Category talk:Documenting crony capitalism

The essential role of Intellectual Honesty

Intellectual Honesty combines good faith with a primary motivation toward seeking true beliefs. Intellectual honesty is the polar opposite, if not the complement to crony capitalism. It may be helpful to highlight Intellectual Honesty as an alternative, if not an antidote, to crony capitalism. Thanks! --Lbeaumont (discuss • contribs) 13:47, 1 January 2019 (UTC)

I'm concerned that very few people would admit to themselves that they are intellectually dishonest, even when an objective outside observer could provide substantial evidence of that.

I think we can make faster progress in building a coalition for positive action by understanding the differences in how people think and politely (a) asking people to show their evidence, (b) noting that people of good will can have dramatically different perspectives on almost anything, and (c) expressing confidence that we could find common ground if we reason together.

Peter Binkley in an invited 2006 article for the Canadian Library Association magazine Feliciter said that on controversial topics "the two sides actually engaged each other and negotiated a version of the [Wikipedia] article that both can more or less live with. This is a rare sight indeed in today’s polarized political atmosphere, where most online forums are echo chambers for one side or the other.”Peter Binkley (2006). "Wikipedia Grows Up". Feliciter 52 (2006), no. 2, 59–61. Retrieved 2018-03-09. This can help build bridges over the walls created by media that must of necessity please advertisers and other elites (as I noted previously in Everyone's favorite news site).

Daniel Kahneman's (2011) Thinking, Fast and Slow explains how this works. Kahneman is a research psychologist, who won the 2002 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics for leading a thread of research that established that the standard models of "the rational person" used by economists is not how people actually think. That thread of research established that people make most decisions intuitively based on what comes most readily to mind. We're capable of more careful thought and search for alternative sources of information, but we rarely do that even when we should. Because research and reflection require more time, we can't afford to do much of it, especially on a broad variety of topics.

I'm hopeful that we can convince many people to distrust the mainstream media including Facebook and to distrust even their own intuition when others believe differently: Encourage them to get curious rather than angry.

We won't convert everyone. Fortunately, we don't need to. 3.5% might be enough according to Erica Chenoweth. Her research into all the major violent and nonviolent governmental change efforts of the twentieth century found that "every campaign that got active participation from at least 3.5 percent of the population succeeded, and many succeeded with less. All the campaigns that achieved that threshold were nonviolent; no violent campaign achieved that threshold.Chenoweth, Erica (2013-11-04). "My Talk at TEDxBoulder: Civil Resistance and the "3.5% Rule"". RationalInsurgent.org. Rational Insurgent. Retrieved 2016-10-10.

DavidMCEddy (discuss • contribs) 18:51, 1 January 2019 (UTC)

I agree that antagonizing people is not often a straight path toward consensus, however it is helpful (at least to me) to see where I want to go. Intellectual Honesty is an important end-state for a civil society. Along the way, I created a course on Transcending Conflict, and an essay on real, good insights that provides a step-by-step path for diagnosing disagreements. Practicing Dialogue and Socratic methods are also important skills for achieving consensus (not based on compromise). Effective use of such tools by an influential portion of our population will be a step toward reducing crony capitalism. Thanks! --Lbeaumont (discuss • contribs) 13:31, 2 January 2019 (UTC)