No political posturing.
Spotting fake BS on the internet. It just seems so obvious to me when someone is making up a story for clout, or to plug a GoFundMe scam, or to push an obvious narrative of hate toward a group of people. And then I go into the comments and want to fucking scream.
And then, when you point out that something is fake, half the time people get all defensive about it. “Who cares? It’s still a good story” or “Well, it might be fake THIS time, but I can imagine people actually doing this, so I’m going to internalize this as more proof for my biases.”
I don’t get it, how is it so hard for people to spot? Like, yea, there’s the occasional one that’s done so well that it’s easy to fall for, but 99% of these kinds of posts and videos are so blatantly fake that I worry about the level of critical thinking skills the average person has. I thought the explosion of AI shit would make people be a bit more skeptical with the things they read and watch, but it feels like it’s going the other direction.
Two things to keep in mind here.
Firstly, the toupee fallacy: all toupees look fake. You may be able to spot all bad toupees but the good ones fly under your radar and thus you can’t ever know how good you’re actually at spotting them.
Also the assumption-as-fact bias. You think a story is false but did you ever get confirmation that you were right or are you treating your assumption as a fact?
They are stupid and take everything at face value and their brain things the world is as it appears. They think marketing is real.
You are skeptical. The other thing is skepticism… is mental work… and most people are incredibly lazy mentally.
There are levels of utility to identifying such things though. Like the amI<insert adjective> subreddits, in fact who gives a shit if that’s made up? Its entertaining. But for news, yes, critical thought is useful.
The thing is, on places like AITA, those made up posts may seem benign and just entertaining, but I encourage you to look with a more critical eye. Well over half the time, there is usually someone in the story specifically acting unreasonable or idiotic or “bad” in some way or form, and they tend to belong to some group or another that the poster is relying on biases of to try and make more convincing. It’s not usually minorities exactly, but things like bosses, or in-laws, or tourists, or women in general. Just some group that people often have preconceived biases against. And then people read the made up story and go “Yea, those people really ARE like that!” and even though it’s completely fake, there is now mental support for those biases; and the world gets just a tiny bit more unfriendly and a tiny bit more isolating.
Another common defense I see is “the same thing happens in all forms of fiction, but I don’t see you complaining about movies or books!” which completely ignores that other forms of fiction aren’t trying to pass themselves off as something that actually, really happened, for real; with real people, that actually exist and act like that. And that’s the difference between telling a story for entertainment, and just fucking lying.
Spatial awareness/reasoning. How far things are, where are we relative to this landmark, which direction are we headed, how to account for the moving shadows when choosing a place to settle down at the beach, and so on and so forth. It seems like people around me are utterly lost in space
Having calm discussions without screaming. Even if its a passionate discussions for example about Cheese. (Yes this gets very heated with me and my friends haha love them so much)
Openes to new facts even if it challanges your world view.
Empathie
Empathy. Some people just have a brain for math and understand numbers in ways other people just never will. Others, like myself, have brains that are really good at understanding others, and we perceive and understand others with a facility some other people just can’t. It sounds pompous to say, because all human beings are at least somewhat skilled in this area, due to our species being highly social, but it’s still a cognitive speciality and some of us are innately better at it than others.
It can be frustrating too, because when other people don’t understand what you see in someone else, they question your decisions about them, and it can be hard to see why other people don’t see what you find obvious sometimes. It’s a bit of an extreme example, but I know people who can’t see that Donald Trump is a highly transparent narcissist. Even ones who didn’t vote for him and hate him for all the obvious reasons can’t see the personality disorder in him, and I find it so glaringly obvious that I sometimes just can’t fathom how anyone could miss it. But, if I really think about it, and I imagine what it might be like for a person who doesn’t have a natural talent for empathy, I can see how they just might not connect the dots and just see a bombastic, arrogant asshole, rather than the much more complex pattern of malignant narcissism that underlies that comparatively superficial persona.
Pissing outdoors… In the yard
Math is the big one, and logic by extension. Everyone around me seems to have difficulty breaking problems or logical arguments down into relevant incremental steps. They either get distracted by irrelevant things, or can’t figure out how the output of one step provides the input for the next.
Being open to learning new things which may contradict previously held beliefs. I enjoy becoming more informed and having my ignorance diminished, but I find for the bulk of humanity most people do not want to know things - they want to be continually assured the things they hold true are true, regardless of the validity.
I’m very aware of my own body and how it’s positioned, so I have good balance, makes me a great dancer, and ambidextrous to some degree.
Being assertive
Driving without touching my phone.
Every damn person every damn day. It’s a sickness
Navigating UIs on PCs, Smartphones, Ticket Machines etc.
Reading UIs is definitely a skill, I can navigate most menus regardless of language. But it makes it harder to design stuff for the average user.
Basic hygiene, sadly
Explaining difficult technical concepts to laypeople. Just gotta find the correct analogy.
If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t know it well enough.
That’s one of my favorite sayings.
The problem is that people who are subject matter experts in a field tend to over estimate the amount of knowledge a layperson has about their field.
With the caveat that a simple explanation stipulates a basic understanding of the topic at hand. I could explain the concept of First Break Positioning to anyone, but it’s gonna take a while unless they have a basic understanding of how a seismic survey works.
I am grateful and envious: I would love to have the same ability. Stuff is crystal clear in my mind, and I still hardly can transform it into something someone else can parse… analogies are great, but finding the correct one is often beyond me
I’m not a fan of analogies. They can be very condescending and convoluted and I find I dont learn much from them. I dont think there are any shortcuts to learning in that way really.
I find most the times the issue I have with someone teaching me something is that they are treating it as a one sided communication. If the person teaching won’t learn about the student, they end up assuming a lot of things and that is what breaks understanding.
Analogies are nice when the purpose isn’t to really learn but to socialize, though. Its more a way for people to acknowledge each other and show respect for the things we are interested in. Its a mutual thing in that way.
I excelled at tech support with this skill. I can quickly figure a person’s technical ability. If you talk below them, they’re insulted. If you talk over them, they’re insulted. Gotta hit 'em where they live.
Popping their ears. I can “pop” my ears by opening my eustachian tubes on demand. I can even hold them open if I want to. Apparently a lot of people can’t do that.
Do you know people who can’t do this? Seems pretty common.
I can do this too. It feels like I’m trying to flex my jaw muscles downwards. And makes that satisfying crackling noise when they open up.
I can also do this but it feels like I’m flexing them outwards, not down. Weird!
Same; can you also, by any chance, wiggle them?
I can pop them also! Which is good because I need to do it frequently because of sinus problems ‘clogging’ them.
I can do this but it makes me yawn
I can only do it by yawning, funnily enough
That right there is a skill I learned. When I was a teenager I got these terrible sinus headaches, driving up and down hill would get me. Then I went to flight school. I can control the pressures in my head pretty precisely now.
Holy shit, I can do that too. I noticed just now because of your comment.
Thank you for unlocking my new power.
Being able to see through fake people’s masks. Like, people who appear nice and friendly on the surface, but are narcissistic snakes who will destroy you to benefit themselves. The people who everyone will swear “oh, they aren’t like that.”
It’s so obvious to my wife and I, possibly because we’re on the spectrum, but no one else sees it until one of us lays out all the supporting evidence that they are in fact like that.
It’s the dead eyes. Every photo of Mr. Beast has them.
In my case I just feel like I have a strong intuition about there being something off about someone. Usually I can’t even put my finger on what it is exactly yet I seem to often be right.
