'Confirmation Bias' | Tim Minchin: BACK

so confirmation bias is a um human tendency this is a short Ted Talk and then we'll get back to the show uh confirmation bias are human bias towards information that confirms our pre-existing beliefs or hypotheses right so if there's this information out in the world here a bit of data or an idea we're much more likely to notice it in the first place and subsequently accept it believe it you know integrated into our belief system if it confirms what we already think in contrast if there's a bit of information or data or an idea out

there in the world that disconfirms something we think we're incredibly good at just not noticing it or if someone shoves it in front of our faces we have all these neuropsychological tricks we play on ourselves to resolve the resultant cognitive dissonance you know we will do anything but the intellectual heavy lifting required to change our minds so so a working example right imagine you're driving along in a car through West London and and and you have a pre-existing belief that Asian women are bad drivers right so you're driving along and someone pulls out in front

of you and you have to slam on the brakes you think oh for fuck's sake and as they drive away you notice that the driver is female Asian person and you go aha I knew it and you take that data point and you put in your pocket with the two other times that's ever happened in your whole life meanwhile discarding the 20 or 30 times a white van's driven out in front of you because you think oh well they've got bad blind spots and they're always in a hurry with their deliveries or whatever and that

white van driver might have a pre-existing belief that um Muslim all Muslims are Islamist terrorists because the only time he ever really notices the word Muslim is when it's in 180 font bold lettering next to the word terrorist in a red top newspaper when some dickhead Muslim does a bomb but meanwhile he's disregarded the fact that London mayor is a Muslim or the holder of the ten thousand meter world record or the head of the BMA or whatever and that Muslim person might have a belief that um atheists are amoral or less altruistic because the

only time they ever think about morality or altruism is within the confines of their faith at the mosque and so on and so forth and this is why through history human beings have always been terrible people because we are very bad at changing our minds but then like 25 30 years ago along comes the internet and a little bit later search engine algorithms a bit after that social media algorithms and everything gets a lot worse because social media and search engines are basically confirmation bias robots like if you set out to create an AI that

did the same error that confirmation bias does that sends you further down the path you're already down that makes your thinking more and more binary you could barely do better than the combination of search engines and social media and it doesn't matter if you you don't have to start with bad intent you know you could just be a moderate Republican sitting in Idaho or Iowa and one day you go to Google and say hello Google um are the Democrats trying to erode my second amendment rights and five clicks later you're like oh so right Hillary

Clinton and Joe Biden are lizards lizard people down from a lizard planet that have come to Earth to start a small business trafficking child sex slaves out of the basement of a pizzeria or you could be like a lovely sort of sort of hippie from the south west of England and you type into Google one day um mindfulness Yoga Retreat Devon and five clicks later you're like oh wow I didn't know they're using 5G Towers to spread a synthesize novel coronavirus so that Bill Gates can use fake vaccines to inject microchips into our bloodstream so

he can track us wherever we go as if all Bill Gates ever wanted was to find out where to get the best gluten-free banana bread in Totnes and all of this all of this both the confirmation bias and its algorithmic equivalent it all just plays into our tribalism right because we're tribal sapiens we love a tribe nationhood is a tribe you know England's better than France fuck Europe England England and you know a city is a community it's a tribe oh London's better than Paris or whoever and you know sports teams are a tribe my

sports teams but churches are a tribe my my church's best churches are just sports teams but with mascots who can fly the point being it's always been sociologically and evolutionarily advantageous for sapiens to retain the behaviours of their in-group to retain the beliefs of their tribe but ever since the internet since algorithmic editing it is a fact not just an instant these tribes are getting further and further apart we're getting more and more binary and the walls around our belief systems around the suite of beliefs that we are required to hold if we're to retain

membership of our tribe the walls around them are getting thicker and thicker and harder to penetrate and it doesn't even matter if the beliefs within your suite of beliefs are internally consistent they never are like but I've lived in America for four years and if you want to be a right-wing conservative you have to concurrently hold the following beliefs you have to believe that Jesus is love and lives in your heart and that people should have unfettered access to semi-automatic weapons if Jesus came back today he would be fucking baffled by traffic lights and Zips

M&M's cricket bats women who can read and write it'd be a fucking tough time for Jesus but honestly if you want to be a Conservative Christian in America you have to believe that a first century wandering mystic preacher who died two thousand years ago came back to life and took out residence in one of your ventricles presumably I think that's the one with more headroom and you have to believe that a person regardless of mental health issues or background checks should be able to walk into a supermarket and buy a gun that is literally designed

to kill as many people as possible in the shortest space of time you have to believe that coal shouldn't be in the ground you get that coal out and Moses said thou shalt desequester that carbon put it in the sky with the angels and you have to hate black people who kneel at football matches you get off your knees boy your knees is for church or blow jobs and you can't you're not allowed to like mask mask you're fascist fucking fascist and you hate um you have to hate uh um vaccines you don't take that

AstraZenica don't take that Moderna that's big Pharma big pharmaceutical companies trying to make money off of you we take Ivermectin because Ivermectin's made by fucking elves and you have to hate dick you're not allowed to like dick if you don't you can like dick if you don't got a dick but if you got a dick and you like a dick that dickie on dickie makes the baby Jesus feel icky and that's your that's your beliefs because you're because you're a conservative and you're conserve and then over here is us mob the progressives I presume we

are here tonight broadly speaking progressives if you are a right-wing Conservative Christian and you stumbled in here tonight expecting the hits of Matilda I I I can I I I I can only say you are welcome this is a broad church and and I I hope that at some point during the evening I I managed to penetrate you um us progressives right so progressives statistically have a higher level of education a little bit on average we're a bit more educated but are we kinder are we fuck because modern progressives have decided the way we're going

to progress forward into a future of more empathy and understanding for more and more people is to shout fascist evil fascist at anyone like that side of the line and then turn to someone inside their own bubble and see if they have a belief that diverges from their own like one degree and then call them out publicly shame them on the Internet oh my God I can't believe you posted a photo of your pedicure when we're meant to be posting black squares you're not anti-racist that means you're racially part of the white supremacy and this

person of course they're now now in another bubble in human nature being human nature they're defining themselves in opposition to those mob and then they find someone in their bubble who has a belief that diverges from their own one degree I can't believe you still follow JK Rowling on Twitter pop I can't believe you said not all men pop I can't believe you used the F slur in your song pop pop pop pop until the whole fucking progressive movement's just bubbles within bubbles within bubbles like a fucking Aero bar like an Aero bar snake eating

its own fucking tail like an Aero Ouroboros on its own tail and going this is disgusting because there's chopped mint Aero like it's like oh yuck chopped mint who puts mint in herbs in chocolate Nestle you fucksticks I got I got a little bit lost a little way back there but um well oh no no I know oh yeah and don't do this maybe I need a shot of tequila please um and uh if you're a progressive I'll get it I'll get it off to you in a minute if you're a progressive don't do this

don't don't go on to the internet and go hey fellow progressives like maybe we should consider having you know a little just just chill out a bit and have a bit of humility and realise that not everyone's had the opportunity to read the books we've read and not everyone's you know learned the lessons that you've learned maybe we should apply the Principle of Charity and not assume that anyone who disagrees with us has a nefarious intent and try and hear the best version of the argument not the worst and maybe we just need to they

go don't you police my tone you straight white male check your privilege and I go fuck you're absolutely right I'm sorry I'll check my privilege so I go and check my privilege which I keep in my library on a mahogany shelf in between my BMW keys and a large Fortnum and Mason's tin of 50 dollar notes and I come back and I say I checked my privilege and you're still fucking wrong because thank you [Applause] because because it cannot be okay it can't it cannot it cannot be can it if if the inter if the

intention of progressives which I assume it is is to progress forward into a future of more empathy and understanding for more and more people it cannot be can it that the primary mechanism by which we're going to make that progress is the suppression of empathy and understanding for anyone who doesn't align with our beliefs it cannot be that unmitigated expression of furious outrage will somehow alchemise into a future of peace and love and of course there's something to be discussed about the justification of course there's many many reasons to be righteously furious I'm a straight

white cisgendered male and I could be furious about 700 things before any given breakfast but it doesn't fucking matter if it's not helping and it's not helping the tribes are getting further and further apart and then the point is it's very hard to change people's minds but we got there but it is not impossible however one thing is a hundred percent certain if you tell someone that they're a fascist and publicly shame them on the Internet for what they believe you've lost them you have prioritised your need to express your outrage and if we're honest

more often than not signal your virtue over the possibility that you could utilise your educational privilege to reach across this algorithmic chasm and if you're sitting there thinking this is a bit rich coming from you Minchin you've literally made a living getting on stage for two hours a night and shouting whatever comes into your fat ginger head I'll say to you that is because I am a hypocrite