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>I am refuting the misconception that shedding light on bad ideas makes them go away. It doesn't make them go away. It allows them to be refuted - which hopefu

by Nadya 8y ago

>I am refuting the misconception that shedding light on bad ideas makes them go away. It doesn't make them go away. It allows them to be refuted - which hopefully stems at least some of the indoctrination that would otherwise occur only in private. If everyone I've ever known tells me vaccines are evil and I never am told or shown otherwise - I'll grow up continuing to think vaccines are evil. If you refuse to let me speak about vaccines that only further proves that you're evil and trying to hide the truth - and strengthens my indoctrination. Now, poor arguments against anti-vaccers also serve to strength the indoctrination so there's some bad with the good... (Also just to be certain on things: "you" and "I" are used generically for easier writing, I support and believe in vaccines.) There are also plenty of bad ideas that do die to public scrutiny - think of anytime anyone has ever been talked out of "doing something stupid" because they shared what they had planned to do.

BugsJustFindMe 8y ago
> If everyone I've ever known tells me vaccines are evil and I never am told or shown otherwise - I'll grow up continuing to think vaccines are evil Understand that forcing vile ideas into obscurity and forcing people to only ever see vile ideas are not even close to being the same thing. You could even say that they're almost opposites.
BryantD 8y ago
> It allows them to be refuted - which hopefully stems at least some of the indoctrination that would otherwise occur only in private. This does not appear to be the case. Consider the math, if nothing else: Bad Idea Public convinces .1% of those who hear it and those people are irrationally convinced. Bad Idea Private convinces 10% of those who hear it and those people are likewise irrationally convinced. I'm assuming the private bad idea is 100 times as effective, which may or may not be accurate. Even so, as long as your private circles are smaller than ten million people or so, we're better off than we would be if your bad idea was hitting a billion people on the Internet. I'm still not arguing about the difficulty of telling which ideas are good and which are bad.

by Nadya 8y ago

BugsJustFindMe 8y ago

> If everyone I've ever known tells me vaccines are evil and I never am told or shown otherwise - I'll grow up continuing to think vaccines are evil Understand that forcing vile ideas into obscurity and forcing people to only ever see vile ideas are not even close to being the same thing. You could even say that they're almost opposites.

BryantD 8y ago

> It allows them to be refuted - which hopefully stems at least some of the indoctrination that would otherwise occur only in private. This does not appear to be the case. Consider the math, if nothing else: Bad Idea Public convinces .1% of those who hear it and those people are irrationally convinced. Bad Idea Private convinces 10% of those who hear it and those people are likewise irrationally convinced. I'm assuming the private bad idea is 100 times as effective, which may or may not be accurate. Even so, as long as your private circles are smaller than ten million people or so, we're better off than we would be if your bad idea was hitting a billion people on the Internet. I'm still not arguing about the difficulty of telling which ideas are good and which are bad.