{"id":4463,"date":"2013-10-03T09:44:27","date_gmt":"2013-10-03T14:44:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=4463"},"modified":"2013-10-03T09:44:27","modified_gmt":"2013-10-03T14:44:27","slug":"dumb-and-dumber","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=4463","title":{"rendered":"Dumb and dumber"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs-images.forbes.com\/miguelmorales\/files\/2012\/04\/dumb-and-dumber1.jpg\" width=\"360\" height=\"238\" \/>The other day <a href=\"http:\/\/www.psmag.com\/politics\/why-even-your-best-arguments-never-work-64910\/\">I linked to an article<\/a> about an unfortunate consequence uncovered by some research in cognitive psychology: some argumentation, however good (conclusive or decisive), reinforces the ignorance of the person who is wrong.\u00c2\u00a0 Arguing with someone who is wrong, but steadfast in her wrongness, just makes everything worse.<\/p>\n<p>This <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theonion.com\/articles\/man-who-understands-8-of-obamacare-vigorously-defe,34022\/\">Onion article<\/a> makes a related, and equally chilling point:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>SEATTLE\u00e2\u20ac\u201dAs debate continues in Washington over the funding of President Obama\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s health care initiative, sources confirmed Thursday that 39-year-old Daniel Seaver, a man who understands a total of 8 percent of the Affordable Care Act, offered a vehement defense of the legislation to 41-year-old Alex Crawford, who understands 5 percent of it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The conclusion:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Hold on, Alex, let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s go back to the premiums for a second, because I feel like I need to drive this point home for you: they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll get <i>lower<\/i> for most people,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Seaver, straining the very limits of his 8 percent comprehension of the bill to the point of utter collapse. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Lower premiums, lower deductibles, and no denial of coverage to people with preexisting conditions.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Way lower premiums,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Seaver added.<\/p>\n<p>At press time, <strong>both men\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s understanding of Obamacare had dropped to 3 percent as a result of the debate<\/strong>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I think this problem is undertheorized, but then again I don&#8217;t really know this literature.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The other day I linked to an article about an unfortunate consequence uncovered by some research in cognitive psychology: some argumentation, however good (conclusive or decisive), reinforces the ignorance of the person who is wrong.\u00c2\u00a0 Arguing with someone who is wrong, but steadfast in her wrongness, just makes everything worse. This Onion article makes a &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=4463\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Dumb and dumber<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1768,1767,1110],"class_list":["post-4463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-ignorance","tag-obamacare","tag-the-onion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4463"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4463\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4465,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4463\/revisions\/4465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}