0005 - Shooting Down Gun Myths

Dysevidentia

Summary

https://dysevidentia.transistor.fm/episodes/shooting-down-gun-myths - This episode Sqeaky briefly discusses what dysevidentia is then him and Mako jump in to discussing 9 different gun Myths. This episode is also available on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FapFT6f86Es

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The Full Rant Text [1:49]

There is some confusion on what dysevidentia is.

Dysevidentia is similar to but not Cognitive dissonance. Cognitive Dissonance is the feeling of discomfort people have when holding two mutually contradictory beliefs. Dysevidentia is for when people cannot feel this. I have felt Cognitive Dissonance and I suspect most listeners have felt this at some point when we were on the cusp of changing our minds.

Dysevidentia is similar to but is not compartmentalization. Compartmentalization is when a person holds two mutually contradictory beliefs, but is able to compartmentalize the beliefs away in different parts of their life or different contexts. For example: an oil prospector who is also a young earth creationist. This isn’t always the case, plenty of people can believe that the earth is round and flat or that the enemy is strong and weak, or other contradictory nonsense in the same context.

There are dozens of other examples of mental issues people can have. Most of these are legitimate attempts to categorize issues that brains can have, and many are useful and should be investigated. However, I think these words and conditions are generally made by doctors, scientists, researchers, and other people who take their intelligence for granted. I believe that these smart people think that their ability to process evidence is the norm rather than a fortunate exception.

Consider just for a moment, Does everyone in a group need to be able to process evidence for a group of humans to survive, or even thrive? Biology, and evolution specifically, love to take shortcuts on conserving energy. With our Brain using about 20% of our energy, evolution certainly has incentive to find shortcuts.

So why do so many smart people insist on believing that silly things like facts, logic, and evidence are somehow more convincing to most people than emotion, tradition, or faith? These smart people even believe this counter to a lot of evidence.

In the show notes I will link to some articles and studies showing how useless evidence is when it comes to changing minds. They cover cognitive dissonance, selection bias, the dunning-kruger effect, selective exposure, motivated reasoning and many others. Dysevidentia is all and none of these. The simple fact is that most people have made up their mind before they even consult the evidence.

• Brain 20% [3:15] - https://www.brainfacts.org/Brain-Anatomy-and-Function/Anatomy/2019/How-Much-Energy-Does-the-Brain-Use-020119
• Cognitiive dissonance is …, and they have a great political example [1:56] - https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/think-well/201812/why-many-people-stubbornly-refuse-change-their-minds
• Stanford experiment on perceptions not changing with facts - https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/02/27/why-facts-dont-change-our-minds
• An article acknowledging the powerlessness of facts to change minds - https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/03/this-article-wont-change-your-mind/519093/

Gun Violence Myths, HeadLines, and Sources [4:11]

Myth - Gun Violence is Down [7:28]

• https://nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles/gun-violence-america
  • Cites https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/fv9311.pdf
• Violence stats - https://www.statista.com/statistics/191219/reported-violent-crime-rate-in-the-usa-since-1990/
• Gun violence stats - https://www.statista.com/chart/16421/the-number-of-us-gun-deaths-due-to-firearms/
• Pros and Cons - https://gun-control.procon.org/us-gun-deaths-by-year/
• Good and queries police sourceshttps://www.gunviolencearchive.org/
• Good and queries CDC - https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2013/05/07/gun-homicide-rate-down-49-since-1993-peak-public-unaware/

Myth - Banning guns won’t work, Bans don’t work for drugs [14:42]

• Wiki on Firearm Deaths - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate
• Wiki on Firearm Laws - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overview_of_gun_laws_by_nation
• How Japan Eradicated Gun rime - https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-38365729
• A gun buyer testimony in Japan - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDodwo5vBfI
• Gun Crime Prevalence in the US, Good Charts - https://www.vox.com/2015/10/1/18000444/gun-crime-us-foreign-countries
• Krocodil! Easy to make! Fun for family until it horribly kills you - https://www.drugs.com/illicit/krokodil.html
• *Bonus Sources* - 3d printed guns
  • [17:50] Liberator how to - https://techcrunch.com/2013/05/06/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-liberator-3d-printed-pistol/
  • [18:35] “You can’t yet build a safe and reliable gun using a 3D printer alone” -https://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/building-the-fgc-9-getting-started-with-3d-printing-part-1/
  • [18:35] AK-47 Receiver Explosion! - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0LHmLHoDeg
  • Consider Getting a 3d and printing anything other than a gun (Sponsored Link): https://amzn.to/3uk7pwE

Myth - Banning guns is pointless because it just converts it to knife violen...