> The thing is, nature has a way of not caring what the Establishment thinks. It does care on a surface level, but it also conspires to cause the collapse of th

> The thing is, nature has a way of not caring what the Establishment thinks. It does care on a surface level, but it also conspires to cause the collapse of the socio-information paradigms that the Establishment creates. You're right as far as you go, but actually nature doesn't care what anyone thinks. One thing to question is how the establishment got to be established. If it was primarily through physical strength, heredity, or persuasion (as is more true for the bulk of history), then they are no more likely to be right than a plebe (except that p(persuasive | true) > p(persuasive)). But it's more true than in most of history that the odds of being an elite are much higher if you can consistently make correct predictions about the world. It's true that we don't have a central authority to give us an objective reality, but we don't need one either. Reality is there if only you choose to observe it closely. I think the best technique for dealing with the soup of information is to find bona fide experts with a track record of providing correct explanations and giving what they say more weight.