Quote:
Originally Posted by Phone Booth
Really? I thought it attracted socially unconventional people from various walks of life who also happen to be interested in playing poker. Other than quantitative leanings of many posters leading to mathematical errors of at the level of high school algebra being shouted down more easily, thus being somewhat less common and posters here generally being bookish (it is a publisher's site, and one that publishes somewhat denser poker books than the norm). I think people here also way underestimate the general population because of this in-group dynamic; and also because serious posters on internet forums tend to think that what others post on this forum and others on the internet (generally drivel) is representative of the average person's cognitive capacity. Just think about what sorts of people do post in really bad internet forums, what sort of people post the most and what sort of mindset they have when they do.
It's possible that I'm overestimating the average person, but I find that otherwise intellectually unremarkable people have tremendous cognitive capacity when they are properly motivated and guided.
I don't follow how their conclusions have anything to do with logic and reason.
This is completely wrong. Talk to everyone from drunks at the bar, grocery store clerks, politics forums posters, businessmen, academics, etc - there's practically no one in this world who's biased towards not wanting to deviate from "expert" opinion, when it comes to things that we think we understand. Individual human minds are simply not built that way - we're positively delighted anytime we can figure out a way to feel superior to the experts, those in authority positions, etc. In fact, at least part of your friend's emotional hangup in this case is the delight in finding that the expert (Belichick) here was wrong in a way that he understands. This entire episode is about this - people wanting to feel superior to Belichick, others wanting to feel superior to those other people, etc, etc.
There are many poker forums out there, though. People who have read more 2+2 books than average poker players tend to be more intellectually curious, more logically oriented, and just more intelligent. People who aren't simply won't get the books, and will stop reading very quickly.
The average person in the world is even dumber than your average Joe Morgan-type pundit, as well. I work day in and day out with people who would by all measures be considered top 10% of intelligence of the world. And it never stops to amaze me how incredibly dumb they can be.
Now, I'm sure you don't understand why it has to do with logic or reason, because you don't bother to read any of it.Even people who have different conclusions, such as Suzzer, once they get past the initial akwardness, at least apply logic and reason to their conclusions, and occasionally will reverse stances once they find a flaw in the line of thinking. I'm not surprised you don't get it, because you don't try. You are the Joe Morgan of that forum. Stick by conventional wisdom, make a big wall of text, and be done with it.
Yes, you are right that people like to be smarter than the experts. There are also some people who prefer to take a contrary position just for the sake of it as well. But all the people that think they are smarter than Bellichick in this case are using the line "no other coaches would go for that, no way he could be right!" It's the natural human instinct to shun anyone who is different than the norm, or challenges conventional wisdom. In a lot of cases, this is pretty useful, since trying to think about every little issue in the world is time consuming and annoying, and in general conventional wisdom is much more likely to be correct than incorrect. It's more of the lines of "Bill Bellichick thinks he's so much smarter than all of us, and he lost, LOL!" It's the same line I took when Miami beat the piss out of Georgia Tech, laughing at an unconventional offensive style that is clearly +EV for them mostly for being different. People tend to not like things that don't fall in line with what is already normal.