I think the term “abstract reasoning” is being conflated with acting on good or bad information (among other things). E.g., in most cases, one basically has to take it on faith ice cream is good or bad. And since most people aren’t in a position to rationally make a confident choice re: the examples the author provides or comparable ones that could be imagined, agnosticism would seem the only rational alternative.*
More generally, I think a lot of these problems stem from radically defective education (if people aren’t merely mostly morons as the author implies at one point: “Perhaps 5% of the population has enough abstract reasoning skill to verbally understand that the above heuristics would be useful once these heuristics are pointed out.”)**. We don’t get experience from a young age in figuring things out for ourselves. Instead we are merely told what to believe and not to believe (based on “respect for authority”)--a recipe for making terrible decisions in later life if ever there was one.
Finally, I think the author is lumping a lot of different problems together that seemingly shouldn’t be. In one case the problem may be “strategy”, another ideology...ignorance, laziness etc. Apart from the fact ones stated goal is often not the real goal at all. One really needs, I think, to do a lot more work examining actual cases before attempting to pontificate on the matter. As far as I can see almost no actual work has been done...much like “postulating what one wants...”
*Of course the implication is we don’t eat ice cream to be healthy on the basis of expert claims. But this raises all kinds of further questions, invoking the application of more “abstract reasoning” before we can decide wether to trust these experts (if we are really trying to be rational, that is).
**You’re telling me the 5% figure wasn’t pulled out of someone’s ass—please!
I think the term “abstract reasoning” is being conflated with acting on good or bad information (among other things). E.g., in most cases, one basically has to take it on faith ice cream is good or bad. And since most people aren’t in a position to rationally make a confident choice re: the examples the author provides or comparable ones that could be imagined, agnosticism would seem the only rational alternative.*
More generally, I think a lot of these problems stem from radically defective education (if people aren’t merely mostly morons as the author implies at one point: “Perhaps 5% of the population has enough abstract reasoning skill to verbally understand that the above heuristics would be useful once these heuristics are pointed out.”)**. We don’t get experience from a young age in figuring things out for ourselves. Instead we are merely told what to believe and not to believe (based on “respect for authority”)--a recipe for making terrible decisions in later life if ever there was one.
Finally, I think the author is lumping a lot of different problems together that seemingly shouldn’t be. In one case the problem may be “strategy”, another ideology...ignorance, laziness etc. Apart from the fact ones stated goal is often not the real goal at all. One really needs, I think, to do a lot more work examining actual cases before attempting to pontificate on the matter. As far as I can see almost no actual work has been done...much like “postulating what one wants...”
*Of course the implication is we don’t eat ice cream to be healthy on the basis of expert claims. But this raises all kinds of further questions, invoking the application of more “abstract reasoning” before we can decide wether to trust these experts (if we are really trying to be rational, that is).
**You’re telling me the 5% figure wasn’t pulled out of someone’s ass—please!