Julia Galef Discusses Intellectual Honesty

Julia Galef visited South Park Commons on August 14 to share insights from her upcoming book on intellectual honesty.

[stirlingblackwood]

The world would be a much better place if everyone listened to Julia's ideas and took them to heart.

[buckstraw]

I too am somewhat obsessed with intellectual honesty. Great to hear you discuss this. topic.

[kaltkalt]

You have to be fully self aware (no autopilot) before you can ever be intellectually honest. This is why it’s so rare. It’s really not pleasant or normal to be fully self aware. Most people are not self aware at all. They can be angry without knowing it, let alone knowing why they’re angry.

[jamesm]

Examining the incentives that support our decisions is so central yet they're commonly overlooked for what is superficial. Ms. Julia Galef, thank you for your highly important work which merits deep examination and re-examination. Much respect!

[ronaldlogan]

It is like the saying goes: The most important thing in human relationships is sincerity. Once you can fake that, you have it made. Only 10 percent of the time does anyone else actually care whether you are honest, or care enough to actually challenge you when you are dishonest. This is because the cost of these challenges is so great. The dishonest person is outraged at such challenges and can play the victim role and get the support of unsuspecting bystanders to defend the dishonesty and punish the challenger. Besides there "are very good people on both sides" puts the honest person in a position of "who am I to judge" and thus drop all challenges. the scout may have the best information but the soldier has the guns. So it is best if you can live in that 10% bubble where the people you know actually care about your honesty.

[ChPonsard]

Hence why we should strive to reward displays of intellectual honesty/humility.

We are part of the environmental incentive others experience. That impact we can have is nothing to dismiss.

[AudeWTFake]

Julia I had never heard of you and your work! This conference is so great! Please think of putting French subtitles and I'll share it asap!!

[adamoneil]

this is good, thank you. A good definition I've heard of intellectual honesty is "a refusal to deceive, even when you could get away with it or is even in some way expected"

[IIIIIawesIIIII]

Thank you, Mrs. Galef! You are fighting the hard fight.

[IIIIIawesIIIII]

Regarding start-ups and entrepreneurs: From a leadership perspective, this is absolutely impossible. You as an entrepreneur can be perfectly rational, your team won't be. People are morons. They expect social conventions. They expect acting. They expect emotion.
We all know what a hopeless struggle it is to promote "intellectual honesty". By the time you convinced even a single staff member, everyone else just thinks you are an asshole.
That is, for the point of interacting.
For the point of setting incentives to be more rational, framing internal motivations towards more rationality and nudging people into such behaviors, I think you make an invaluable point. I will most definitely incorporate this into my own plans.

[yesr]

Wonderful, fundamental topic and lecture. Thank you very much for this presentation.

[stuartneil]

This chimes with my experience in IT as a tester. When we focus on data (data quality ) we are in discovery mode (scout mode) but when testing software we are in engineering mode or business process mode ( soldier mode). Many who are trained or have managed in the engineering mode do not get that discovery (scout mode) is a professional process and needs to be done. So accusations of “testing without requirements”, “your plan is not detailed enough” are made by those steeped in software/requirements engineering. They may acknowledge scout mode for project initiation or in agile projects (likely they don’t really get agile either).

[davidr]

If you have a poorly aligned car that you know pulls to the right, you will be diligent to always correct the steering to keep it going straight. You might even overcorrect to the left knowing you will drift back right. Most people are unaware that their data processing and decision making is biased and prone to errors. So we need to diligently force ourselves to course correct by acknowledging our bias and unwillingness to accept that we could be wrong about something. It's a learned skill in my opinion.

[tannereckmann]

But it is important to properly use and manage a solider mindset in social situations in order to have an optimal effect on people. But also our ability to detach from social pressures and personal social or egoic incentives is what allows us to clarify our motives and use reasoning which is based on motives for truth rather than these other distracting incentives.

[jimdelsol]

Wonderful talk, great questions, great answers. Thank you !

[onthenatureofthispaleblued]

Great talk. There's another lecture by Thomas Metzinger about it. I would love to see the two discussing intellectual honesty

[Gorboduc]

12:20 ff - It's grimly amusing to note that the prognosticators who were accurate due to their intellectual honesty were also not employed in their chosen specialty, while those who took sides - and got it wrong - were.

I think this correlation, looked at closely, may turn out to have some elements of causation.

[patmoran]

This is a very important topic. May I suggest that intellectual honesty is characterized by a continuing battle to remember that all of our thinking is fallible? That is, we can be wrong about our conceptions of reality. There is no ultimate truth. There is only error correction toward better truths. Also, there is no upper limit on the value of ideas. I also would like to make a friendly suggestion that the presenter speak slower. This is a very important presentation and I enjoyed it immensely. Both presenter and audience might well benefit by recalling that all of us our fallible.

[jonathonjubb]

22.00
Here in UK we think there are a hell of a lot of 'positive thinkers' (soldiers) on your side of the pond ...
Maybe we meet them here after their initial failures at home??
24.30 this study goes from being really good to hitting the nail on the head 3 years before most begin to catch up.
I think I will flow this excellent line of research!!

[michaelmoran]

I had a similar discussion with a friend who thinks people are always rational and scientific / logical literacy will solve everything, upon being shown evidence this was incorrect he got mad at me and told me "thats just what I believe".