4 ms·

> the victory condition for any belief is to be so universally accepted that its negation can not be expressed in polite company. Well, to quote our host: No o

> the victory condition for any belief is to be so universally accepted that its negation can not be expressed in polite company. Well, to quote our host: No one gets in trouble for saying that 2 + 2 is 5, or that people in Pittsburgh are ten feet tall. Such obviously false statements might be treated as jokes, or at worst as evidence of insanity, but they are not likely to make anyone mad. The statements that make people mad are the ones they worry might be believed. I suspect the statements that make people maddest are those they worry might be true. I don't think people talking about Bigfoot are usually subject to ostracization, unless they're really overbearing about it (keep changing the subject back to Bigfoot, start insulting or yelling at those who disagree, etc.). And I think not-Bigfoot is basically in the victory condition. I think the victory condition is "universally accepted" and it doesn't necessarily imply "negation cannot be expressed in polite company". But you might be right that "its negation can not be expressed in polite company" is one of the steps along the way for some beliefs. I hope that's not true (because it might justify what I consider abhorrent behavior), but it might be. That said, I recall seeing a study that said that extreme protest tactics were counterproductive in advancing an ideology. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/314949726_Extreme_Protest_Tactics_Reduce_Popular_Support_for_Social_Movements https://www.researchgate.net/publication/314949726_Extreme_P... is probably the one I'm thinking of. I hope the principle extends, or can be extended, to "nasty behavior to suppress ideological opponents is counterproductive". It seems at least possible. Lots of argumentation consists of saying that one's opponents are nasty, which at least is evidence that many people have the potential to react strongly to (perceived) nasty behavior...

4bpp 7y ago
I'm not sure what to make of your Bigfoot example; it seems more driven by the circumstance that nobody really at all cares whether Bigfoot wins or loses outside maybe of some scientific fields. I could imagine that claiming that Bigfoot does exist at a zoology conference would land you in some professional trouble, though not nearly as much as something that people actually do care about such as whether vaccines cause autism. (Conversely, I don't think not-Bigfoot is in fact in the victory condition outside of science: 14% of people [1] profess to believe in it, and I figure that if tomorrow SciAm posted an article that Bigfoot had been discovered, most people would shrug and accept it. I suspect this should bother any people outside of science who actually have an interest in not-Bigfoot, and I do have a vague recollection of seeing some post on FSTDT back in the days where Christian fundamentalists were agitating hard against Bigfoot because they were afraid it would be used as "missing link" style evidence for evolution.) Maybe a better rephrasing of the victory condition is something like "nobody who will ever be in a position to make a significant decision that depends on this belief can get away with disagreeing with it". By that definition, non-Bigfoot wins because approximately nobody except maybe for people controlling federal animal conservation budgets will ever make any significant decisions based on non-Bigfoot, and those probably are judged by scientists; on the other hand, the pro and contra on Stallman's cancellation materially influences decisions all of us will make every time we decide which conferences to sign up for, universities to accept jobs at or Twitter accounts to bolster the influencer status of. Downvoting itself is not perceived as nasty behaviour. Seeing somebody else be nasty in defense of a belief X harms belief X; not seeing anyone ever defend or even bring up belief not-X because anyone who would do so is afraid of becoming a target of nasty behaviour, on the other hand, surely would help belief X. [1] https://www.publicpolicypolling.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/PPP_Release_National_ConspiracyTheories_040213.pdf https://www.publicpolicypolling.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/...

4bpp 7y ago

I'm not sure what to make of your Bigfoot example; it seems more driven by the circumstance that nobody really at all cares whether Bigfoot wins or loses outside maybe of some scientific fields. I could imagine that claiming that Bigfoot does exist at a zoology conference would land you in some professional trouble, though not nearly as much as something that people actually do care about such as whether vaccines cause autism. (Conversely, I don't think not-Bigfoot is in fact in the victory condition outside of science: 14% of people [1] profess to believe in it, and I figure that if tomorrow SciAm posted an article that Bigfoot had been discovered, most people would shrug and accept it. I suspect this should bother any people outside of science who actually have an interest in not-Bigfoot, and I do have a vague recollection of seeing some post on FSTDT back in the days where Christian fundamentalists were agitating hard against Bigfoot because they were afraid it would be used as "missing link" style evidence for evolution.) Maybe a better rephrasing of the victory condition is something like "nobody who will ever be in a position to make a significant decision that depends on this belief can get away with disagreeing with it". By that definition, non-Bigfoot wins because approximately nobody except maybe for people controlling federal animal conservation budgets will ever make any significant decisions based on non-Bigfoot, and those probably are judged by scientists; on the other hand, the pro and contra on Stallman's cancellation materially influences decisions all of us will make every time we decide which conferences to sign up for, universities to accept jobs at or Twitter accounts to bolster the influencer status of. Downvoting itself is not perceived as nasty behaviour. Seeing somebody else be nasty in defense of a belief X harms belief X; not seeing anyone ever defend or even bring up belief not-X because anyone who would do so is afraid of becoming a target of nasty behaviour, on the other hand, surely would help belief X. [1] https://www.publicpolicypolling.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/PPP_Release_National_ConspiracyTheories_040213.pdf https://www.publicpolicypolling.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/...