What’s interesting in this case – is that we have two writers, from Naked Capitalism Blog & Alternet somewhat describing confirmation bias, but almost ironically show that their thinking fails from the same biases they wish to highlight.

What did they proffer (whole thing here via Naked Capitalism and here via Alternet)?

They state they are attempting to find out why people’s opinions don’t change even in the face of competing facts.  To do this, they use a study of selected people who believe Saddam was behind 9/11.  Since GWB, the 9/11 commission, and all other sources state this isn’t the case, then trying to understand why someone believes it is a noble goal and the research could potentially help understand human thinking.

Of course both pieces weren’t honestly seeking the answer, so in this case little can be gathered.  The good news however is that studies like this have been done before and we already understand to some degree why people don’t seem rational on certain topics.

First, they start off by implying that investors are not rational and do so by linking to a simple Google search.  Lazy sure, but most studies I’ve seen dealing with rationality of the individual begin with the false assumption there is some common answer to begin which every rational individual would chose.  Humans however define rationality by their values and desires;  therefore, their actions will also be very unique based upon those individual factors.

Leaving that aside, their point was to say, not only are investors irrational, but so are these people for these reasons (Naked Capitalism):

• [1] Many Americans felt an urgent need to seek justification for a war already in progress

• [2] Rather than search rationally for information that either confirms or disconfirms a particular belief, people actually seek out information that confirms what they already believe.

• [3] “For the most part people completely ignore contrary information.”

• [4] “The study demonstrates voters’ ability to develop elaborate rationalizations based on faulty information”

• [5] People get deeply attached to their beliefs, and form emotional attachments that get wrapped up in their personal identity and sense of morality, irrespective of the facts of the matter.

• [6] “We refer to this as ‘inferred justification, because for these voters, the sheer fact that we were engaged in war led to a post-hoc search for a justification for that war.

• [7] “People were basically making up justifications for the fact that we were at war”

• [8] “They wanted to believe in the link [between 9/11 and Iraq] because it helped them make sense of a current reality. So voters’ ability to develop elaborate rationalizations based on faulty information, whether we think that is good or bad for democratic practice, does at least demonstrate an impressive form of creativity.

Their premises basically fall into two types:

1. Those premises that have been proven true about the vast majority of the population in thousands of experiments….
2. & those premises which aren’t necessarily false, but reflect the authors’ thinking as the study and information provided do not lead to the conclusion they readily accept.

Looking at them in this light, we see that 2, 3, & 5 are all easily proven through prior studies and simple observations of current society.  If people didn’t seek out confirming information, Daily Kos, Free Republic, Huffington Post, and many, many other websites would be empty and failing.

For the remaining 5, the study does not bear out their premises.  The study (@ Alternet) demonstrates that even when giving people contrary factual information, many will continue to believe as they do.

However, they only used 49 people and are inferring their reason from justification based upon comments which don’t support their thesis.  The first participant quote they begin with is(via Alternet):

“Well, I bet they say that the commission didn’t have any proof of it,” one subject responded, “but I guess we still can have our opinions and feel that way even though they say that.”

This is a simple reflection of reality, to which the researchers find disturbing.  Why it isn’t disturbing to sane people is that I have yet to know anyone who doesn’t believe somethings which simply aren’t provable or for which factual information to the contrary exists.

To site to easy examples, the number of people who believe the CIA killed Kennedy & those who believe strongly in ancient herbal remedies for which no proof other than anecdotal is ever given.

The second quote the article uses:

Reasoned another: “Saddam, I can’t judge if he did what he’s being accused of, but if Bush thinks he did it, then he did it.”

Is an odd statement to use as it’s semi-meaningless.  When told President Bush stated publicly on a number of occasions that Saddam did not play a role in 9/11 & then that person continues to use that information has other issues than just confirmation bias.   They might honestly be trying to get justification for the war post-war, but I’m not sure by this information.

The third quote they use actually represents their best opportunity for demonstrating that people were rationalizing after the fact:

Others declined to engage the information at all. Most curious to the researchers were the respondents who reasoned that Saddam must have been connected to Sept. 11, because why else would the Bush Administration have gone to war in Iraq?

However, other reasons exist for this as well which have nothing to do with post-justification.   For instance, I might think Saddam is just worthless and any attempt to liberate the people who suffer through his tyranny is a good idea, but still think that GWB must believe it as that’s the only justification I can see.

In that case, it proves my analytical thinking skills as poor because other justifications certainly exist outside of both 9/11 & WMDs, but it necessarily doesn’t prove post-justification.

Additionally, I could think we went to war with Iraq and believe it’s because GWB believed there to be a link, and still disagree with the war itself.

That might seem like an odd statement, but there are in fact people, a small minority to be sure, but people who firmly believed the Taliban support Bin Laden and Bin Laden was responsible for 9/11.  But even with that information, they don’t believe we should’ve gone to war.

Again, that’s a minority view to be sure, but when using it’s existence to disprove the study of 49 people, I believe the weight of my evidence of realistic & feasible alternative theories to the data provided is stronger than theirs.

Regardless of the individual reasons anyone might use to rationalize beliefs for which counter-factual information exists, their data doesn’t support their conclusions that fear & post-justification are major issues.

& with statements like this (via Alternet):

“I do think there’s something to be said about people like Sarah Palin, and even more so Chuck Grassley, supporting this idea of death panels in a national forum,” Hoffman said.

Their biases are easily shown (DA post here sort-of-on death panels).

The simple truth is, the researchers and both articles are failing to reason correctly for the same reason the people they pointed out are failing to reason correctly:  they are seeing evidence which already proves their current world views and beliefs true.

& for whatever this data might show – it certainly isn’t proof of post-justification.  It is only evidence that we all seek out comfort by mitigating the cognitive dissonance (IE – anxiety) which comes from seeing factual information which disagrees with our world view & beliefs.

DA has written about this tendency on Junk Science, Anecdotal evidence in the health care debate & the President & Race.  Additionally, DA has written on echo chambers as they reinforce our thoughts.

…A CNN poll last week found that only 25 percent of Americans want Congress to pass a health-care bill similar to the one it has been working on for the past year, while 73 percent say Congress should either start from scratch or not pass health-care legislation at all (other polls show support for the bill in the low 40s). …

The White House is once again, on a media blitz to prove the administrations’ efficacy and job one is selling the idea the simulus worked.  While they have seemed keen enough to not discuss actual housing or job numbers, but instead spend time on nebulous items such as “saved jobs“, they are nonetheless telling us with great frequency what the stimulus did for us.

Vice President Joe Biden (here via ABC News):

Vice President Joe Biden said today that it is “taking a while” for the nation’s economy to “get out of this ditch” but credited the Obama Administration’s stimulus legislation, enacted one year ago, for laying a foundation for long-term economic growth. …

As well as President Obama himself (here via USA Today):

President Obama credits the one-year-old economic stimulus legislation with staving off a second depression …

The President even sent high level officials all over the country to prove the stimulus worked.  In one case, they used construction for residential housing to spotlight the great work the stimulus package has done for Cincinnati (here via Cincinnati.com).

With unemployment numbers continuing to rise (UE Rate for January 2010 10.6%)

& defaults on existing mortgages doing the same (here via Reuters):

…More than 8 percent of homeowners were behind 30 days or more on their mortgage loans, up 4.4 percent from December 2009 and 21 percent from last January…

& just like the last media blitz the White House went on to prove the stimulus was working (here via DA), they have spent approximately 34% of the money they claimed to need originally (here via ProPublica).  Combining the money spent and tax cuts approved listed on Recovery.gov they find:

…the government has now moved at least $272 billion into the economy, or 34 percent of the total amount approved by Congress last February….

So there you have it.  Successful stimulus program is now defined as a jobless, homeless, shaky recovery, for which the majority of the money requested has yet to have been spent.

• Proving once again that fascism isn’t just a word, Italy (here via Economist) gave three Google executives six-month suspended sentences for “allowing a clip of an autistic boy being bullied to be viewed on Google Video, which the judge said broke Italy’s privacy laws. “

Just to clarify, I’m not pro-autistic-bullying and would think a civil trial isn’t out of the question, but jail?

• Fannie Mae needs more cash, but just 15 billion… from the taxpayer of course (here via RTTN News).   Seems like people might not agree with this (here via WSJ):

The Obama administration’s decision to cover an unlimited amount of losses at the mortgage-finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac over the next three years stirred controversy over the holiday….

Probably why the decision was made over the holidays.

• Crazy fundamentalists blame the Golden Girls for homosexuality (here via ChristWire).

• Democrats & President Obama, all firmly against the Patriot Act after signing it, vote to  prevent all measures from lapsing (here via Wired) for the next full year.

• Harvard intellectual tells us why allowing corporations to spend money on politics is bad (here):

…To understand why, it is important to focus on the individuals who make decisions for companies. When corporations decide which politicians to support, what kind of messages to send, and which political outcomes to seek, their general investors are not consulted. Rather, such decisions are likely to reflect the preferences and objectives of the insiders who manage the companies, ostensibly on shareholders’ behalf….

A little interlude for a thought experiment.  Change which politicians to support and which political outcomes to seek to which charities to support and which cultural outcomes to seek.  Or try reality and change it to, which lobbyists to support and which regulatory outcomes to seek.  But of course, he defines the problem for us:

…And politicians that benefit from corporate spending and access to corporate resources will have an interest in serving the insiders’ preferences and objectives….

Which presupposes politicians already don’t have this interest, presumes it will get much worse, and last, but not least; for spending to have any affect at all, voters have to be swayed to vote against their interests.

It seems the default assumption of every perceived risk these days is simply this:  there can never be too many laws when trying to protect people from themselves.

• CalTech researchers say the brain is wired for equality (here):

…Specifically, the team found that the reward centers in the human brain respond more strongly when a poor person receives a financial reward than when a rich person does. The surprising thing? This activity pattern holds true even if the brain being looked at is in the rich person’s head, rather than the poor person’s….

Oddly enough, the Freakanomics blog posted this with little comment (here) proving environmental factors such as working for the NY Times can affect even innovative economists.  I’ll admit there might be more, but from what they’ve shown, the results do not necessarily say anything about equality at all.  A perfectly reasonable answer is one of need: a rich person doesn’t need a windfall as much as a poor person.

CalTech’s reasoning:

…It’s long been known that we humans don’t like inequality, especially when it comes to money. Tell two people working the same job that their salaries are different, and there’s going to be trouble…

Conflating the thinking that comes with social status and worth when compared to colleagues and equality of results.  It could be in a lot of cases, the person making less might think they work harder and deserve more, not equal.

• & finally, via the Hill.  Did Nanci Pelosi really say that

…”They’ve had plenty of opportunity to make their voices heard,” she said on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday morning. “Bipartisanship is a two-way street. A bill can be bipartisan without bipartisan votes. Republicans have left their imprint.”…

…Our country has wisely selected the third option, which means that within a year or so residential housing problems should largely be behind us…

The NY Times  (here):

After a plunge lasting three years, houses have finally become cheap enough to lure buyers. That, in turn, is stabilizing prices, generating hope that the real estate market is beginning to recover….

& Our trusted Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernake (here via CNBC):

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told lawmakers Tuesday he expects the downtroddenU.S. housing sector to improve by the end of the year, a senator who participated in the closed-door meeting said….

At first, this might seem like some sort of an agreement, however there is one stark difference.  Mr. Buffet spoke in February 2010, the NY Times piece is from July 2009, & Mr. Bernake spoke in February 2008.

The timing of the statements is instructive, as each was based upon changes in supply and demand.  The problem all had in their given time frames appears to be the same – you simply can’t count on economic activity trending when the growth was due to temporary incentives from the federal government.

As with Cash-for-Clunkers (here), Cash-for-Appliances (here), and recent tax breaks and money for lending, Cash-for-Homes will fail as well.  A temporary relief program will only provide temporary relief and is already showing signs of weakness.  From WaPo (here):

…Even as the housing market shows signs of improvement, including in new data released Tuesday, economists warn that it could take up to a decade for many homeowners to regain equity in their homes, while some people in the hardest-hit regions of the country may not see a recovery during their lifetime. …

CNBC (here):

The recent slump in housing is making some analysts uneasy about a recovery that many thought sustainable just a couple months ago and comes at a time when the Federal Reserve is nearing the end of a critical, year-long program to support the mortgage market….

& Time (here):

For a while there, it seemed the housing market had made the turn to recovery. Housing sales were up in nearly every month in 2009. But today it looks like real estate is headed back down again…

Delaying the inevitable will just make the pain worse.

It might be trivial to write at this point, but I of course disagreed.  To be fair, I believe this is completely true on foreign policy.  Libertarianism seems like a domestic political philosophy only, but more on that in the future.

On the childish part – in some ways I can see why that perception exists as well.  I’ve jokingly said before the reason libertarianism has a bad name, is because of libertarians.  The cultural norm in libertarian thinkers who draw large numbers of readers seems to be to take one basic principle and stretch it to infinity.

For instance – it’s your property, you can do with as you please.  So you can put a brothel next door to an elementary school and the only recourse should be neighbors buying the lot to out price the brothel.

To many, including me, this is stupid.  The point in giving as many freedom to others as possible, simply can not include a dissolution of society itself by subjecting populations to things they don’t want.  Also, I think they already have this type of vision in local government using SOME zoning laws.

Additionally though, libertarians do believe in contracts.  So if a bunch of people bought tons of land, they could sell those plots with any caveat they want – even religious requirement.  By buying the lot, you are signing the contract and therefore willingly entering into that agreement with those constraints.

While I firmly believe this is possible, legal, and potentially preferable, it seems like that’s a community/town.  Their issue however with government control is one of the use of force, but I think that’s due to too much centralization.  Studies have shown, more decentralization, IE – more local control, leads to better outcomes (here).  What this would mean, if we were to ever take it seriously, is that while New York might maintain 18 million people for the economic possibilities that provides, government spending and programs should be on a much smaller level.

Please note – this doesn’t mean that no federal government should exist or that taxes should only exist on a very local level, just to say that smaller communities providing for their own fire, police, education, etc, etc, etc works better than 3 million people trying the same thing.  The idea is a state tax or federal tax would be required for things such as national defense, but the majority of expenditures should be directed more locally by a mayor or city manager at a much smaller level.

So it’s not that I believe the community should completely dissipate, it’s that I firmly believe that when the government gets involved, it actually distorts the system to the point where people simply don’t take care of themselves…. or their neighbors.   I think this is backed up by basic human behaviors and thinking as well as all of our uniquely “urban” problems.

One of the human conditions which helps this continue is that of group think.  By safely removing yourself far away from the negative results the government produces with its Wars on poverty, terrorism, obesity…. kids?  People can insulate themselves in larger communities due to increased anonymity by blaming society at large, instead of assuming any direct responsibility.

Listen carefully when people argue about police abuse, or crappy government inefficiencies with social spending, or politician’s lack of values…. they place blame it lots of places, but never on themselves and usually, oddly enough, never on the voters either.

Going further, the government exploits our fears with the media willing accomplices (Politics of Fear) into giving up more control to the government and thereby reinforcing the notion that the government is the answer, when it fact it’s people.

For instance.. violent crime is down a great deal since 1990 (uptick recently, but very small and declining again), but the reporting of crime has increased on average around 500%.  Thanks to multiple 24 hour news shows, combined with a finite amount of news, sensational stories about very rare events influences people’s fears about those events.

We humans aren’t that good at evaluating risk as it is, without doing so in a very methodical way, but with the government’s various wars on everything: AIDs, H1N1, Poverty, Terrorism, Obesity, Smoking, Drugs, Cancer…. kids?  All with the media willingly pushing these sensationalized news stories, people have exaggerated fears towards rare events and minimal fears towards much more likely catastrophic events (great video here ~20 minutes).

Add to this, a general lack of skepticism and critical thinking, most people never take the time to see if their fears, concerns, or core set of understanding of the world is accurate.  I believe this is due to a lack of appropriate priorities for most people, but more on that later.*

Looking at society, you can see the fear we have in our neighbors.  For example, in lots of neighborhoods in lots of places, people will more quickly call the cops on a loud neighbor than just walk over and ask politely.  We go to court when cutting down a tree that crosses property lines, we call the cops when we think the neighbor has too many dogs, we…. we just call the cops because people are scared of their neighbors.  & not because they know about the bunker with a year’s worth of rations and ammunition, but because we continue to allow our human frailty in risk assessment to be exploited by those only seeking more power.

Additionally, we willingly take away rights from others.  The most consistent comment from friends, colleagues, strangers who accidentally started a conversation with me…. but for those I did talk to around carry conceal laws during a vote in MO had, by definition of a binary question, one of two answers. Yes or No

The interesting part of the nos was almost all used the same basic reasoning when talking to me:  “You’re fine. It wouldn’t bother me a bit if you carried a gun, you were in the military and trained.  I just don’t know about everyone else.”  Other than showing a lack of knowledge of how little an electronic technician trains on weapons, I think it shows our general distrust of others.

Not surprisingly, even when confronted with the stats that prove FL, TX, and other states did not turn into the Wild West (not that the West was truly all that “wild”) where horn honks during rush hour turned into shootouts between soccer moms & insurance salesmen, were all safely ignored.

I guess the cognitive dissonance was too much to handle because stats like those in FL & TX demonstrate that our 99.9% of our neighbors who might get a carry conceal permit are not planning to emulate Rambo on the morning commute did nothing to waver the opponents.

With all that being said – I’m proffering the idea that in an odd, perverse, but easily understandable way, government involvement, even in very charitable actions, can actually reduce our incentive to live together peacefully and take responsibility for our communities.

*On the lack of priorities, I don’t believe all people should run out and research everything I know because I think everyone should read what I read.  I think the very first rule in critical thinking that all trying to be honest analysts have to understand is that like all other humans, even those trained and educated in analysis, will still have the same frailties in their thinking process.  Potentially less pronounced, but never completely mitigated.

Therefore, when writing that peoples’ priorities seem to be off, I think our failure isn’t with not reading what I read – but in being a well rounded person by honestly reflecting and actively deciding their core values.

As a corollary to that – I believe society is teaching people right now that this is a good thing. Valueless employees ask fewer questions and do more as their told without contemplating reality and what the decision’s effects most likely are. & Even if they do contemplate and know it’s wrong, they do it anyway. Therefore people who don’t make waves, get promoted. Those who ask pertinent questions, even if necessary and correct, get ostracized.

This is not only true of our business leaders, Bernie Madoff, Enron, MCI, but our politicians as well.  Unethical leaders leading secret lives, even the corrupt politicians among us, seem to get a reprieve from the voters… so long as you’re on their side and they’re not mean.

Additionally the leadership selection process seems perverted for the same reasons the leaders aren’t what we should expect.  Someone who is arbitrary, but polite and educated, is someone a lot of people like.   In a deep seeded wish to reduce not only any discomfort we might experience, but for civility’s sake try to prevent others’ discomfort, society has conflated the ideas of social skills with leadership to the detriment of society as a whole.

On the whole, it seems our desire for civility has the unintended consequence of making us less civil and more prone to failure.