He confirmation bias It consists of embracing a belief and seeking only information that supports it, avoiding as much as possible information that calls it into question.

This includes, naturally, people who generate ideas that conflict with our ideological framework. That is the biggest gap of political tribalism (right-left) is not due so much to rational arguments as to this bias.

I don't even listen to you for money

The algorithmic echo chambers of social networks, in fact, are not the cause of the increase in the Us-Them gap, but rather it is the reflection: algorithms adapt like a glove to our confirmation bias. That is to say: They give us what we want, what we need.

In Xataka Science

Facebook mind: how algorithms make us live in bubbles

And they avoid giving us what we do not want to hear, what we do not want to attend to, what bothers us, what irritates us, what could undermine our beautiful ideological building (tall and unstable like a house of cards, actually).

So much so that we are even willing to lose the opportunity to win a sum of money as long as we are not exposed to Their ideas. Not all, but a significant majority.

In Xataka Science

We must demand greater control of algorithms: our freedom is at stake

Specifically, as revealed This studio, up to two-thirds of people (both liberals and conservatives) gave up the chance to earn extra money so they wouldn't have to listen to the other side. And they didn't do it because they already knew what the others were going to say., but because it bothered them, could create frustration, or would require too much effort.

The dislike was applied to topics such as same-sex marriage, elections, marijuana, climate change, guns and abortion.

In other words, which corollary: Ideologically committed people are equally motivated to avoid cross-cutting information at the ideological level.

We love ideological bubbles., also because our brain is not wired to assimilate large numbers of people (let alone those who are very different from us).

That is why, in the real world, where we are seven billion people, it is so ridiculous to see a person who says things like "the worst always happens to me." But it happens, because, in addition to confirmation bias, we are also crossed by a deep selfish and narcissistic bias, as you can see in the following video:

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The news

People are capable of giving up money in exchange for not listening to people with ideas contrary to theirs.

was originally published in

Xataka Science

by
Sergio Parra

.

Inventions are, on many occasions, projects that remain in the drawer or the meeting room because no one bets on them. Because no one understands that they are truly interesting inventions..

The paradigmatic example of this was the invention of suitcases with built-in wheels which, despite having many decades behind it, did not become a popular invention until the 1990s.

Northwest Airlines

In the 1990s, a Northwest Airlines pilot, Robert Plath, invented the successful Rollaboard model, which incorporated wheels and also a rigid, folding handle. It was an epidemic. Suddenly, everyone replaced their old suitcases with these new ones.

However, the invention was not new: it had simply appeared at the right time. In 1972, for example, Bernard Sadow had already launched a suitcase with wheels, although it did not include a handle, but instead had it hanging from a leather strap that, in practice, made the suitcase tend to move sideways.

But a century earlier, in 1887, there already seems to be a patent for a similar suitcase. And in a newspaper article from 1951, John Allay May explains his attempts to make and sell a suitcase with wheels since 1932, as transcribed Robert J. Shiller in his book Economic narratives:

And they laughed. I was getting very serious. But they laughed, all of them. When I explained to any organization a future application of the wheel theory, they expressed themselves as if it produced a soporific boredom (why not make the most of the wheel? Why haven't we equipped people with wheels? (... ) I estimate that I have presented this concept to 1,500 people and 125 organizations. My wife got tired of listening to me in 1937. The only man who took me seriously was an inventor who lived for a time in my neighborhood. The problem is that no one cared. took seriously.

In Xataka Science

Kleiber's Law or that more innovative people live in cities than in the countryside

No one really knows why the wheeled suitcase finally fell apart. Maybe it was something in the design. Or the rigid handle. But Shiller suspects the secret is glamour.:

In previous attempts, rolling suitcases were seen as a somewhat ridiculous contraption. Its 1991 press ads linked the Rollaboard narrative to airlines, which in 1990 were considered more glamorous than now. (…) The epidemic of wheeled suitcases was fueled when pilot crews and cabin crew widely adopted the Rollaboard model. Passengers saw distinguished-looking aviation professionals walking through airports with their innovative suitcases.

After all, ideas are more part of an ecosystem than a brain: if the ecosystem is not there, the idea not only takes longer to flourish, but to take root and begin to be in common use, which ultimately intervenes not in the propagation of the idea, but in its mere conception. For this reason, precisely, More innovative people live in cities than in the countryside.

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The news

The suitcase with wheels or how inventions only flourish when there is context

was originally published in

Xataka Science

by
Sergio Parra

.