# Ignoring Alternatives By:: [[Brian Heath]] 2024-08-03 People ignore things for many reasons. Sometimes, they ignore things because they don't understand. However, it is more often the case that people ignore things because it does not align with their worldview. If a person believes that the world is flat, almost no amount of evidence will convince them to pay attention and consider changing their belief. Unsurprisingly, people who think people can be convinced with good arguments cannot accept this persistent human behavior. They desperately believe that if they could only communicate something in the right way, people would change their minds. They refuse to accept that some portion of the population will choose to ignore them no matter how amazing their communication strategies are. By doing so, they only confirm that many people refuse to change their minds and ignore the evidence. These self-fulfilling, hypocritical loops exist wherever humans engage with each other and the world. It's a matter of all models being wrong. Our view of the world and operating within it is a model, not the real thing. Models often conflict even when many are useful. Most people fail to recognize the validity of the many models under which each individual operates, and we tend to believe ours are the best ones. This holds even when one is presented with evidence of the opposite or a contradiction. Instead of seeing the contradiction as an opportunity, many turn it into a game where the point isn't to build better models and discover some sense of truth but to win at all costs. Real courage is admitting that one's models may be wrong all along. But again, a significant portion of the population will ignore this, and we'll quickly enter into the paradox of tolerance. #### Related Items [[Progress]] [[Ignorance]] [[Beliefs]] [[Models]] [[Tolerance]] [[Hypocrisy]]