We’ve collected some posts from the Facepalm subreddit, where its 8.1 million members constantly call out the most absurd forms of logic. Feel free to scroll through, but hopefully, it won’t make you lose the remaining faith you have left in the current state of humanity.
#3 This Made Made Me Face Palm, So I Decided It Might Be A Good Idea To Post It Here
To begin digging and figuring out how a person’s sense of logic forms, we sought insights from registered psychotherapist and Health & Happiness founder and clinical director, Kevin Greene. As he told Bored Panda, it begins with a person’s exposure to something.
“For example, if a person enjoys French fries, it is because they have had them and it was a good experience,” he said.
Greene then explained how a flawed sense of logic begins, stating that it is usually when it remains unchallenged throughout the person’s life. The example he gave is when someone is raised to believe that all people from a particular country are their enemy.
And because they have not had any personal experience living in the said country, they will stick to the beliefs that have been instilled in them, while also rejecting all counterpoints.
So, is it possible to put some sense into someone whose logic is decidedly skewed? Greene says it is, but it will take a lot of work. Apart from the increased reliance on social media, a significant challenge would be if this person shares the same beliefs with the people they are close to.
“To have this person change would require them to agree to challenge their beliefs,” he said. “This would require them to be given verifiable information from somebody that they trust.”
Politics is one of the many hot topics that people tend to avoid discussing, especially at the dinner table. Because when one person opens the talks, all logic tends to fly out the window.
A 2019 study proved this when researchers brought together a group of 924 liberal and conservative Americans to judge their logical arguments. Their goal was to determine how ideological belief bias affects a person’s way of thinking.
Researchers found that while the participants correctly judged 73% of the arguments, it was heavily influenced by their political views.
"Our biases drive us apart not only in our disagreements about political and ideological worldviews, but also in our understanding of logic itself,” the paper’s lead coauthor Sean Wojcik concluded.
#18 We've Got Socialism For The Rich And Harsh Capitalism For The Poor
It also doesn’t help that polarized news outlets (CNN and FOX News in America) and social media seemingly divide people further. According to psychology professor Dr. Keith Payne, these platforms make it easier to communicate and disseminate polarization.
“Social media is very good at spreading outrage, and moral outrage in particular is something that makes a post more likely to go viral,” Dr. Payne said in an interview with the American Psychological Association.
