1355]

Honesty is not a short term evolutionary advantage, its a long term advantage.

[@differentbutsimilar7893]

I would actually expect honesty to be the important trait to carry down. I don't know how we would have made it otherwise. Yes we trick and manipulate situations. However, collaboration was the key from the very beginning of us settling down in places and building things. Those things don't happen if people don't have a shared drive for honesty.

[@micahgmiranda]

@@kaltkalt2083 I can disprove all your points because I'm bored. Fully self aware? Are you fully self aware? Has anyone ever been fully self aware? It's a ridiculous idea because our information is limited. We can't know the things that we don't know that we don't know. Everyone has a limited amount that they're intellectually responsible to pay attention to. Julia Galef is responsible for parsing thought, not displaying fashion which is why she chose a dress that looks like TV static. Most people are not self aware at all? Really? Exaggerate much? I caught you being dishonest. Obviously everyone has a degree of self awareness, otherwise we wouldn't be conscious. It seems as though you're using polarized thinking(aka black and white thinking), a cognitive distortion. Being angry without knowing it? Clearly the reason you wrote this post is because you're angry at people who lack awareness about things that you're aware of. You didn't even realize you're angry. It seems like you're actually talking about yourself, but you act like everyone else is the problem. Most people don’t even know that they’re lying? I hate to break it to you, but lying it just polite. Right? If we were always honest all the time no one would be friends with anyone because we would say things that would be hurtful and damage relationships. You're nice to your friends and you lie to them because you care about their feelings. "believing something because it feels good rather than is true" This is a trap that thinking dominant people always fall into. Feeling vs truth is a false dichotomy. We all need to use feeling and logic to make decisions. Thinking feelings are less important or invalid is a lie that only someone who isn't fully self aware and angry would say.

[@IIIIIawesIIIII]

Regarding start-ups and entrepreneurs: From a leadership perspective, this is absolutely impossible. You as an entrepreneur can be perfectly rational, your team won't be. People are morons. They expect social conventions. They expect acting. They expect emotion. We all know what a hopeless struggle it is to promote "intellectual honesty". By the time you convinced even a single staff member, everyone else just thinks you are an asshole. That is, for the point of interacting. For the point of setting incentives to be more rational, framing internal motivations towards more rationality and nudging people into such behaviors, I think you make an invaluable point. I will most definitely incorporate this into my own plans.

[@indydude3367]

Julia is heavenly.

[@ChPonsard]

Hence why we should strive to reward displays of intellectual honesty/humility. We are part of the environmental incentive others experience. That impact we can have is nothing to dismiss.

[@yes0r787]

Thank you for bringing up this fundamental point; that impact is world changing.

[@stuartneil8682]

This chimes with my experience in IT as a tester. When we focus on data (data quality ) we are in discovery mode (scout mode) but when testing software we are in engineering mode or business process mode ( soldier mode). Many who are trained or have managed in the engineering mode do not get that discovery (scout mode) is a professional process and needs to be done. So accusations of “testing without requirements” , “your plan is not detailed enough” are made by those steeped in software/requirements engineering. They may acknowledge scout mode for project initiation or in agile projects (likely they don’t really get agile either).

[@buckstraw925]

I too am somewhat obsessed with intellectual honesty. Great to hear you discuss this. topic.

[@Gorboduc]

12:20 ff - It's grimly amusing to note that the prognosticators who were accurate due to their intellectual honesty were also not employed in their chosen specialty, while those who took sides - and got it wrong - were. I think this correlation, looked at closely, may turn out to have some elements of causation.

[@tnuts92]

Nice!

[@jamesm6576]

Examining the incentives that support our decisions is so central yet they're commonly overlooked for what is superficial. Ms. Julia Galef, thank you for your highly important work which merits deep examination and re-examination. Much respect!

[@IIIIIawesIIIII]

Thank you, Mrs. Galef! You are fighting the hard fight.

[@davidr9876]

If you have a poorly aligned car that you know pulls to the right, you will be diligent to always correct the steering to keep it going straight. You might even overcorrect to the left knowing you will drift back right. Most people are unaware that their data processing and decision making is biased and prone to errors. So we need to diligently force ourselves to course correct by acknowledging our bias and unwillingness to accept that we could be wrong about something. It's a learned skill in my opinion.

[@micahgmiranda]

No man. If you're alignment is off you get it fixed. Acting like nothing's wrong and compensating for something you could fix but choose not to is the definition of dysfunctional.

[@davidr9876]

@@micahgmiranda it's an analogy lol. For you...imagine it pulls to the right while you're on your way to the shop to get it fixed. Happy?

[@micahgmiranda]

@@davidr9876 I'm happy, but not for the reason you want me to be. You analogy doesn't work because being biased leads you to where you want to go, whereas haveing a bad alignment doesn't. People who are biased won't care if they're biased. Objectivity isn't their destination. Staying true to their tribe is. They can do that if they want to. That's their prerogative. Who are you to tell them they're not allowed to believe whatever they want to. This isn't China. It a free country isn't it?

[@davidr9876]

@@micahgmiranda Everyone is biased

[@micahgmiranda]

@@davidr9876 my point is being biased isn't necessarily wrong. Otherwise being yourself would be wrong. It might be less than optimal, but optimization isn't everyone's priority nor responsibility. Do you agree with that?

[@adamoneil7435]

this is good, thank you. A good definition I've heard of intellectual honesty is "a refusal to deceive, even when you could get away with it or is even in some way expected"

[@AudeWTFake]

Julia I had never heard of you and your work! This conference is so great! Please think of putting French subtitles and I'll share it asap!!

[@VictorNickel]

Julia Galef and South Park Commons: "Aude WTFake" is an astroturfer working for quite nefarious interests (industrial lobbies and coercitive political power)

[@Clinsunset]

@@VictorNickel Have you got some proof to back up your claim ?

[@VictorNickel]

@@Clinsunset She states herself that she works in conjunction with the government-backed french TV, I'll let you discover yourself what we have for a government now. She also is closely tied to french "skeptics", people who are backed by AFIS, an association whose ties with the agrochem business has been known for years. By some sort of strange coincidence, the people leading those "skeptics" are 24/7 defending products of the agrochem and big pharma business, while at the same time attacking relentlessly whatever products or methods that cannot lead to patenting of artificial molecules (this patenting system is a goldmine for those businesses)

[@Bobart0]

@@VictorNickel You have got to be kidding. You really don't know her to say that.

[@Bobart0]

@@VictorNickel Perfect association fallacy. Congratulations !

[@tannereckmann5404]

But it is important to properly use and manage a solider mindset in social situations in order to have an optimal effect on people. But also our ability to detach from social pressures and personal social or egoic incentives is what allows us to clarify our motives and use reasoning which is based on motives for truth rather than these other distracting incentives.

[@jonathonjubb6626]

22.00 Here in UK we think there are a hell of a lot of 'positive thinkers' (soldiers) on your side of the pond ... Maybe we meet them here after their initial failures at home?? 24.30 this study goes from being really good to hitting the nail on the head 3 years before most begin to catch up. I think I will flow this excellent line of research!!

[@michaelmoran9020]

I had a similar discussion with a friend who thinks people are always rational and scientific / logical literacy will solve everything, upon being shown evidence this was incorrect he got mad at me and told me "thats just what I believe".

[@GuinessOriginal]

You mean incorrect?

[@michaelmoran9020]

@@GuinessOriginal yes

[@yes0r787]

The irony.

[@Terrestrial]

Brilliant talk! Bravo, Julia!

[@elessar0009]

Fascinating. Great talk.

[@onthenatureofthispaleblued4287]

Great talk. There's another lecture by Thomas Metzinger about it. I would love to see the two discussing intellectual honesty

[@jimdelsol1941]

Wonderful talk, great questions, great answers. Thank you !

[@naturallaw1733]

I agree about incentives. but we live in a World that incentivizes Irrational behavior more than Rational behavior so a Systemic Values reorientation will have to be in order for more of the Scouts ethos to take hold. Luv this discussion. Thanks! 👏

[@GuinessOriginal]

That's assuming human beings are rational, which is a big assumption

[@yes0r787]

Wonderful, fundamental topic and lecture. Thank you very much for this presentation.

[@otiebrown9999]

Intellectual Honesty? I prepare scientific papers on effective myopia prevention, when at 20/40, or -0.5 Diopters. The degree of medical dishonestly on this subject incredible. Like refusing to "wash hands", in medicine, we have deep intellectual dishonesty in the most serious science and facts.

[@henrilemoine3953]

Great talk :) Very interesting.

[@Aurabay]

shese so cool! Thank you for this, really making the world better

[@HuanLeVuong]

So we can't stop looking at and can't stop listening to a person at the same time.

[@alimon7421]

Balls deep bro 👌

[@Bleilo]

As Always: great work

[@AliHSyed]

Epistemology meets Ethics. It's about time🤘🥰

[@bearclaw]

26:12 "A bet is a tax on bullshit." lmao I gotta write that one down

[@patmoran5339]

This is a very important topic. May I suggest that intellectual honesty is characterized by a continuing battle to remember that all of our thinking is fallible? That is, we can be wrong about our conceptions of reality. There is no ultimate truth. There is only error correction toward better truths. Also, there is no upper limit on the value of ideas. I also would like to make a friendly suggestion that the presenter speak slower. This is a very important presentation and I enjoyed it immensely. Both presenter and audience might well benefit by recalling that all of us our fallible.

[@pugspog]

On a polarized issue, is the level of apparent intellectual honesty a better heuristic for judging which side to believe in as opposed to the status of proponents/alignment with majority views? I suspect this question can't be answered in general but i anyway think it's an interesting one; maybe the cause of polarization in the first place is that as one viewpoint becomes "the orthodoxy" (possibly due to being correct, possibly due to incentives) it attracts lazy proponents, ironically discrediting the viewpoint for someone who applies this heuristic? Anyway good lecture!

[@varrantgreen4259]

This explains so much. Been arguing with a friend for years. And I always thought he was lying. Turns out he doesn't know what intellectual honesty is. I thought that was the baseline of honesty. -shrugs-

[@NickRoman]

I think the problem about honesty in the world is that honesty and intellectual honesty are not two different things. They are the same. And reflecting on this, we see that the question of honesty is a secondary aspect to thought and intelligence. Our foundation is simply behavior that has a more desirable outcome. Do other animals think about whether something is true or not? No. When your dog gives the guilty look when you ask "who did this!?", he's not admitting guilt and being honest. He's just doing what instinct tells him is the proper response, which comes from multi-generational experience. I think humans start off thinking more that way and maybe even mostly throughout our lives think that way. Some people develop a world view where they think that is the more correct way of thinking rather than the logical concept of true or false. And thus they may, for example, think that the emotional affect on people of a made up story is more true than the effect a true story would have on people. All of that might even be arguable. Unfortunately, to me it seems that it leaves the gates wide open for magical thinking where one starts to believe that their thoughts are the substance of the universe and so they can think away bad problems or wish into existence what they want; until cold reality smacks them in the face. And that's why the concept of intellectual honesty matters. No?

[@waedjradi]

The book that is talked about after 15:00 is worth the read; 'Deep Survival'

[@aresmars2003]

The "betting", loss-aversion factor is real. Not betting doesn't mean you think you're wrong, but it does give a voice to doubt to compensate against false confidence when you have no skin in the game. Intellectual honesty might be 50% "fear of humiliation" which is taught early when you speak up too quick in class.

[@aresmars2003]

Of course the opposite is being "too much into scout" and feeling unwilling to make any bet (take a risk) on what you know, and then perhaps you need a soldier mindset (or like Kipling's poem "If") where you can take strategic risks when needed (or drastic when called for, even guaranteed to lose), but for a higher purpose, like demonstrating that "truth telling" as a whistleblower is the right thing, even if you lose you job, and friends, and maybe even family, if a culture is in deep denial about something important.

[@aresmars2003]

I had a moral dilemma with a brother who moved in with me after his divorce, and I indirectly knew he used drugs, but considered it his responsibility, but after 7 years checks were stolen and forged by his friends, and I finally concluded I wasn't helping him and went through a legal eviction process, and I had to picture the future and imagine he might be dead and murdered on the street or an overdose, and I told myself I couldn't allow myself to feel responsible, even if I knew I would, because you can always do more to help someone. So taking that step felt "soldier" - and I never showed him the evidence I had collected of his dishonesty, and I just said it was time to go, and refused to debate with him on the issue. And he was homeless for 2 months, living with friends, and camping in a local park, and then before winter he broke into my house because someone claimed they mailed a check to him at my address, and I got home from work and had to make him leave near freezing conditions, and I let him keep a blanket from our couch, but later he admitted that incident was what got him to accept going into a drug program. And he did end up dying 3 years later, methadone overdose, in a halfway house, but at least not violence on the street. Anyway, hardest thing I did, and harder when I had to face extended family telling me "I could never do that to my brother" so they blamed me, some cousins and aunt. Soldier mindset is about setting boundaries too, not letting others define you, EVEN as their opinions are more "data" for a scout.

[@robinandrews5613]

Apparent predictive skill can be down to removing contenders who make wrong predictions from the pool so that eventually a few outliers remain who made only correct predictions, even if they were random. Any thoughts on that?

[@ChristnThms]

One thing that seems to be missing from your entire discussion is negative consequence. You speak of incentives a lot. But empirical data is consistent in recognizing that we are far more aware of and spend more effort avoiding negatives than seeking positives... but that requires a negative of sufficient strength to overcome preconceived ideas. We (modern western culture) have become so good at creating an easy life that we have removed a vast majority of the strong consequences that might have motivated us in the past. In a sense, we have intentionally created the setting in which we pay no price for believing things which are false. There is, of course, irony in this. But then, there is also hope. As we screw ourselves over worse and worse, we also near the point where we begin to wisen up. We'll only know once we're past it. But we'll get there.

[@ThirdGateMedia]

@Christian Swensen - smartest commment I've read online this year. No joke. Cheers, mate!

[@grumblekin]

You could argue that successful avoidance of a negative outcome is a positive outcome. But when you aren't quite sure of concrete instances where you avoided negative outcomes, it can drive you to become paranoid and begin to fear negative outcomes. In this case, negative consequences becomes a nebulous, anxiety-inducing blob of fear and this would reinforce whatever incentive would help avoid such unknown trouble.

[@ChristnThms]

@@grumblekin Nope. That starts from a false assumption, that positive experiences exist on their own. Removing negative is surely essential, but can never be counted as positive on its own. The person who focuses ONLY on removing negative is still a miserable person. Oddly, even a small amount of positive can overcome a massive amount of negative. So, once the urgency of a crisis is past, it is always a better endeavor to focus on finding or creating positive experiences. The trick, of course, is that the world tries to convince us that momentary distractions are actually positive, when quite obviously they're not. There IS a natural progression here, though. The effort to create positive is, itself, positive. It also has the benefit of consuming time and space in your life that could be filled with negative. So, ultimately, if you were to focus SOLELY on the creation of lasting positive experiences, it would have the effect of driving out negative at the same time.

[@robertferraro236]

For personal success one must think infinitely and of infinite possibility. One must apply no upper bounds to "fooling themselves" into thinking that they have virtually unlimited potential. If we limit ourselves to any doubt or set any upper bar of limitation we will fall short. Some evidence to support this is that I simulated millions of stock trades with different strategies. Those that used a profit goal, e.g. selling after your stock grew 50%, fared much lower than any buy and hold strategy even considering the losing trades. This is because the strategy had no upper bounds. It is in those extreme growths that are held beyond a profit target that the full gamut of probable positive outcomes manifest i.e. the Pareto top 20% that provide the 80% of return. So advice to all entrepreneurs is to literally lie to yourself and tell yourself that you know no limits. But then on the topic of factual information then I highly endorse and push only the intellectual honesty approach and this includes the outcomes of your "unlimited potential" internal dialog.

[@merrick8000]

you are my people

[@merrick8000]

we are our people you know what he meant

[@faithfulfilo7994]

Someone please tell me what the intro song is

[@johnaweiss]

43:02 Entrepreneurs have to be both soldiers and scouts. Publicly, they must tout their awesomeness. In R&D they must rigorously solve problems. Failure to do either will hurt the company.

[@johnaweiss]

33:08 Then you're implying that conventional academic achievement isn't a powerful incentive to think critically. I agree. I suggest that RELEVANCE is another factor, not just INCENTIVE. I'm not sure 'relevance' is another way to say 'incentive'. There's a difference between getting money vs feeling motivated to learn something because it's USEFUL. A kid may flunk her French exam, but drop her in the middle of Paris and she'll learn French fast. That's a very different kind of incentive than getting money rewards or "payoff" they way you're using it. "The difference between experiential learning in the classroom and in workplace or community settings is not only a matter of subject-matter content or instructional principles, but it is also existential. Students in experiential education learn as workers or community participants with a need to know in order to get a job done, not just as students who need to take a test." www.aacu.org/publications-research/periodicals/power-experiential-education

[@kittyluv2564]

The US is getting so insanely political now, they should have more people like you and think rationally.

[@yes0r787]

Exactly!

[@danwylie-sears1134]

A military scout, needing to be stealthy, ventures forth alone. Or so it's usually imagined. That's appealing to someone who wants to be the hero of their own intellectual efforts. But it's not all that useful. The interesting questions are too big for one human mind to handle alone. We have to collaborate. But collaboration can have somewhat-adversarial sub-modes. For example, I think of conflict and competition as being very different. Competition (as I think of it) is a form of collaboration that's useful when it's fairly clear what's better or worse, but it's not clear what our expectations should be: how good is good enough, how good is an amazing achievement, and what level of performance is disappointing or even an outright failure. In good competition, the competitors really do find themselves "giving 110%". Not 110% of the actual maximum that's possible, of course, but 110% of what they thought was possible. Argumentation, at its best, is another somewhat-adversarial component of an undertaking that's collaborative on a larger scale. An argument isn't inherently adversarial. It's just a series of logically connected propositions leading from some premises (which, hopefully, everyone involved can agree on) to a conclusion (which, hopefully, pushes the limits of at least some participants' understanding). But argumentation often works best when there's an adversarial aspect to it. Coming up with arguments in favor of a particular conclusion is often a more engaging puzzle than just exploring the underlying ideas, one that can change the arguer's own views more effectively. My best reasoning has sometimes happened when I'm trying to argue for X, I find that my arguments can only support X', and I adjust my understanding accordingly. I try to convince a hypothetical audience of my opinion, and I wind up changing that opinion in a way that I never would have by metaphorically scouting the territory. Call it a strategist, war-gaming out scenarios against other strategists on the staff of the same army. In that role you're trying to win the war-game, as your narrow focus, but your broader undertaking is to find out which strategies really will work if your army has to face the situations that you're gaming about.

[@gushammons9613]

I no longer feel that almost anyone wants to be honest, or is even capable of it. I have become horrified by what I observe in the people I know, the companies I've worked for, and it's more horrifying to think that I may be the same but simply lack insight. I'm now homeless and think more and more about death. Perhaps making a career of talking and writing about honesty is a satisfying endeavor after a person has inherited the love, support, and economic advantages of affluence. For those born in mucky trenches, having a deep love of the truth feels like masochism and suicide.

[@Samgurney88]

I'm a bit depressed at the moment, so perhaps that negatively distorts my view, but I'm going to lean into that negativism and hope that depressive realism helps me out. If our cognitive architecture is not programmed by evolution towards intellectual honesty, aren't attempts to modify that always going to be rather futile sticking plasters? There will always be anomolies: natural variation ensures that some people will be abnormally curious, have a low threshold for emotional arousal in response to threats, be oddly indifferent to the approval of their peers, or otherwise be so constituted psychologically that they are capable of more intellectual honesty than the norm. For the rest, incentive structures, self-assurance and conscious awareness of the biases that result in intellectual dishonesty might make some small difference in some contexts. But why should we assume that this tendency can be counteracted in any durable and consistent way, even if it is rationally optimal and advantageous to be intellectually honest? We all know, for example, that it is rationally optimal to defer gratification, but this knowledge does not help us much to do much more than swim against the tide of our own natures - which for most of us runs in the direction of seeking instant gratification. Doesn't it also presuppose a certain minimum of intellectual honesty to fully acknowledge the advantages of intellectual honesty and, more importantly, to recognise its relevance in particular cases and to actually exercise it? And, given the assumption that most people are fairly intellectually dishonest, how is it realistic to expect a society composed of such people to organise structures of incentives which encourage intellectual honesty? Don't the pervasively intellectually dishonest benefit from preserving both their own and others' intellectual dishonesty - isn't there a strong possibility that we're stuck in a rationality trap? I'm not even fully convinced of the advantageousness of intellectual honesty. I agree that it has an advantage in terms of tracking the truth. Truth, however, is not the only thing people value. Social approval, mental comfort, personal vanity and the interests of whichever tribe they identify with are, on the whole, far more important than truth to most people. In practice the average person is a vulgar pragmatist, whatever epistemology they might profess. Where it is particularly important for people to know the truth, then people will be more likely to quietly concede it, albeit reluctantly - and even in these cases people would sometimes rather risk their own and other lives than confront uncomfortable truths (the fact that even in survival emergencies most people die rather than confront ugly truths which will save their lives suggests this). We should not underestimate the costs people are willing to pay for comfortable and convenient falsehoods. It seems closer to the mark, from my perspective, to say that exceptional intellectual honesty is generally a disadvantage for which a heavy price is paid. And perhaps, even, sometimes that price isn't worth paying - who, other than the most conventionally minded fanatic of orthodoxy, hasn't sometimes concealed their doubts or nodded along to some conventional platitudes to spare everyone fruitless controversy? Who hasn't let slip their intellectual scruples and allowed themselves to be decieved from time to time, out of mental laziness or apathy or - who knows? - an unspeakable sense that the truth is sometimes an unnecessary and unendurable burden? I can envisage the ideal of pure and incorruptible intellectual honesty, and it is not any human being I recognise. And perhaps, even, sometimes the truth can only lay down its roots in those with a certain kind of levity and playfulness towards the truth, who boldly play and toy with various perspectives - perhaps only then can the truths contained in alternative ideas be given their due, and the lame straight-jacket of anodyne caution be escaped? (It is instructive to read the *original* texts in which many of the great scientific breakthroughs were first advanced - many great hypotheses are arrived at first through sophistry and non-sequiturs, or daringly wild intuitive leaps). If we are narrowly defining "intellectual honesty" as self-awareness with respect to motivated reasoning and cognitive biases, perhaps it would also be fitting to pause and hang a question mark over the notion of "cognitive biases". I am not an expert in them and I don't know what criteria are applied when identifying them. It seems, prima facie, that we should have some presumption in favour of the heuristics with which evolution has endowed us. The mere fact that they may sometimes misfire is an insufficient reason for abandoning them, since they may enable us in other cases to arrive at reliable and useful beliefs or decisions. It seems that we have to be careful, when criticising them, not to fall into the trap of a petitio principii - on what grounds, if not through the equipment provided to us ultimately by evolution, can we determine any truth in order to be able to say that other heuristics lead to falsehood? (And similarly, how can we stand above and outside of our evolved repertoire of reactions when evaluating "good" decision making?) This may sound pedantic and trivial, but consider Hume's problem of induction - a case in which the canons of deductive reasoning seem to overreach and condemn the independent but nevertheless reliable canons of inductive reasoning. We have to be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Of the main cognitive biases with which I am familiar, however, it would seem preposterous to deny their power, pervasiveness, and propensity to produce irrational conclusions - I am simply sounding a note of caution here. It is indeed possible that some of our evolved heuristics have "outgrown" their use in the environment created by modernity (the "unnaturalness" of modernity is an old predicament). But this requires further justification in specific cases. And, in any case, this still gives us no reason for presuming that our native endowments *can* be meaningfully counteracted: naturam expelles furca, tamen usque recurret. Science, on the whole, is intellectual honesty in institutional form. So perhaps its existence and success is a proof of the concept that we can construct our institutions to nurture intellectual honesty. I remain sceptical. I suspect that large science budgets are tolerated by the rest of society largely because science has proven itself to benefit society materially, not because it satisfies some deep curiosity about the truth imagined on the part of society at large (see the enormous resistance and calumny incurred by the scientific revolution). Scientists are usually fairly ordinary human beings. If a disproportionate number of scientists are somewhat more intellectually honest than the norm (that is an *if* - I have nothing but limited and contradictory personal experience to go on), that is probably due to the fact that science is more appealing to such people, and that there are institutional incentives and habits fostered by scientific practice and experience which are conducive to intellectual honesty. But science as an enterprise does not rely on individual scientists being exemplars of supreme intellectual virtue. It would work almost as well or badly as it already does if we make the assumption, no doubt profoundly unfair, that many of its practiotioners are not intellectual saints, because the scientific method is an ingenious device which allows us to amplify the quiet voice of nature above the noisy human cacaphony. It certainly helps that questions about the "simpler" systems of nature to which the device of science is particularly well attuned are rarely matters of great emotional valence. Few people's fundamental worldview, ideology, or interests are vitally threatened by the divergence of the magnetic field equalling zero. Evolution is an interesting counterexample to this trend - and look at how fiercely it was fought and the acrobatics of those who continue to deny it, or who have had to adapt their theology to survive. It seems to me that the struggle against intellectual dishonesty is probably hopeless. There is a kind of Gresham's law operating in the realm of beliefs, and reissuing everyone with honest coin is a utopian impossibility. It doesn't follow from this that the struggle against counterfeit truth isn't worth attempting: it hardly seems that it could make things worse, and it might make things a little better than otherwise they would be. Perhaps it is particuarly important in a culture which increasingly seems to exacerbate rather than restrain our natural inclinations towards intellectual dishonesty. I think it's a commendable effort. But you can swim against a tide successfully, swim and stay still, or swim and still get washed out to sea. It's difficult to predict what effect, if any, our small efforts will have and how worthwhile they are.

[@Samgurney88]

Since I have arrogated to myself the right to speak on the topic of intellectual honesty, perhaps I should say that I don't think - or, to be more precise, I don't think that I think - exceedingly highly of myself in that regard. I regularly catch myself out in self-deception. Just for that alone, however, I think that I am probably better able to face unpleasant truths than most people I know - but how do I know that I am not decieving myself even here? In so far as I can be impartial about such things, I find in my own case that my level of intellectual honesty with myself varies across contexts and times. Almost by definition, it is easiest in domains where my motives and interests are relatively untouched by the conclusions I might reach - but presumably our motives are always impinging on us somewhere in the background, and it is difficult to pre-emptively discount them even if we *try* to become mindful of them and their potentially corrupting influence. I suppose this raises a further problem for those crusading on behalf of intellectual honesty: how to combat intellectual dishonesty about intellectual honesty? I've often suspected that the fallacy-hunter type is worse off precisely on account of their excessive and usually unwarranted self-confidence. I'm not sure there's an easy way to grind down people's over-confidence in their own beliefs to much of a useful degree. It's hard enough to navigate for yourself the tradeoff between paralysing uncertainty about everything and excessive confidence, and even more difficult to evaluate meta-cognitively whether you are striking the balance well. I have sometimes found myself sliding down the infinite regress of adjudicating between potential biases which push in conflicting directions, and the biases which may come into operation in my reasoning about my own biases. There is an ill-defined point at which evaluating our reasoning and beliefs stops being a simple matter of applying the standard and robust canons of good logic and evidential warrant, and becomes philosophical introspection which has to be plugged by some sort of act of the will or provisional acceptance of what cannot be further justified. For these reasons, it seems to me that every small thing which clashes with our structure of background beliefs thereby indirectly threatens the whole edifice of our minds. How, in that case, is purely non-motivated reasoning even logically possible? Isn't some degree of intellectual rigidity and stubborness therefore a precondition of rationality, complete intellectual flimsiness making a coherent and useful belief system impossible? I appreciate that I may be meandering rather off-topic, since I don't think anyone sensible is advocating anything more than *striving* for intellectual honesty as a corrective. But isn't there danger in idealising it too zealously, both in that it can be taken overly seriously and in that doing so creates the dangerous temptation to think that the unattainable can be realised - which, in this case, means blinding oneself to one's own subtle and wiley intellectual motives by imagining that they have been tamed? I've deliberately allowed myself to be a little scattershot here. I imagine that the kind of person interested in the topic of intellectual honesty might tolerate an advocatus diaboli. In any case, writing this has been apleasant distraction. Probably nobody will read it, but I hope anyone who does might find something in it worthwhile.

[@siyaindagulag.]

@@Samgurney88 All this considerateae from a depressed mind? Human ,friend ,all too human.

[@yes0r787]

Beautifully and honestly expounded; I enjoyed reading your comments. The fabric of our shared existence is not purely black or white or green. Honesty and self understanding, like blackberries or daffodils, well worth cultivating without the expectation they will rule the earth.

[@siyaindagulag.]

Just briefly ,and without firing up the enigma machine ,could I please offer a somewhat historical and humanist perspective relating to your paragraph six ; you are indeed on th right track ,so to speak , as I think it was Gallileo who wrote of a certain Humbling Awe, as he viewed the heavens. So too, similar descriptions of a soul - striking wonderment ,on observing tiny life ,wriggling away under a microscope. I am vaguely aware of more of these non scientia descriptions written alongside their actual theories and have no hesitation stating : These were not merely written to appease the church, but genuine and stemming from some deeply human need to state such. It paid the church well, to obscure knowledge from us , as can be derived from more recent power dynamics within human society. You previously mention ,and highlight a striving toward ,intellectual honesty. I hope I have described sufficiently where this inner propensity for such , originates and agree with other fine concepts ; Value being one, Striving you have mentioned, another and , of course Reason and logic :( analytical deduction. Inductive too I suppose). Reason the great provider , proud and often headstrong , of enormous utility and also proud of it's considerable toolkit ; which less ethical and those further removed from that "sense of awe in the face of "truth" ; would claim as their own and use the toolkit more like a toy box, in a game of their own quest for some ill- defined Power. Your comments, (as someone who apparently appreciates beautiful things ,like life itself, has replied) are very well written . To myself, these are critical questions, well worth asking Take care of that outstanding brain of yours . Cheers.

[@temitope6830]

Such an amazing individual. And she's so beautiful

[@SubvertTheState]

I just found Julia Galef's work/book. I love the Scout mindset ideas and have observed the truth behind the metaphors nearly every day. Not sure why nearly all of the questions are trying to poke holes in it, while I think it's a good way to iron out kinks its kind of annoying that people want to hear a defense or rational for soldier mindset. Like all of the most 'successful' people champion soldier mindset and its tiresome haha. Great talk.

[@thebookwasbetter3650]

If you want to read up on something interesting about betting and predicting world events, check out the Policy Analysis Market or PAM. It was a futures exchange market where people could bet on where the next terrorist attack would occur and other world events. It was based on the notion that monetized opinions were more accurate than expert opinions. It was a Pentagon project that had to be scrapped when the media found out the government was getting people to bet on terrorist attacks, but still an interesting experiment.

[@justmemyselfandi5532]

To hear what she is saying I must turn of screen 😍

[@rvc121]

Ayn rand made a great case about why intellectual honesty is in your own interest. This is not to take away anything from julie. But Ayn rand all career is about explaining this specific topic.

[@dmitrysamoilov5989]

honesty in general means something like "the lack of deception" or "no lies present". here's the lie that's present in this lecture: the attitude of the presenter is that she knows what is right and wrong, and everybody else in the entire would should agree with her. That is not honest. A real honest approach to moral issues is the attitude: "I have preferences and desires for the world, but, most people in the world have their own desires and preferences that may or may not match up with mine." She seems to use the term intellectual honesty as a way to convince other people that she has "correct" preferences. When, in reality, there is no such thing as a "correct" preference. A preference is a preference is a preference. It's just a preference! You can share that preference with someone, and then you say, hey, you're right! or I agree with you! or Good on you! or you don't share that preference, and you say: "You're wrong, or Boo on you! or How could you?" When (if you were being honest (and yes I am using that word to manipulate you)) you would say: "I don't share that preference with you (and that's okay)." I guess on second thought, that statement that I just made also sort of exudes an air of pacifism, so I guess any honest statement, to me, must do that. If you make a statement that is inherently hostile, that's dishonest in the sense that: you act with hostility to your enemies, not your allies. And, seriously, what kind of strategy is it to be honest with your enemies? I mean if you do that, you're really asking for it!

[@dmitrysamoilov5989]

@Danny Dreadnought are you directing that comment towards me or towards the presenter? both of us give opinions about what intellectual honesty means to us.

[@MrMorlaf]

my only beef with all this is that we are already all soldiers and scouts to varying degrees. At some point we all need to stop scouting, though, and start soldiering.... but very few take that final step......

[@kaltkalt2083]

Intelligence is ultimately one’s ability to predict (forecast) the future.

[@GuinessOriginal]

Could just be a lucky guess. 7 billion people, there's a few who are gonna get it right, law of averages. Doesn't necessarily make them intelligent, just lucky

[@kaltkalt2083]

@@GuinessOriginal the ones who get it most right most often are the most intelligent. Yes anyone can make a lucky guess.

[@GuinessOriginal]

@@kaltkalt2083 7 billion people predicting the future, law of averages are that some are guns her it right a lot, nothing to do with intelligence. You can think it's intelligence all you want, you're just rationalising

[@kaltkalt2083]

@@GuinessOriginal no, nobody will get it right a lot, there are an infinite number of things one can predict, but even predicting the next day’s football game score exactly is difficult, let’s see someone do it ten games in a row. If you can predict exactly what US/Chinese relations will be like 18 months from now (and I’m talking detailed, not "good" or "bad") you are extremely intelligent. Nothing to "rationalize" i never claimed i was a master of prediction. Nor do I think intelligence is necessarily the greatest thing possible. I’d rather be the best basketball player in the world than the best rocket scientist in the world. I’m not just talking about guesswork either, those who figured out math to better predict things required great intelligence. The general who predicts his emery’s every move is the smartest, most effective general.

[@GuinessOriginal]

@@kaltkalt2083 you don't think you have to be intelligent to be the best basketballer in the world? 7 billion guesses, someone is gonna get it right now often than not. That's not that many outcomes to choose from

[@bryanweber1231]

Intellectual honesty....trying to pay attention but she's really damn cute when she inflects. Just being honest.

[@davidwilkie9551]

A QM e-Pi-i math-mechanism, sync-duration symmetry approach to holistic Conception, which has been assumed to be the responsibility of thinkers who can extract quantitative objective values from this qualitative time-timing Infinity/Eternity-now Perspective of logarithmic numberness Conception context, makes the theory of mind in a body of temporal superposition making, a complicated and messy sum-of-all-histories, metastable proportioning probability cause-effect equation in continuous creation here-now-forever.. Thinking Fast and Slow applies to Unity in Simultaneity. Mind-set phase-locked, metastable substantion open omnidirectional-dimensional Origin of learning by doing Intuition at zero-infinity flat-space ground state contemplation states of mindfulness. Is Space-time empty or complete, Superspin hyperfluid or here-now-forever superposition and what, how, why do you think it? Self-defining reintegration. Eg Quantum Operator Logic is the Mathematical mode of existence, so any probability is an aspect of universal possibility, which is why truth, trust, belief etc require reasonable and rational proportioning coherence-cohesion objective analysis in this e-Pi-i omnidirectional-dimensional Conception. "Do or die".

[@morthim]

being pro incentive is an understandable heuristic, but when the incentive drops away it becomes a perpetual disincentive.

[@Jason918114]

I❤u

[@aaazzi]

Is she using soldier mode to impress upon us the value of scout mode? 😅 any way Samer and I have a big crush on her

[@johnaweiss]

18:04 Psychotherapists are also familiar with self-deception. I think it's not generally considered healthy. I think it's generally considered pathological. Isn't organized religion the most egregious example of this?

[@synchronium24]

5:05 "I used to work for this organization, the Center For Applied Rationality." >used to Huh, this is news to me. I never knew she stopped.

[@alexandria5758]

Yeah why did she leave? what is her current relationship with the centre for applied rationality?

[@synchronium24]

@@alexandria5758 I don't know the answer to either of your questions. As best I can tell, this is what she's currently doing. juliagalef.com/update-project/

[@DemographicDoom]

I noticed that too! “Used to”. Maybe she signed an NDA. Top Secret Compartmentalized. No one just “resigns“ from the Center for Applied Rationality.

[@alexandria5758]

@@DemographicDoom Why does no one just resign from CFAR? I assume she left because she enjoys podcasting and writing more and wanted to spend more time doing that

[@DemographicDoom]

@@alexandria5758 If you try to resign from CFAR, they kidnap you, and you wake up on a mysterious island in a place called "The Village" and every week there's a new Number 2 and he always wants to know, "Why did you resign?"

[@cosmicpsyops4529]

Epistemic responsibility

[@scientious]

This would explain a couple of odd things I had observed.

[@GuinessOriginal]

Which were?

[@scientious]

@@GuinessOriginal For example, why no one seemed to change their minds about Trump's fitness even as mountains of evidence showing this stacked up during his four years in office. This is usually attributed to misinformation such as when Tucker recently claimed that nearly 100 million immigrants had invaded the US in the past 30 years (the number is actually 33 million in the past 50 years). Or misinformation like an article in The Blaze claimed that a Navy/Marine Corps study proved that masks don't work. The study actually didn't test the effectiveness of masks and mask wearing remains standard policy in the Marine Corps. What the study actually showed was that mask wearing and simple quarantine measures were not enough and the Navy policy changed to much more rigorous testing. Another observation is why I still see researchers clinging to ideas that haven't been productive in the past six decades. I see this all the time in AGI research even though they are very intelligent, rational, and have access to a wealth of very good information.

[@GuinessOriginal]

@@scientious what's agi? Yes i agree but i don't think this is anything new. I'm not entirely convinced by Biden's fitness for office either. I used to think George W Bush wasn't fit, seeing as he is a huge cocaine addict, it's quite impressive how downhill the US has gone since then

[@scientious]

@@GuinessOriginal > what's agi? Artificial General Intelligence (human level machine intelligence) > I'm not entirely convinced by Biden's fitness for office either. That's a good example of an irrational belief. > I used to think George W Bush wasn't fit, He wasn't, but he was more qualified than Trump. > seeing as he is a huge cocaine addict I'm not aware of any evidence for that. He was alcoholic until he was 40. > it's quite impressive how downhill the US has gone since then Not since George W. since Obama was considerably more qualified.

[@GuinessOriginal]

@@scientious George Bush got pulled over by the cops in texas even he was younger with over an ounce of coke on him. Not sure why you think that's irrational

[@robot7759]

I'm afraid "the truth" doesn't exist, it's always perception based on incomplete information? Grey scale forever 😊

[@wellesradio]

You do realize you just had an "Only the Sith deal in absolutes", don't you? Lol. "The truth doesn't exist" and "it's always perception based on incomplete information" are both examples if black and white thinking.

[@chuckm1961]

1 +1 = ?

[@robot7759]

@@chuckm1961 1 + 1 = a mathematical agreement, not a truth.

[@jasmadams]

As a veteran of the Armored Cavalry, I approve this metaphor.

[@blommsnruins01u9]

Man, that dress of hers looks like a color-blindness test :D.

[@diegomorales8616]

Ayn Rand wrote extensively about this in The Objectivist Ethics and in her lexicon about honesty and evasion. Nathaniel Branden expanded on the importance of honesty and not evading in his self-esteem books.

[@GeorgeOu]

The challenge is that honesty is all too often penalized in real life, especially in this era of mandatory DEI statements that filter out 75% of the candidates. So it's really more of a systemic problem of wrong incentives.

[@clarkkent3730]

the question posed is a contradiction in itself......there is nothing honest about the intellect! *"the intellect is enmity against truth"....Romans chapter 8:7*

[@stephenland9361]

America is a very religious place. Intellectual honesty is for the most part a foreign concept. It's why America is fucked.

[@samuelmason8370]

really sad that this is society now days- its better to sugar coat that promptly address due to feelings biasing everything. Can somebody please create a Lobotomy pill? Originally I was thinking for the masses--- just me would be fine upon further review.

[@diegomorales8616]

Alex Epstein's talk at google is an excellent review of climate change and climate safety.

[@ArthurCor-ts2bg]

Soldier and Scout mindsets are mutually exclusive and their uniqueness is essential for their respective mission accomplishment successfully.....Thus Intellectual Honesty can't be defined to uniformly apply for all roles in life.... That's the irony....

[@joeyalfaro2323]

Do you know judge is second lowest elected official and should be on your side after all you are people. They won't tell you that. Sheriff is lowest elected official

[@tribalypredisposed]

Over a half an hour to mention tribal loyalty in passing...when intellectual dishonesty is all about tribal loyalty. I assume you had many years of Psych classes where you were indoctrinated into their tribal focus on individuals and general ignorance of evolution, and you are remaining loyal to your tribe here. The intellectually honest have a very hard road to travel in university and socially, the social sciences are a vast structure built almost entirely on bull crap, for example, and going into your classes and saying so will end any chance of graduation with a Bachelors even. Other people want to be around those who have a shared world view with them, which is our evolved tribal psychology, but if one realizes that both left and right ground their philosophies on ancient obviously wrong musings by armchair philosophers about human nature, and therefore reject all of the above and set out to be intellectually honest, as I have done, you will pay a heavy social price. I do not think you have been intellectually honest with yourself about the true cost of intellectual honesty, and you would know from personal experience those costs if you were actually practicing rigorous intellectual honesty yourself. It entails practicing first principles thinking with your own core beliefs, starting from bedrock and questioning everything. Last, I just have to mention, there is no equivalence between Democrats recognizing the reality of the climate catastrophe, which is intellectual honesty, and Republicans denying it, which is dishonesty. Presenting it as equivalent, as you did, was intellectual dishonesty because you did not want to upset the Republicans...

[@ZachsMusicTube]

Do you believe in Bigfoot?

[@mackenshaw8169]

"Correct answers on climate change"? That presumes a lot. Also the first questioner displays a jaw dropping lack of self awareness or "mindfulness"; What she is advocating is the direct and complete opposite of the scout's search for truth.

[@Kevorama0205]

I don’t see what the questioner did wrong. Could you elaborate?

[@mackenshaw8169]

@@Kevorama0205 She argues against the existence of objective truth and then advocates that the search for truth should be forsaken in the name of "the greater good" which is an odd position for for someone having just suggested that mindfulness could be useful in developing a scout mindset. Galef's failure to pick her up on this greatly undermines her intellectual credibility.

[@Kevorama0205]

@@mackenshaw8169 Objective truth is inaccessible, so she's simply right on that count. She never suggests forsaking truth for the greater good. You had a certain mindset when listening to her, and Galef had a different one. You heard "greater good" and "relative" and you jumped to your conclusion. Galef heard a question about how morality enters into all of it. I wouldn't expect her to pick up on something no one said.

[@mackenshaw8169]

@@Kevorama0205 She does. Most explicitly.

[@Kevorama0205]

@@mackenshaw8169 Not explicitly enough for me or Galef apparently. So you'd have to elaborate, instead of just asserting "she does". You already expressed that belief of yours.

[@Qkano]

Preaching "Climate Change" as if it is FACT without addressing the fact it is not scientifically proven (becasue it cannot be, ever) severely weakens the message. The cult of climate change is real. The massive business interests supporting the cult of climate change is real. The climate is a societal construct (it's weather averaged over a period of years) and as such it objectively it changes every day, and has done since the creation of the earth". "Climate change" as used by those with a massive finacial interest in the cult, is a shape shifter ... you are demanded to say "yes it exists" yet what "it" is is never stated. never ever stated. When was the "perfect " weather? Should we try to go back to the 1700s? What if natural climate cycles? They exist and from an effect on the world are no differed. Imaging an oncoming ice age which could exterminate the human race.

[@famillebeaulieu-luangkham2923]

Useless commentary : the "like" counter OF the video is waaaay lower than the "like" counter IN the video !! ;p