11 July, 2024 | created using FiveFilters.

org

Why Facts Don’t However, truth and accuracy are not the only
things that matter to the human mind.

Change Our Humans also seem to have a deep desire to

belong.

Minds In Atomic Habits, I wrote, “Humans are herd

animals. We want to fit in, to bond with
Sep 10, 2018 10:00AM
others, and to earn the respect and approval

The economist J.K. Galbraith once wrote, of our peers. Such inclinations are essential
“Faced with a choice between changing one’s to our survival. For most of our evolutionary

mind and proving there is no need to do so, history, our ancestors lived in tribes.

almost everyone gets busy with the proof.” Becoming separated from the tribe—or
worse, being cast out—was a death
Leo Tolstoy was even bolder: “The most sentence.”
difficult subjects can be explained to the
most slow-​witted man if he has not formed Understanding the truth of a situation is

any idea of them already; but the simplest important, but so is remaining part of a tribe.

thing cannot be made clear to the most While these two desires often work well
intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that together, they occasionally come into

he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, conflict.

what is laid before him.”

In many circumstances, social connection is

What’s going on here? Why don’t facts actually more helpful to your daily life than

change our minds? And why would someone understanding the truth of a particular fact
continue to believe a false or inaccurate idea or idea. The Harvard psychologist Steven
anyway? How do such behaviors serve us? Pinker put it this way, “People are embraced
or condemned according to their beliefs, so
The Logic of False Beliefs one function of the mind may be to hold
beliefs that bring the belief-​holder the
Humans need a reasonably accurate view of
greatest number of allies, protectors, or
the world in order to survive. If your model
disciples, rather than beliefs that are most
of reality is wildly different from the actual
likely to be true.” 2
world, then you struggle to take effective
actions each day. 1 We don’t always believe things because they
are correct. Sometimes we believe things
because they make us look good to the
people we care about.
I thought Kevin Simler put it well when he circle. Now, they can change their beliefs
wrote, “If a brain anticipates that it will be without the risk of being abandoned socially.
rewarded for adopting a particular belief, it’s
perfectly happy to do so, and doesn’t much The British philosopher Alain de Botton

care where the reward comes from — suggests that we simply share meals with

whether it’s pragmatic (better outcomes those who disagree with us:

resulting from better decisions), social

“Sitting down at a table with a group of
(better treatment from one’s peers), or some
strangers has the incomparable and odd
mix of the two.” 3
benefit of making it a little more difficult to

False beliefs can be useful in a social sense hate them with impunity. Prejudice and

even if they are not useful in a factual sense. ethnic strife feed off abstraction. However,

For lack of a better phrase, we might call this the proximity required by a meal – something

approach “factually false, but socially about handing dishes around, unfurling
napkins at the same moment, even asking a
accurate.” 4 When we have to choose
between the two, people often select friends stranger to pass the salt – disrupts our ability

and family over facts. to cling to the belief that the outsiders who
wear unusual clothes and speak in distinctive
This insight not only explains why we might accents deserve to be sent home or
hold our tongue at a dinner party or look the assaulted. For all the large-scale political
other way when our parents say something solutions which have been proposed to salve
offensive, but also reveals a better way to ethnic conflict, there are few more effective
change the minds of others. ways to promote tolerance between
suspicious neighbours than to force them to
Facts Don’t Change Our Minds. eat supper together.” 5
Friendship Does.
Perhaps it is not difference, but distance that
Convincing someone to change their mind is breeds tribalism and hostility. As proximity
really the process of convincing them to
increases, so does understanding. I am
change their tribe. If they abandon their
reminded of Abraham Lincoln’s quote, “I
beliefs, they run the risk of losing social ties. don’t like that man. I must get to know him
You can’t expect someone to change their
better.”
mind if you take away their community too.
You have to give them somewhere to go. Facts don’t change our minds. Friendship
Nobody wants their worldview torn apart if does.
loneliness is the outcome.

The way to change people’s minds is to

become friends with them, to integrate them
into your tribe, to bring them into your
The Spectrum of Beliefs When it comes to changing people’s minds, it
is very difficult to jump from one side to
Years ago, Ben Casnocha mentioned an idea
another. You can’t jump down the spectrum.
to me that I haven’t been able to shake: The
You have to slide down it.
people who are most likely to change our
minds are the ones we agree with on 98 Any idea that is sufficiently different from
percent of topics. your current worldview will feel threatening.
And the best place to ponder a threatening
If someone you know, like, and trust believes
idea is in a non-​threatening environment. As
a radical idea, you are more likely to give it
a result, books are often a better vehicle for
merit, weight, or consideration. You already
transforming beliefs than conversations or
agree with them in most areas of life. Maybe
debates.
you should change your mind on this one too.
But if someone wildly different than you In conversation, people have to carefully
proposes the same radical idea, well, it’s consider their status and appearance. They
easy to dismiss them as a crackpot. want to save face and avoid looking stupid.
When confronted with an uncomfortable set
One way to visualize this distinction is by
of facts, the tendency is often to double down
mapping beliefs on a spectrum. If you divide
on their current position rather than publicly
this spectrum into 10 units and you find
admit to being wrong.
yourself at Position 7, then there is little
sense in trying to convince someone at Books resolve this tension. With a book, the
Position 1. The gap is too wide. When you’re conversation takes place inside someone’s
at Position 7, your time is better spent head and without the risk of being judged by
connecting with people who are at Positions others. It’s easier to be open-​minded when
6 and 8, gradually pulling them in your you aren’t feeling defensive.
direction.
Arguments are like a full frontal attack on a
The most heated arguments often occur person’s identity. Reading a book is like
between people on opposite ends of the slipping the seed of an idea into a person’s
spectrum, but the most frequent learning brain and letting it grow on their own terms.
occurs from people who are nearby. The There’s enough wrestling going on in
closer you are to someone, the more likely it someone’s head when they are overcoming a
becomes that the one or two beliefs you don’t pre-​existing belief. They don’t need to
share will bleed over into your own mind and wrestle with you too.
shape your thinking. The further away an
idea is from your current position, the more
likely you are to reject it outright.
Why False Ideas Persist disseminates their BS. Hell for the ideas you
deplore is silence. Have the discipline to give
There is another reason bad ideas continue
it to them.” 8
to live on, which is that people continue to
talk about them. Your time is better spent championing good
ideas than tearing down bad ones. Don’t
Silence is death for any idea. An idea that is
waste time explaining why bad ideas are bad.
never spoken or written down dies with the
You are simply fanning the flame of
person who conceived it. Ideas can only be
ignorance and stupidity.
remembered when they are repeated. They
can only be believed when they are repeated. The best thing that can happen to a bad idea
is that it is forgotten. The best thing that can
I have already pointed out that people repeat
happen to a good idea is that it is shared. It
ideas to signal they are part of the same
makes me think of Tyler Cowen’s quote,
social group. But here’s a crucial point most
“Spend as little time as possible talking
people miss:
about how other people are wrong.”

People also repeat bad ideas when they

Feed the good ideas and let bad ideas die of
complain about them. Before you can
starvation.
criticize an idea, you have to reference that
idea. You end up repeating the ideas you’re The Intellectual Soldier
hoping people will forget—but, of course,
people can’t forget them because you keep I know what you might be thinking. “James,

talking about them. The more you repeat a are you serious right now? I’m just supposed
to let these idiots get away with this?”
bad idea, the more likely people are to
believe it. 6
Let me be clear. I’m not saying it’s never
useful to point out an error or criticize a bad
Let’s call this phenomenon Clear’s Law of
Recurrence: The number of people who idea. But you have to ask yourself, “What is

believe an idea is directly proportional to the the goal?”

number of times it has been repeated during

Why do you want to criticize bad ideas in the
the last year—even if the idea is false. 7
first place? Presumably, you want to criticize
bad ideas because you think the world would
Each time you attack a bad idea, you are
feeding the very monster you are trying to be better off if fewer people believed them.

destroy. As one Twitter employee wrote, In other words, you think the world would

“Every time you retweet or quote tweet improve if people changed their minds on a

someone you’re angry with, it helps them. It few important topics.

If the goal is to actually change minds, then I reality of the person you are arguing against.
don’t believe criticizing the other side is the It is painful to lose your reality, so be kind,
best approach. even if you are right.”10

Most people argue to win, not to learn. As When we are in the moment, we can easily
Julia Galef so aptly puts it: people often act forget that the goal is to connect with the
like soldiers rather than scouts. Soldiers are other side, collaborate with them, befriend
on the intellectual attack, looking to defeat them, and integrate them into our tribe. We
the people who differ from them. Victory is are so caught up in winning that we forget
the operative emotion. Scouts, meanwhile, about connecting. It’s easy to spend your
are like intellectual explorers, slowly trying energy labeling people rather than working
to map the terrain with others. Curiosity is with them.
the driving force. 9
The word “kind” originated from the word
If you want people to adopt your beliefs, you “kin.” When you are kind to someone it
need to act more like a scout and less like a means you are treating them like family.
soldier. At the center of this approach is a This, I think, is a good method for actually
question Tiago Forte poses beautifully, “Are changing someone’s mind. Develop a
you willing to not win in order to keep the friendship. Share a meal. Gift a book.
conversation going?”
Be kind first, be right later. 11
Be Kind First, Be Right Later
https://jamesclear.com/why-facts-dont-
The brilliant Japanese writer Haruki
change-minds
Murakami once wrote, “Always remember
that to argue, and win, is to break down the