Kit Yates

I think...

Typically, you can think of two different decision routes.

One is like this familiar route where you try and persuade maybe like floating voters, people who are undecided.

You try to get them to join your side.

But actually, the mechanism that we found more effective for switching consensus in this mathematical model we built was that actually you try and go to someone who has the opposite opinion to you, but instead of trying to convince them to come whole hog onto your side, you try and say to them,

Be a bit more open.

Why don't you take a neutral stance about this?

And that allows you to switch consensus more quickly.

And I think this has ramifications when we're thinking about things like anti-vaxxers, right?

There's this temptation to just be like, just take a vaccine because they work.

The science says so.

But actually, what's better is to say, actually, step back from the extreme decision.

And I'll step back from my position as well.

And then let's just, we're open and let's then evaluate the evidence from there.

Let's be neutral and then let's go from there and be open to these new ideas.

That's the idea.

Yeah, I'm not saying that we've solved these problems, right?

But there's definitely something in it where we, instead of just butting heads and like fighting with each other and saying, you've got to see it my way, you've got to see it my way.

Instead, if we encourage each other to have a more open mind and to forget our sort of previous biases so much and to come at things more openly with this, and that's what neutrality means in this context.

then, yeah, I think there's the potential that we might find a more harmonious solution.