Confirmation Bias- How to be Stupid and Proud of It

“Confirmation Bias is a hell of a drug.”- Mr. Burrito Bowl

 

There’s a movement by the intellectual elitists happening right now. They climb down from their ivory league towers and say condescending nonsense like, “You guys should look at all the facts before making a decision.” Wow. It must be nice to have the time and/or inclination to look at facts before choosing sides of an issue. Insufferable.

For a long time, I tried to be one of them. I tried to be objective and not form opinions based on feelings but rather on logic. Being an intellectually honest observer was hard. The sweater vests were too hot and I always felt like I was stuck on the sidelines. I’d see the rational points of each camp instead of blindly hollering into the void. It was miserable. After giving up this life I’ve never felt better. If you’re someone who enjoys critical thinking, please, give confirmation bias a try.

Let’s back up.

I’m not alone in my newfound freedom. I recently ran into a case of confirmation bias out in the wild. It may surprise you to learn a lot of people cherry-pick the facts to lead to their previously worked out conclusions, rather than allowing the real facts to lead the dance.

If you don’t believe me, go on Facebook for 17-seconds and you’ll see the average person is not great at making compelling logic-based arguments. This can be incredibly frustrating to watch. You, like me, enjoy stepping back and looking at all the facts on the ground before making a decision. We’re at a real disadvantage when it comes to public discourse.

The critical mistake we’re making is we fail to implement the ultimate tool: confirmation bias.

When you let confirmation bias lead your thinking it’s much easier to arrive at strongly held opinions. If you think of yourself as someone who likes to be objective, just stop. Pick a side and go from there, like a normal person. Don’t be a hero.

Happy people decide which side of an issue they’d like to end up on and then start tepidly looking at the evidence from there. Truth is placed well below my team winning, no matter the subject. People will post things they flat out know are lies, because they think it helps their team.

Although doing this is transparent to the objective observer, most people are not objective observers. You’ll hardly get called out for this type of behavior. If you do get called out it will be from someone on the other side of the issue, and who cares what those wrong people think?

Yes, it should hurt your team to post obviously false or misleading articles, but expecting some type of punishment for willingly misleading people is a fantasy land. This is real life. People on your side will line up to share the article instead of investigating it for themselves. Those who objective observers are left pulling their hair out because the article is spreading like wildfire and it’s CLEARLY made up. There are grammatical and spelling errors in the actual title- which doesn’t really matter since the title doesn’t correlate to the article anyway.

LIFE HACK: This type of behavior is only infuriating if you’re trying to be an objective observer. STOP. DOING. THAT.

Listen, the horses have left the corral. Stop trying to use logic and evidence to dictate what you believe. Find a side to be on and work backward from there. This is so much easier to do than being a truth-seeker.

Now, instead of being infuriated to see half-truths and flat out false statements being shared as fact, you’re only infuriated if the false statements come from the side you disagree with. If it comes from your side it will actually increase your happiness. “All right! We got ’em with another zinger,” you’ll think. This will eliminate at least half of the angst and frustration you feel about public discourse.

What do you think about the whole impeachment situation? Oh, you’re waiting to hear all the facts? Wrong. You should have made up your mind weeks ago.

The important part is to make sure your team wins, regardless of whether or not the other side is making some good points. Don’t even listen to the other side. Let confirmation bias fill your pretty little head and lay the actual truth somewhere on the cutting room floor where it belongs.

Breaking: President Trump does something and we have a lot of thoughts about that

When you start sharing articles with titles like, “Trump likes little girls but in a super weird and creepy way” or “Obama seen praising Satan because he hates America and Satan doesn’t really like America, either” you may have let confirmation bias slip into your thinking. This is good.

Not only will your side share an article like this- making you wildly popular- but it will infuriate the other side. This gets you ever closer to living in the type of world you’d like to live in- a black and white hellscape where you’re right and everyone else is stupid. Win-win.

Does Obama really pray to Satan? Does Trump really like little girls but in a super weird and creepy way? You’re asking the wrong questions. The correct question is, Does it fit my team’s narrative? If it fits our narrative that’s the only question we need to ask. Should you share an article like this? If it lines up with what you already think then the answer is a resounding ‘yes’. The rest is fake news.

Miserable people ask honest questions

Asking yourself an honest question about a certain topic is not ideal. It leads to questioning whether your previously held beliefs are actually true. If you want to believe something is true you need to just believe it. Let your pride lead the way. It’s there for a reason.

Step back from your thoughts and notice how your mind frames the data. It’s astounding how easily we can skip over enormous holes in an argument that we generally agree with if we just try. Equally astounding is our sudden ability to pick out the tiniest cracks in the arguments of those we disagree with. If we just let ourselves pick a side and stick to it we’ll be amazed by the conclusions we can come to.

When you watch Fox News you’re getting a completely different take than CNN. Neither one is explicitly lying, but they’re asking questions in a way that frames their version of the truth. The result is a completely different spin on the same event.

That’s why it’s important to find a news station that agrees with your view of the world. Find one and stick to it. Changing your opinion based on new information is called flip-flopping, and it’s bush league. If you only listen to one news source you’re far less likely to do this.

Depending on which version you want to be true you’ll end up asking completely different questions.

Both sides can ask the question in a way that gives them the answer that backs up their previously held belief. That’s what confirmation bias is at its core. People from the opposite side will try to ask a question that makes you uncertain about your belief. They’ll try to show you THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WALL. Evidence that disagrees with a previously held belief is called propaganda. Don’t fall for it.

Things get interesting when two sides meet and interact. They want to end up at different conclusions, so they ask completely different questions. Then we all just stand there perplexed at the idiocy of the side we disagree with. This is an integral part of being an American.

Being sure of something you know very little about is part of being an adult.

If you’re caught in the middle- listening to both sides- you’ll feel like an idiot because you won’t be sure who to believe.

Whether you’re a Democrat or a Republican you probably have strong feelings about the current impeachment chaos. One side is asking for an explanation about what Joe Biden did or didn’t do, the other side is asking about what Donald Trump did or didn’t do.

Neither side can imagine being so wrong as to be on the other side. It’s a really beautiful example of people allowing confirmation bias to rule their thinking. Can you imagine if everyone sat quietly listening to all the facts before coming to a conclusion? Boring.

I wonder if either side is honestly asking what they would think if the roles were exactly reversed in this whole thing. If President Obama had asked a foreign leader to look into some possible corruption regarding one of his political opponents would the Republicans suddenly feel like maybe it’s not an appropriate thing to do? Would the Democrats want Obama impeached for the same offense? My guess is both sides would completely reverse their current stances and not even blink.

In this hypothetical world, Republicans would be up in arms saying “The President of the United States ABSOLUTELY cannot ask a foreign leader to gather dirt on a political opponent.” In real life, they’re asking to see the dirt. Then when they’re shown the dirt they say, “This isn’t technically dirt. It’s more like sand.”

An objective observer would point out that Democrats wouldn’t give two shits if Obama asked the President of Turkey to look into Dick Cheney. Someone legitimately probably should look into Dick Cheney. I feel like he made a lot of money for Halliburton during the Iraq war. Republicans, get up in arms about that, please.

But the point is, being an objective observer is awful. Luckily, most of us aren’t objective observers.

Remember that crazy headline from earlier in the post about Donald Trump liking little girls in a super weird and creepy way?

Pretend you see that headline in an article someone shared on Facebook. Then you encounter this anti-Trump protester.

Mostly depending on how we feel about Donald Trump, but partially how we feel about this protester, we either hear this…

or this…

Either one is fine to believe as long as it ultimately helps your team.

The truth is uncomfortable. Truth can send you down a rabbit hole that ends up changing the entire way you view the world if you’re not careful.

I don’t have a great solution to avoid confirmation bias, so I think it’s probably best to not even try. It’s important to be aware that everything we hear goes through our confirmation bias lens before it reaches our ears. Since you know that you’re using confirmation bias, it makes sense that your opponents are using it also. Make an effort to point out their bias every time you share one of your own cherry-picked facts with them.

Hot Tip: An important tool in defeating dissenting opinions is to take our own cognitive roadblocks and flip them around on our opponents. This works for politics, religion, health, and anything else you can think of.

The Proud Confirmation Seeker

There’s a nasty stigmatism against being a confirmation-seeker, even though it’s clearly the easiest way to live.

Elitist out-of-touch people will try to convince you that it’s far better to be a truth-seeker than a confirmation-seeker. What they conveniently leave out is the fact that to be a truth-seeker you’d have to be willing to actively seek out dissenting opinions. The dissenting side won’t be impartial, so listening to them will muddy up the waters. This doesn’t sound like a very smart way to be sure about anything.

Use the Logical Fallacies to Your Advantage

Sometimes it’s not possible to block out all other viewpoints. If you’re ever in a debate and someone won’t shut up about science, facts, or data, try throwing out some logical fallacies. They might just help you win.

Maybe attack who they are as a person while ignoring their argument. This is called Ad Hominem. It’s Latin, so you know it’s good. Another tactic is using the fallacy of false equivalence. That’s where the two sides of an argument are viewed with equal weight, even if almost everyone is on one side.

An example of this would be scientists with climate change. The general number that gets thrown around is 97% of scientists believe manmade climate change is extremely likely. That means 3% either don’t believe it or don’t have enough data to make a stance. If you enjoy not believing in climate change just throw the fallacy of false equivalence out there. Say something like, “Scientists can’t even agree on climate change. Some believe in it, some don’t. I guess it’s a tie.” 

Hard to argue with that.

You can also throw out the old strawman argument. Maybe someone thinks we shouldn’t separate children from their parents at the border. You’d say, “Oh so you just want to let all the rapists in the world in.” Not a lot they can say to that. Try taking it one step further and throw a slippery slope fallacy in there as well, “Next thing you know the United States will be run by Al Queda and the MS-13.”

Boom. You might not change their mind, but you’ve successfully kept them from changing yours. Well done.

We might accidentally change our minds when we hear evidence that goes against what we already thought.

When we’re learning more about a subject we have to constantly be on guard against the tiny voice in our head that keeps repeating, “You might be wrong.”  First and foremost, remember which team you’re on. Your team might actually be wrong, so why look at the evidence and risk it? Being on Team Truth might lead us into changing our viewpoints, and even more upsetting, our lives.

Truth-seeking will lead us into feeling torn about things we used to not have to worry about. Even though we don’t believe abortion is okay- so we’ll never vote for a Democrat- maybe it’s okay to start to believe in climate change. Danger.

Even though you believe it’s a woman’s right to choose- so you’ll never vote for a Republican- maybe it’s not a great idea to take all the guns away from law-abiding citizens. Yikes. That friction between ideals does not feel good.

To be fair, it’s possible climate change is a hoax spread by the liberals- and the rest of the developed world- to try and get us to take better care of the planet, ultimately leading to a Hillary Clinton Presidency in 2024. Science is split on the issue.

Maybe the bad guys will all give up their guns if we just make it illegal.

Truth is uncomfortable and it’s almost always in the middle of what we want to believe and what we don’t want to believe.

When you’re just a confirmation-seeker it’s okay to believe something for no other reason than it makes you feel good. When you’re a truth-seeker you have to put away your feelings and try to find out what’s going on.

Once the truth comes up against something we already believe we naturally start fading back towards the Confirmation Seeker camp. The more sacred we hold the belief the stronger our aversion will be to this new evidence.

With so much confusion and fake news floating around it can be tempting to try to be a heroic truth-seeker. Don’t fall for the propaganda. I’ll leave you with this brilliant quote from a real author.

“Happy is the man who thinks what he thought.” -D.E. Lautaret

If you enjoyed this article please share it with someone who is always trying to find answers. Maybe it will get them to stop.

Here are a few more articles you’ll really enjoy if you have a drink or two first:

On God Part VII- Adam and Eve

How to Slice a Pizza According to Science

Mr. Burrito Bowl Goes to Jury Duty