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A Blindspot in Cognitive Immunology Research?

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Recently, I was considering purchasing the book "Mental Immunity: Infectious Ideas, Mind Parasites, and the Search for a Better Way to Think", when I came across a comment in the book review, that I found to be extremely indicative of the type of reasoning plaguing the world. The short answer to the title of this post is "no", but I raise it because it's not evidently clear, given the methods presented by this research, on how to handle this type of backlash. Being interested in critical thinking, naturally I was intrigued by the idea of Cognitive Immunology . The idea is that there is a system in the mind, analogous to the bodies immune system, that can be trained, strengthened, and fortified to help the individual avoid believing parasitic beliefs. The terms refer to the mind’s ability to resist harmful influences, including misinformation, biases, and maladaptive thinking patterns. According to this research, critical thinking by itself is insufficient when i...
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MAGA Psychology and an Example of Brain Rot

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I've been interacting with Trump fanatics for quite some time. In many interactions, I prefer to just let them speak freely without being too critical because I really want to observe their line of reasoning or thinking patterns that lead them to certain conclusions. In this post, I'll describe some of my most recent conversations, highlighting the absurdities.  I'll start with what I perceived to be, a clear example of brain rot. I was recently attending a lunch where everyone at the table was quite radical in their conservatism. However, these were not the types to wave a MAGA flag. They are more subtle in their fanaticism. They are most certainly Trump loyalists. I've never heard anything critical from them about Trump or the new conservative movement more broadly. Inevitably, politics got brought up. We were dining with someone who is in the medical field, and is of Southeast Asian descent. They were asked whether people in the medical profession are "liberal o...
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