The art of using cognitive biases is trending quickly. Cognitive and decision science experts are everywhere and for a good reason. Marketing directors, politicians, and everybody who bet their success on public perception want to pick their minds about how to get their message across. Or maybe (nobody is populism proof), what their message is supposed to be for them to win. Appearances over substance, but who am I to judge the winners? When we get down on a technical level the question is: how to nudge (or hack) people’s decisions making?

Cognitive biases are our weak spot, our Achilles heel. We are all biased, even the best of us, well informed about their biases are still vulnerable (maybe a bit less). Every bias (and there are tens of them) has been a subject of extensive studies . As a common treat (consider only the name) they are all considered to be defects in our reasoning, a glitch in the otherwise pinnacle of Earth’s biological evolution. Here I will try to broaden that negative view about cognitive biases to a degree that transforms a bug into a feature. In other words, to include but is not limit ourselves to the popular negative notion.

Let’s start with the very nature of biases. Our mind is constantly running a model of reality in order to infer what happens next and prepare our body for it. The model is based on our past experiences and is limited to our mental and intellectual abilities. All that happens mostly in real-time where in-depth analysis is not an option, so we use stereotypes and prejudices to make it quick and we call it intuition. Even we can reflect deeper upon some matter, our starting position is intuitive. The model is like any model imperfect and stochastic, but it’s the only way we can survive in a constantly changing and often aggressive environment. Our mind has not evolved to think but to help us survive, the thinking part is just a side effect.

First, confirmation bias: “Paying more attention to information that reinforces previously held beliefs and ignoring evidence to the contrary.“. Yes, facts are facts and we all must base our decision-making on facts. Any cherry-picking or other distortions should be avoided to the best of our abilities. The problem is that we get second-hand facts, how many of the facts you accept as true you can check first hand. You may have some other ways to estimate the validity of what you have been presented with. Here comes the fake news phenomenon. You are browsing around and a “news” pops up: Bill Gates conspiracy claiming he kills (or is about to kill) 700000 people thru Covid-19 vaccination. Next is Hillary’s pizza-gate conspiracy, and another, and another. Can you check all the “facts” presented? If you don’t, that means you are not open-minded and you are biased (confirmation bias that is). Do I have the time to double-check all the craziness I come across wandering around in cyber-space? Is that can be classified as confirmation bias, technically — yes, but I have only one life, so… Finally, where is the borderline of having certain socio-political and moral stands based on my core values and my confirmation bias?

Next comes Bandwagon Effect: A person is more likely to go along with a belief if there are many others who hold that belief. Other names for this are “herd mentality” or “group thinking.”. It is nice to be appreciated by your family, community, peers, and in many cases that is the only way for you to survive. Yes, in contemporary society critical thinking must be paramount, but still, we all do it one way or another. Take the language, it contains the wisdom of the respective society accumulated throughout its history. In other words that is the wisdom of the average person, in order to get into the language something must be popular enough in time and population. Later we use that language to express our thoughts and feeling and that shapes them in a sublime way. There is no better example of group thinking than language. Should we try to make our individuality shine any other way? If you have some talent in non-verbal arts, you may, but for the rest of us…

Next is Anchoring Bias: “Over-relying on the first piece of information obtained and using it as the baseline for comparison.”. Yes, we have to do our homework. A decision is to be made after a thorough investigation, collecting and weighing all for and against, etc. Our intuition (or System 1) provides us with a quick (sometimes vital), but maybe not an optimal solution. Plus our intuition reflexes in a shortcut way our rational thinking (System 2). Maybe the point of Anchoring Bias is not the lack of time but the lack of will to consider more details, which is fair. Still, time is just one resource the lack of which we may compensate with intuition. In a real situation, the lack of any other resource (importance of the problem, mental capacity, etc.) could be treated in a similar way. Another point could be that our intuition has been trained with numerous detailed studies of the matter, and in certain circumstances, our intuition (superficial but quick) is the only way.

Next is Ingroup Preference Bias: “People tend to divide themselves into groups, and then attribute positive attributes to their own group.” A..ah, the stereotypes — national, religious, racial, class… We all use them mostly on others but on ourselves too. We think about ourselves as belonging to some stereotypical group as a part of our identity. We know, that is not a fair way to judge people, but life is so much easier that way. That is another example of System 1 vs System 2 approach, intuitive and superficial vs objective and systematic. The argument goes in a similar way: if we have the time, the smarts, the will, the world would be a much more tolerant place. In the movie “Up in the air” Ryan has a line: “I’m like my mother, I stereotype. It’s faster.”

I can go on and on, but I hope you get my point. The so-called cognitive biases are more features than bugs depending on our bias towards them.

Types of conversations (not in a hierarchical way):
– about the weather or something obvious, things we both most likely would agree on. Filling the time. Let the other person relax into (eventually) a more engaging matter. …or just get a cosy feeling that you are conversing.

– about people or society, things you are hoping the other person would likely agree on. Knowing some of your companion’s core values (intuition) you can express thoughts which the other person feels are right but hasn’t thought it in that way before. Anything within the mind space of his/her core values would sound good (or deserving consideration). Usually, this involves using a particular terminology and stereotypes. You count mostly on herd thinking and sadly the negative notion works much better than affirming one. That is the road to being accepted.

– about the human condition, things you don’t know if the other person would agree on. You would like to keep the conversation interesting for both parties, but your challenges are superficial and the way you are shaping your thoughts is safe. This conversation is like a mountain stream, pleasant, playful, and transparent, you follow the stream but don’t go into the deep.

– about the nature of things, things that will challenge your companion’s view on the world, life, and everything. Go for extreme views about anything, challenge both parties to an equal degree. Do not avoid sensitive subjects, look for them, why are they sensitive? Don’t be mean on purpose, but the other person’s feelings would be your least concern. “Socrates is my friend, but my best friend is the truth” Plato’s kind of approach.

– about …, you talk to the universe and let your companion be a witness. This is not a conversation. This is a monologue and the other person is just there. It’s a verbalized meditation, you become one with the subject of your interest. Be zen in a deconstructive way. Embrace the contradictions, let the koan of your exploration guide you.

PS After more than 7 months in corona isolation, I’m probably eager to have any…

In my mind, UBI (universal basic income) and democracy are incompatible, at least in the forms we know them. The UBI idea is part of many utopias and it’s a beautiful thing. To have your basic needs as a human right, the same way as you have health care in Europe and elsewhere or the right to legal protection everywhere. The problem with that is too few countries or even parts of societies are ready for UBI. Here is what I mean by ready. Once UBI is implemented in a country, unavoidably there will be part of the society that will sit on the couch and stay there for years, if not for life. Human nature (most people) needs to be motivated by some necessity (like material stuff) in order to improve themselves. Without this motivation, the human race will deteriorate because throughout our evolution humankind was getting smarter and smarter because it was giving the smart people advantage (Darwin 101). Of course, I’m simplifying and there will be a lot of attempts to keep people motivated not only to prevent killing themselves. Most importantly there will be a huge wave of feeling good techniques: from CBT (cognitive-behavioural therapy) to a variety of gurus and most importantly, religions will bloom, fake news media will provide fake excitement and all these will give us a sense of purpose or belonging.

At that point, democracy will stop functioning because the average John will be so full BS that his only care will be to keep his cacoon based on his chosen delusion intact. A preview of that you can see within the majority of Trump supporters. Most of them are poorly educated, overwhelmingly religious, …the redneck stereotype. The main reason these people are the way they are is because US is a reach country and the wealth is so unevenly distributed. The riches can support (one way or another) enough half-witted and easily suggestible people which will tip the election scale into the “right” direction (e.g workers in the coal mines). Do I sound judgmental? Well, probably I am not immune to it, but that doesn’t change my point.

Let me ponder about UBI for a short while. The view I presented here is a bit biased serving my point. An alternative view would be, with UBI people will enjoy life and do whatever makes them feel alive (including practising a profession). The basic question here is what is the default state of humans and how permanent it is (on the scale of a generation). Most revolutionaries (or wannabes) aim to destroy the current social order and free people from it so they can return to their natural (default) state. The bolshevik revolution was an evil enterprise as a whole, but if there was any good seed in it, that was the belief that free people will do things not because they have to but because they want to. Society will prosper because people will be satisfied with their lives. We have to ask ourselves considering UBI: how would free from financial obligation people behave (at least in your country)? What does sociology say? Is there any hard (undeniable) data? How long can we count to stay that way if UBI is implemented?

UBI is a humane and beautiful thing and most probably will happen, but it will increase the risks for a society to go down in flames — for the fans of apocalyptic movies, a beautiful thing too.

The genuine awkwardness of men toward women can be summarized by something which is attributed to Laurence Olivier, said before filming an intimate scene: “I apologize if I get aroused and I apologize if I do not get aroused.”

I love what-if thought experiments. Maybe because I’m a sci-fi fan, maybe because science often is about extreme and/or pure conditions (yes I’m a researcher).

The first example that pops up is the trolley problem (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem). Self-driving cars must have some default behaviour which one to kill/protect: the driver or the child on the car’s path. In the current pandemic context, what is the level of the risk the first vaccinated would be subject to? In order to save lives, the risk would be pushed to its limit (if there is one).

Ok, let’s stop killing people and tune up the positive mood. If you are in possession of something which would change everybody’s life for the better, cancer cure, new energy source, etc. this sort of life-changing thing. Yes, of course, that will get some businesses down but on the whole, humanity will do much better with it. After you have the know-how you need to make your new thing reach the people. Where do you go for this: to your president/prime minister, to the UN, to the big business, to the academic community? Wherever you go you will meet people and work with people, and nobody is agenda-free. As a result, you have to pick the people with an agenda most aligned to the implementation of your gift to humanity. Once it becomes public you expect a resistance close to civil unrest, from the threatened businesses, from the people which feel that a big change is coming and they hate change because they spend whole their lives fitting into the status quo. Eh, well, you say, you cannot make EVERYBODY happy. You go on with your plan and decide that a little compromise here and there is what we call real life… Even your opponents seem to be satisfied that you “play the game” and then you have a total blast from them. Let’s take as an example — a cure for cancer. Apparently, the creationists think that you are trying to play god or at least mess with god’s plan, how dare you. Evolutionists are in favour of less suffering, but in the long run, they think that we will deteriorate our genes, genetically because bad mutations (cancer) won’t be killed and evolution will go backward. Both camps on any division line apparently agree on only one thing, you are the devil! You try to keep it together and think about the gratitude of future generations, but you are only human and sooner or later you surrender to the overwhelming public pressure.

So… if you happened to come across a huge innovation (something really life-changing), patient it, find its biggest (and richest) opponent, cash it to be buried and forgotten forever …and that will be YOUR happy ending.

PS You understand the anti-vax context here. Would I follow my own advice, …not sure. If you have something of that sort come to me and we will find out.