specifics aside, I'm thinking about how this tendency to not update relates to the v binary way many people approach learning; internalizing a new fact is a one-way state transition, bc in their minds social reality perfectly mirrors physical. in fact, they don't even see a diff!
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RT @mattparlmer
The data showing significantly reduced severity in omicron cases vs all previous strains keep replicating everywhere
We are well on the w…
https://twitter.com/mattparlmer/status/1473806506588004356
this naive epistemology is much simpler computationally and hence metabolically; facts being a. static and b. binary, means they don't need to run background watchdog processes continuously error-checking their beliefs against new data. lightly-held opinions are more expensive!
for this set of constraints, it's perfectly rational to favor overly stringent precautions over updating their beliefs, as the metabolic cost of the latter most likely outweighs the burden imposed by the former
perhaps med/acceleration can address this
if this is a matter of metabolic tradeoffs, raising the cost of compliance shifts the equilibrium
maybe the only way out of public health authoritarianism is through
