People Believe If 90% Prefer A over B, A Must Be Much Better than B. Are They Wrong?
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We haven’t yet found a case where believing something literally makes it true, contrary to what religion and politics would have you think, so the answer is a resolute “can’t say”
Yes and no. Beliefs can definitely shape reality.
If someone believes that they can’t do something difficult, they often don’t attempt it, so don’t acquire the skills they would need, and stay unable to do it. The converse is also true.
Children are heavily influenced by their parents’ beliefs about them.
Believing something about different brands of soda doesn’t change the chemical composition of them, but in a world where products are judged on their sales rather than their chemical composition, changing the perception of a product can fundamentally change its sales, making it a better product by the only objective measure that’s consistently used. This is even more true in the world of fashion, for example very strongly with trainers etc.
Anything where human behaviour changes reality is a place where beliefs change reality.
Our beliefs shape the world strongly and powerfully. They change reality.
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I can’t remember which comedian it was, but he said whenever he hears something like 4 out of 5 doctors recommend a particular medication, he wonders what that 5th doctor knows that the others don’t?
The fifth Doctor knows who the Portreeve of Castrovalva really is.
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feels a bit strange to not include the full quote, which changes the sentiment quite a bit:
“A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it.” -
Holy shit, I am totally guilty of this.
For those who haven’t yet read the article, the idea is that people interpret “80% of people prefer Pepsi Max to Coke” as “Pepsi Max is 80% yummier than Coke”, when in reality most of that 80% only slightly prefers Pepsi.
Basically a strong difference in proportion of people who prefer one option to another does not necessarily imply a strong difference in the average opinion between the two.
i mean it’s also important to note that companies can blatantly lie
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I can’t remember which comedian it was, but he said whenever he hears something like 4 out of 5 doctors recommend a particular medication, he wonders what that 5th doctor knows that the others don’t?
4 out of 5 dentists recommend using toothpaste and couldn’t possibly give less of a fuck which brand you use, the fifth dentist was on vacation
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good old “if you see an engineer running, you should probably follow them”
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I mean, better is subjective. You can’t quantify that.
If 90% of people like something over something else, that is all that it means. For all those people it is better for them. But for 10% it isn’t better, let alone much better.
This is more a philosophical question than a science one.
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good old “if you see an engineer running, you should probably follow them”
Same with bomb disposal units and nuclear scientists.
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Eg. USA.
Eg. Pretty much every group of people in the history of humanity. We tend to forget that we’re just dumb animals with dumb animal instinct sometimes.
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feels a bit strange to not include the full quote, which changes the sentiment quite a bit:
“A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it.”Considering the post is about people, and the “person” in the quote can be assumed to represent the reader of said “statistic”, the quote functions as provided.
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We haven’t yet found a case where believing something literally makes it true, contrary to what religion and politics would have you think, so the answer is a resolute “can’t say”
Hmm. You just had me thinking if that’s true or not. I think money is an interesting thing. Inherently, it has no value, it’s not rare, it’s not useful. It is only useful because we as a society believe that it now has value. But that’s more of a “we all decided that money is now worth something.” Like… a question of definition.
Another is safety. A society that believes they’re safe will probably have a lot less tension and infighting than a society that believes they’re unsafe.
On the other hand, you might erroneously believe that a bike helmet makes you much safer in traffic, to the point where you may ride more recklessly than otherwise and therefore be less safe than if you hadn’t worn a helmet…
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i mean it’s also important to note that companies can blatantly lie
And Pepsi def be lying, no one likes that shit.
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[. . .]the ESPN experts’ average prediction of 1.87 points. As it turns out, the Patriots won by 6 points, which even though it was more than six times greater than the expert’s prediction[. . .]
Math is hard.
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Marketing exists, network effects, first-mover advantage, pre-installed software…
