Comment by jongjong
12 hours ago
I do this already with all of my beliefs.
That's not to say my beliefs are exhaustively battle-tested and correct; maybe other people have information that I'm missing but in my role as a software engineer working across multiple industries and some politically sensitive projects, I've had access to information and first-hand experiences that most other people haven't.
The thing is; if I told the average person what I witnessed without providing any interpretation, they would doubt the basic facts because some of what I experienced doesn't make sense when measured against mainstream narratives and most people's day-to-day experiences.
For example, about the crypto/blockchain sector; when I tell people about my experiences, outsiders often say stuff like "The founders behaved this way because of hype and irrationality of the markets" but when you've been through it every day for 2 years and experienced the taboos inside the company, seen the suppression of projects and community members, following a clear, predictable, repeated pattern, it's impossible to believe that it is random or irrational.
> Rational people will pick the ideology which has the fewest contradictions. Irrational people will choose that which serves them best.
Perhaps everyone is irrational?
How we would know otherwise if we can make irrational things rational just by thinking about them hard enough?
Yes, it's a spectrum. The best test to figure out the extent of your own bias is to make a list of ways which in which a particular ideology benefits you.
For most of my contrarian ideologies, they are harmful to me in most ways except "Protects my ego by redefining personal failings as system failings." Most of my contrarian ideologies have this characteristic but this point has been getting weaker over time; I don't have much pride left. I'm literally working for a bank now.
Or maybe I work for a bank just to prove to myself that I don't care about pride? Getting kind of elaborate.