Trust (The Engines of Cognition)
I've recently made a foray into the LessWrong community through their essay series, The Engines of Cognition. The first book, Trust, "explores the judgements we make about how to decide which sources to trust, when building our models of the world and acting upon it."
Institutions across science, politics, business have faced harsh blows as media aims to simplify and appeal to the masses. Diplomacy and communication skills have faced similar attacks. A poignant example from a friend of mine: "I would never be friends with a Trump support. Their values are disgusting and they have no morals." Tough. As a professor of mine once said, "civility is the bedrock of society". Without that, we are nothing.
Given Gen Z's built-in distrust, nihilistic mindset towards the world, and sometimes lack of civil communication (i.e: cancel culture), this comes as an especially relevant read.
Trust consists of 16 essays that explicitly explain concepts and models that are implicitly understood. Most of the essays are much less about learning something new and focus more on outlining a process on how to approach understanding, and thereby how to approach building trust.
Examples of concepts I've found helpful to have reinforced:
Instead of looking at inputs and outputs (x and y), focus on understanding the processes (the f(x) function). (Gears-levels models)
Contextualize norms explicitly
In complex disagreements, seek the crux in which both parties differ and if changed, might agree or understand. (Double Crux)
Look for what people find beautiful/ugly to understand them (aesthetic)
There are many theories which are clearly false given evidence, but are repeated often due to the lack of incentive to falsify the claim or person who made the claim (Zombie Theories)
When stuck between a rock and a hard place, understand the failure mode and lead your approach with understanding the cruz of their fears and letting them know you see what they are saying.
Side note //A quick example of emotional learning from Avatar The Last Airbender
Synopsis:
When Aang was first learning fire bending from Jeong Jeong, he rushed the process and burned Katara. Aang vowed never to fire bend again. He had to re-learn it eventually... Zuko's became Aang's teacher during his own inflection point in finding his purpose for fire bending. Aang had to rediscover the meaning of fire.
Accessing Sequence
(1) Symptom identification
The symptom is not wanting to fire bend, which manifested when Aang was unable to control his fire bending and burned Katara's hand during a fight against Admiral Zhao.
(2) Retrieval of target learning
The purpose was to avoid hurting people in a way that would alienate those around him.
(3) Identification of disconfirming knowledge
The disconfirming knowledge was the experience of seeing the last dragons, Ran and Shaw, fire bend begin to understand that fire was not just destruction, but also life.
Erasure Sequence
(1) Reactivation of the target schema
Aang would tap into the memory of burning Katara, experiencing the pain and confusion it as vividly as possible. He renounces fire bending.
(2) Activation of disconfirming knowledge, mismatching the target schema
Simultaneously, Aang would tap into the memory of seeing fire as a beautiful element that flourishes life. He would understand that as the Avatar, it is his duty to be a fire bender. He understands that he cannot renounce fire bending and live up to his duties as the Avatar at the same time.
(3) Repetitions of the target-disconfirmation pairing
He understands the role of fire as both life and destruction and comes to peace with his ability to fire bend, thereby overwriting the emotional learning he had.