The real reason behind 90% of arguments

Came across this post above. It made me think about the sheer number of arguments that happen on a daily basis – all because the people involved are debating from different frames of reality.

Most arguments aren't about one person being fundamentally wrong and the other right. Instead, they stem from people having genuinely different, but incomplete and skewed "data" about the world. Data that is based on their individual experiences & sources of information.

Which means they are debating based on different frames of reality (a.k.a sampling bias issue).

Acknowledging this can help in discussions as it encourages you to think from the other person's frame of reality. In other words, it forces you consider others' "samples" and drives the point that no single person has a perfectly unbiased view of the entire world.

Acknowledging this also helps you argue better. Instead of being stuck at the level where you keep trying to convince each other why >you< are right, you'd rather spend that time acknowledging & addressing the sampling bias issue and figuring out how to get more data.

To get more data could mean something as simple as talking to a more diverse group of people that you otherwise wouldn't have thought to reach out to.

A bunch of times I've presented a viewpoint where I was pretty sure I was right. My co-founder would then present a counter point of view. And to settle it, we'd each go talk to more people 1-1 and in the process, sometimes I'd end up changing my own mind.

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I seem to have thrown out a bunch of terms like "Sampling", "Bias", "Unbiased", etc. Explaining them below.

1. What is Sampling Bias?

"Sampling bias" happens when the method used to select a sample (a subset of a population) results in a sample that is not truly representative of the entire population. This leads to skewed or inaccurate conclusions.

E.g. If you want to know how the whole country feels about an issue, but you only survey people in one specific city, your sample is biased.

2. How Do Humans 'Sample' Information?

Humans don't consciously conduct scientific surveys every day, but we constantly "sample" information about the world around us. We form our beliefs, opinions, and understanding based on:

1. Our Personal Experiences: What happens to _us_ directly.
   
2. Our Social Circles: What our friends, family, and colleagues tell us or how they behave.
   
3. The Media We Consume: The news sources, social media feeds, and entertainment we choose or are exposed to.

3. The Human Sampling Bias Problem

The problem is that our personal "samples" are almost always biased and limited:

1. Echo Chambers / Bubbles: Social media algorithms and our own choices often show us content and people that reinforce our existing views.
2. Availability Heuristic: We tend to over-emphasise information that is easily recalled or recently encountered (e.g. if you just saw a news report about a specific type of crime, you might think it's more common than it is).
3. Confirmation Bias: We actively seek out, interpret, and remember information in a way that confirms our pre-existing beliefs.
4. Limited Exposure: We can't be everywhere or experience everything. Our world is naturally small compared to the whole.

4. How This Leads to Debates & Arguments:

When people argue, they often do so because they are coming at it from from entirely different, biased "data sets":

Well both are right based on their limited, biased sample, but neither has the full picture.

Back to the Linkedin post

The OP said it's "total bullshit" to say that GenZs are lazy and entitled. The OP likely says this because they are really good at hiring plus run a lean team and know how to pick out the GenZ gems.

And OP likely refers to the 40+ year old hiring managers when he says they are wrong. Such 40+ year old hiring managers must have hired both from the Millennial & the GenZ pool. And maybe they've noticed the GenZ are, on average, more difficult to work with than the Millenials.

So the question really comes down to "Does the GenZ pool have a disproportionately higher number of lazy and entitled workers compared to the Millenials?". You need to put in a lot of effort to get a thorough answer to this question.