What's the simplest thing humans are too dumb to grasp?

You ever see a dog that’s got its leash tangled the long way round a table leg, and it just cannot grasp what the problem is or how to fix it? It can see all the components laid out in front of it, but it’s never going to make the connection.

Obviously some dog breeds are smarter than others, ditto individual dogs - but you get the concept.

Is there an equivalent for humans? What ridiculously simple concept would have aliens facetentacling as they see us stumble around and utterly fail to reason about it?

weeeeum,

Gambling. Everyone knows the house always wins and the exact probability of winning any specific lottery but people can’t grasp this. I don’t know how people look at these massive luxurious casinos and think they win against this company with an unfathomably profitable business model by taking money from people who think they can win.

jimmy_spider,

I think the logic there is not that they constantly win against the casino, but more that they only need to get lucky once or twice. They just see that some people, sometimes win and there is no reason that they would not be the winners. Not sure I’m being clear about it but I hope you get my point.

weeeeum,

It makes it more understandable but I also think of it as “what is going to make ME win versus all of the thousand other poor souls here”

CheeseNoodle, (edited )

I play the lottery a few times a year for the following reasons:
-Permission to dream about what I would buy if I won for a few days
-Justification for bitching about not winning the lottery

bluGill,

Instead of buying a ticket I just search the sidewalk for the winning ticket (that someone else lost) while I'm otherwise doing my normal activities. My odds are winning are nearly the same as someone who buys a ticket, so I can dream just as much - but I can spend the money on something else.

moody,

First, someone has to have bought the winning ticket. Then, that same person needs to have lost the winning ticket. Next, that person has to have lost that ticket near where you are. And finally, you have to find that lost ticket.

So while both situations are very very far from certainty, and both are approaching zero, one of the two is much, much closer to zero than the other.

YoorWeb,

Lottery: tax for dreams.

foyrkopp,

My take:

Most things (especially abstract ones) that exists beyond the scope of the small-hunter-gatherer-tribe setup our brain is developed for: Quantum mechanics, climate change, racism, relativity, spherical earth, …

What separates us from the dogs is that we’ve developed abstract analytical tools (language, stories, mathematics, the scientific method,…) that allow us to infer the existence of those things and, eventually try to predict, model and manipulate them.

But we don’t “grasp” them as we’d grasp a tangled leash, which is why it is even possible for medically sane people to doubt them.

I’d argue that you can even flip this around into a definition:

If a person with no medical mental deficiencies can honestly deny a fact (as in: without consciously lying), then that fact is either actually wrong, or it falls into the “tangled leash” category.

HerbalGamer,
@HerbalGamer@sh.itjust.works avatar

idk spherical earth isn’t that highbrow to me

hexabs,

Yes it is indeed easy to grasp in certain areas of the earth.

Excrubulent,
@Excrubulent@slrpnk.net avatar

Yeah, with the right situation you can just plainly see it.

This thread has a lot of visualisations of exactly how you can see it, it’s actually really viscerally satisfying:

metabunk.org/…/soundly-proving-the-curvature-of-t…

PlzGivHugs,

Probability. If something has a 50% chance of occuring, that does not mean it will happen every second time, and our brain has a very hard time rationalizing that. For example, we assume its near impossible to flip heads on a coin three times in a row when really, the probability is 12.5% - not that low. Another example would be something with a 95% chance of success - we naturally round up and assume thats basically garenteed success, but theres still a very decent chance of failure, esspecially on repeat attempts. Our brains are just not wired to handle randomness well, which is part of why gambling is so addicting and why games like X-Com have to rig the odds in the players favour to avoid pissing them off.

PrinceWith999Enemies,

This is my answer as well.

We have developed intuition around things like naive physics - you can catch a thrown frisbee without doing calculus in your head - but it’s really, really hard to think through statistical questions in an intuitive way.

It’s one reason I’m extremely skeptical about the utility of informed consent in medicine. A physician can tell a patient’s family that if they don’t do the procedure then the patient will definitely die, but if they do it there’s a 20% chance of complication A and a 5% chance of complication B. The right thing to do is plan on the complications happening and having a realistic idea of what that will entail. But people, especially under stress, really aren’t able to deal with that kind of thing as easily as they can deal with catching a ball thrown to them.

jaidyn999,

RPG games like Fortnite use an algorithm which tricks people into believing their skills are improving.

When you hit a pixel, it doesn’t automatically score a hit like Space Invaders, it runs an algorithm based on the time you have been playing the game to determine the amount of damage you cause. The more you play, the more “accurate” you become.

dotMonkey,

Sounds like the conspiracy BS I read in the call of duty subs on Reddit

ByGourou, (edited )

This kind of thing definitly exist, usually part of adaptative difficulty where for exemple you get an invisible buff after dying so you feel like you are improving.
But I fail to see that in fortnite since it’s a multiplayer game, only your skill and luck influence the outcome, not playtime. Fortnite isn’t an RPG either (As far as I know), so I guess you meant an other game ?

AeroLemming,

It’s not always for the benefit of the players. Gameloft, the makers of the Asphalt mobile racing series, was caught making the AI harder during special timed events that allowed you to win extra/special stuff by beating said AI. This was obviously for the express purpose of manipulating people into playing more and even though I once loved playing Asphalt 8 & 9, I no longer touch any of their games because of how shitty and disingenuous that is.

ByGourou,

I never heard of that since I stopped playing asphalt but that seems like something Gameloft would do. Gameloft really fell off, they used to make good games…

But yeah, it can also be used badly, like making the game really easy after a purchase and then slowly go back to difficult. I don’t think I’ve heard of something like that yet, but it probably exist.

AnUnusualRelic,
@AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world avatar

And that past random events have no influence on future ones.

If a coin landed on one side ten times in a row, it’s still a 50% chance on the next throw. Something a lot of people have trouble with.

msage,

No, but you see, the chance you get the same side twice is… (HH, HT, TH, TT) 50%, shit

When we add another toss, you get only two possibilities of always same side, and 6 that are not.

So which is it? The coin itself may always have 50/50, but the universe which tosses in a series doesn’t?

CheeseNoodle,

Every combination is equally likely we just ascribe special meaning to certain ones due to overactive pattern recognition. Hx6 is just as likely as any seeminly more random result from 6 consecutive throws there are just more options we don’t ascribe special meaning to.

Blaze,
@Blaze@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

Exponentials

royal_starfish,

Add logarithms to that

And calculus

And (a+b)²=a²+2ab+b²

shinigamiookamiryuu,

If my experiences are anything to go by, my vocabulary and way of speaking. Or really a lot of people’s.

This is something I don’t get. These people, when given a mathematical equation, treat the whole equation as a whole puzzle and use all its pieces to solve it. But if you say something that’s simply too wordy or where the words are “too thesaurus-like” (often to fix the first thing), they don’t “add it up” and they dump on you with Jimmy Neutron memes. I (while not being Marxist myself) remember one of my first experiences in the fediverse was talking about Marxist concepts to people who identified as Marxists and wondering from their confused reaction if they knew what Marxism entailed.

pimento64, (edited )

my way of speaking

Yeah that sounds about right, considering this word salad of a comment.

shinigamiookamiryuu,

Where do you draw the line between “word salad” and “non-word-salad”?

tocopherol, (edited )
@tocopherol@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

For a better response to writing, an exercise an instructor had my class do was to look at a list of example sentences and remove every word that wasn’t essential. I don’t think your writing is so difficult to interpret but a more plain style can be helpful for some. Most people aren’t trying to ‘add it up’ in conversation like it’s math, it should be quick and intuitive. The way we read our own writing is different than how others will emphasize or pace it which can cause misinterpretation as well.

I feel like I see a lot of arguments online that are really just people misinterpreting each other repeatedly.

shinigamiookamiryuu,

I’ve gotten complaints either way. If I want something I say to be short, that requires me to use what many consider oddly specific words. When people read them, they complain I’m a walking thesaurus. Then I might try the reverse to please people, where I deconstruct those oddly specific words until I get a long sentence. And the same crowd has then often complained my messages are unrealistically long. Either way, especially as a writer, what I say comes from a mind that gravitates towards the analogous and the compatible, i.e. my way of communicating is made to branch out.

Bunnylux,
@Bunnylux@lemmy.world avatar

“I can’t speak clearly or concisely. This is other people’s fault.” -You

shinigamiookamiryuu,

Point to where I said it was anyone’s fault.

the_q,

Capitalism isn’t purpose and purpose doesn’t exist.

tocopherol,
@tocopherol@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

I wouldn’t say they are too dumb to realize this necessarily, people are just misled by endless propaganda or don’t have the time and energy/skills to really contemplate things properly.

Zarxrax,

Rejecting evidence that is right in front of our eyes because of some kind of religious faith or political beliefs.

idunnololz, (edited )
@idunnololz@lemmy.world avatar

Or rejecting research/statistics/math/science/etc. because of some anecdotal evidence.

0x4E4F,

Yep, it’s called math.

I was generally surprised at how many people can’t do simple math without a calc, like multiply 7 x 8.

books,

Check mate. Sucker.

Bunnylux,
@Bunnylux@lemmy.world avatar

Erm…

AnUnusualRelic,
@AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world avatar

Meh, close enough.

spittingimage,
@spittingimage@lemmy.world avatar

I haven’t done any long division since highschool, and now that I’d like to, I can’t remember how. 🥺

rbesfe,

Good thing search engines exist, eh?

spittingimage,
@spittingimage@lemmy.world avatar

Are you suggesting that I lift a finger to help myself? Why, I never!

MimicJar,
@MimicJar@lemmy.world avatar

Of all the multiplication you had to pick 7 x 8. I hate 7 x 8.

I memorized in 3rd grade or whatever my multiple tables, but I never trust 7 x 8.

7 x 8 = 56

1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 5, 6, 9 ?

No. That’s wrong. After 7 comes 8. After 8 comes 5. No, it goes 5, 6, 7, 8.

If I could visualize it as,

56 = 7 x 8

I’d be fine, but I can’t see it that way.

No I have to take it as 7 x 7 (49) + 7 (1 + 6), to get 56.

Shit. I hope that makes sense to someone.

0x4E4F, (edited )

I memorized in 3rd grade or whatever my multiple tables, but I never trust 7 x 8.

Lol, that’s why I picked it 😂. I hate 7 x 8 as well 😂.

No I have to take it as 7 x 7 (49) + 7 (1 + 6), to get 56.

That’s how I do it as well 😂, 7 x 7 + 7, I never remebered 56 😂. Or 8 x 8 - 8, either way works for me 😂.

yote_zip,
@yote_zip@pawb.social avatar

The existence of poverty/hunger/homelessness in a post-scarcity world. if we wanted to eliminate those problems we could, but humans are blocked on how it can be done without hurting their own wealth.

rbesfe,

Despite it being parroted by the terminally online, we do not live in a post-scarcity world.

chaogomu,

We're not yet in a post scarcity world. We're tantalizing close, but not quite there yet.

There are three main areas we need to work on.

First is power generation. We need more, and it needs to be decupled from fossil fuels. Nuclear is the obvious answer for massive amounts of power output without using massive amounts of land, but fossil fuel lobbies have been hamstringing development since the 50s.

The important thing here isn't just replacing fossil fuels. That would just leave us were we are now. No we need to double or triple world power generation as a start.

The second area that needs work is connected to the first. Transportation. Not just electric cars, but container ships and trains and everything in-between.

This is where that added power generation comes in. We need to make it basically free to move things from point A to point B. There are some ways to do this, particularly for container ships. But we need the raw power available before they become viable.

The final area is automation. We need more. Once people need to be put out of work in massive numbers. We need to decuple work from life.

That final step is the hardest with the most pitfalls. It will happen. Well, the automation and unemployment will happen. After that we can either spiral into a hell scape or rise above into a post scarcity utopia...

It really depends on when and how the guillotines come out

yote_zip,
@yote_zip@pawb.social avatar

You’re right, and I suppose I was half-thinking along the lines of “we have all the pieces to solve this, but we don’t because we’re frozen in place by greed” instead of “this is something we could do with infrastructure today”. If everyone could collectively let go and re-distribute wealth and materials efficiently everyone would be much better off for it, but instead we’re stuck in some game theory hell where the optimal personal choice results in one of the worst outcomes.

Jakdracula,
@Jakdracula@lemmy.world avatar

Under capitalism, food isn’t produced to eat but to make profits. When it’s not profitable to sell, they will rather dump foods, starving the people rather than to plainly donate. We produce enough foods to feed the entire population. But the sole purpose of food is to not feed the people, but to feed the greed of the producers, the farmers, the corporates. Capitalism created an artificial scarcity of food where we produce too much food for the obese and throw the rest away to rot in front of the poor.

Taleya,

🍇 😡

Mr_Blott,

You gonna eat those

weeeeum,

I study a lot of geopolitics and history and I have read of many different aid programs, domestically for citizens or abroad to poverty and war stricken countries.

Unfortunately it’s not as easy as dumping a bunch of money, food or whatever resource into the problem. For example there are cities with tons of homeless shelters but many stay on the streets. There are massive teams of social workers dedicated to helping people in need but many of them refuse their help.

When it comes to countries sometimes this aid is embezzled and only given to those loyal to the government. Sometimes used to fuel armies to continue conflicts, or just disappear into corruption and resold by crooked politicians to make a profit. Additionally it can hurt local, and in turn, the wider economy. The aid distributed for free kills many local businesses and livelihoods because you can compete with free.

Especially when you have some stupid company pulling a publicity stunt to send their own products as aid to struggling countries. One example was this brand of shoes that would donate a pair for every pair sold. This “friendly gesture” killed off all local cobblers, shoe manufacturers, shoe stores and prevented anyone from doing so to make a living, not to mention preventing self sufficiency of the country. That’s just one example, there are a lot of companies and misguided companies that do exactly this and many economists recommend that these poor countries should refuse this aid.

HubertManne,
@HubertManne@kbin.social avatar

first. my current dog learned to deal with this as a puppy. I was astonished. My last dog I was trying to train the concept her whole life. Never saw a dog be able to handle it before but at this point if my current dog starts to go on the other side of an obstruction I say this way and she immediately corrects. For some reason for all other dogs I find they instinctively want to go the wrong way. So its not even random, they think wrapping more is the way to go. As for humans:

"The Greatest Shortcoming of the Human Race Is Man’s Inability To Understand the Exponential Function"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O133ppiVnWY&t=97s

garibaldi_biscuit,

Amazing video, now thirty years old. By now, you would expect this analysis of population, economic & consumption growth would be essential learning in schools. My feeling is that the world today caries on with even greater ignorance of the consequences of this exponential growth than it did back then.

ganksy,
@ganksy@lemmy.world avatar

4D baby

Sterile_Technique,
@Sterile_Technique@lemmy.world avatar

We live in 4D though. The three spacial dimensions (length, width, depth) and time.

That’s why the term “4D chess!” is so comical. 4D chess is just a normal game of chess lol.

owenfromcanada,
@owenfromcanada@lemmy.world avatar

When people say “4D” they typically mean four spatial dimensions, in addition to time. You’re not being clever, you’re misinterpreting the context.

KrokanteBamischijf,

We’re not even quite sure yet that time is actually different from space. All research seems to suggest they are sides of the same coin.

Depending on how you look at it, considering time a separate dimension at all just seems silly.

Then again, this is just some more context for your context.

owenfromcanada,
@owenfromcanada@lemmy.world avatar

Yeah, I’m not arguing that time can be considered a fourth dimension, or the relationship between time and space.

But the comment about 4D being hard to comprehend was referring to the idea of a fourth spatial dimension (as we could comprehend such a thing). Obviously, we don’t have a hard time comprehending time (at least superficially), so the comment about it being “comical” is pedantic and has strong “AKSHUALLY” energy.

bfg9k,
@bfg9k@lemmy.world avatar

youtu.be/xIarrG9ZO4I

bAZtARd,

Normal chess is 2D + time

Bye,

Many people, including myself, are too dumb to understand that other people don’t value the same thing in us that we value in others.

You see them try and become what they like, in order to try to appeal to others. “Well I wish I got more attention, so I’m going to give tons and tons of attention to others”. “I wish someone would make a grand romantic gesture to me, so I’m going to do that to someone else”. That kind of thing.

This is sometimes called “fundamental attribution error” although I think that concept covers a bit more ground.

usualsuspect191,

This is the most charitable interpretation of why guys send dick pics

Bye,

I think it’s exactly why they do it

Noodle07,

I’m a guy, I received unannounced boob pics, that EXACTLY what men sending dick pics want.

JokklMaster,

This is not the fundental attribution error. The fundamental attribution error is seeing an action from a person and assuming it is a fundamental attribute of them. Literally in the name. E.g. you seem someone being rude in public so you assume they are a rude person. Meanwhile if you are rude in public you chalk it up to being in a bad mood as a result of something that happened to you, not because you are a rude person.

lvxferre,
@lvxferre@lemmy.ml avatar

It’s really similar to the fundamental attribution error, though, as you can see if phrased this way: “I value $foo by a certain amount because I’m a human being, thus other human beings value $foo as much as I do”.

dmention7,

Impulse control and the general idea of delaying minor pleasures now that will have significant benefits later, or even just not doing things that kinda feel good in the moment but will make you miserable in the near future. As a species we’re pretty terrible at those kinds of judgments.

The meme of the guy poking a stick into his bike wheel in one frame and lying in a crumpled pile in the next is timeless for exactly that reason. Same with shocked Pikachu.

Gigan,
@Gigan@lemmy.world avatar

This was my thought too, delayed gratification. Lot’s of people make short term decisions that have negative long-term effects on their mental, physical, or financial health. And humanity does it as well, such as pollution or using fossil fuels when we know it’s going to cause problems in the future.

Ep1cFac3pa1m,
@Ep1cFac3pa1m@lemmy.world avatar

I was going to say long-term thinking. We’re just not wired to consider long-term consequences for the things we do. We continually get duped by promises of lower taxes without considering the damage it will cause for decades to come.

Lennnny,
@Lennnny@lemmy.world avatar

I saw a toddler eating a banana and it bit its own thumb and then did an angry cry

RememberTheApollo_, (edited )

That you cannot extract billions of years worth of stored energy from the earth (like oil and coal), release it, and expect there to be no consequences.

Humans aren’t much better than dogs taking a shit on the lawn in our little finite planetary backyard and kicking a few tufts of grass over it. Dumping stuff into the ocean or waterways. Can’t see it! Must be gone, right? Burying toxic chemicals. Can’t see it! Same with CO2.

Shit’s still there. Keep shitting everywhere and there’s no way you’re gonna avoid stepping in it eventually.

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