[ExI] trutherism: was RE: Social aim for Transhumanism: Better thinking about issues

[Rafal Smigrodzki]

On Wed, May 19, 2010 at 1:33 PM, Jeff Davis <jrd1415 at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, May 18, 2010 at 1:46 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
>
> <Snip a whole bunch of nifty sciencey stuff about water, ice, butter, and steel>
>
>> So perhaps part of the reason trutherism got so much mileage is due to the  rumor .....
>
> Read the article, Spike.
>
> http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20627606.100-living-in-denial-why-sensible-people-reject-the-truth.html?full=true
>
> The proposed explanation suggests it's an
> emotional-need-driven-human-irrationality thing, not a
> misunderstanding-of-fact thing.

### I'd say it's a herd-assisted displacement of primordial emotional
needs and drives (e.g. expiation, moral signaling, fear of the
unknown, fear of pollution) into a quasi-physical belief system ("the
world is going to fry"), and as such it prompts rejections of any
reports of physical facts at odds with the underlying emotional needs.

Rafal