5 ms·

> Which likely explains why conspiracy theories proliferate. That is not necessarily a bad thing, but setting an arbitrarily high standard is problematic. Huma

> Which likely explains why conspiracy theories proliferate. That is not necessarily a bad thing, but setting an arbitrarily high standard is problematic. Human life is complex, interactions are combinatorially so. Just because uncertainty makes us uncomfortable doesn't mean we should move the bar higher to only deal with the comfortable territory (those with readily available evidence). History is full of atrocities that didn't immediately produced evidence, and even in the face of evidence we denied it could be happening for a long while. Even evidence is no panacea for our biased knowledge-seeking machinery. Not all beliefs are bad. Not all truths are comfortable. Therefore it is imperative we be careful with what we ignore and what we don't.

austincheney 6y ago
> Therefore it is imperative we be careful with what we ignore and what we don't. That is why investigations are a thing. The need for proofs is completely unrelated to complexity.
- acituan 6y ago
  > That is why investigations are a thing My point was exactly how states in the past could not un-corrupt themselves through investigations. That is why observing, questioning eyes of everyone is needed. > The need for proofs is completely unrelated to complexity. You couldn't be more wrong. Number of possible moves in a game of chess is 10^43. It exhausts the computation capacity of the most powerful computer, let alone a human's. They have to use heuristics, in other words, they have to decide what is relevant and what is not. Real life is infinitely more complex, rules are not self evident and there are many more players. Therefore we always have to decide how we will deal with complexity, therefore e.g. what we choose to investigate or what criteria we will use to assess the claims is much more consequential than you acknowledge. You are suggesting an arbitrarily high bar for investigation, assuming anything that doesn't readily have evidence will not be relevant. This is one way to narrow the problem space indeed, but it is not a good one. Things that have the most evidence are not always the things that are most relevant and vice versa.
  - austincheney 6y ago
    > Real life is infinitely more complex As somebody who has conducted lawful investigations I am fully aware. In a real life investigation where the outcome can bring legal sanctions that destroys a person's life or career the opinion of the investigator has weight, but that opinion is irrelevant without evidence to connect the dots. A conspiracy theory will sink the credibility of the investigation. What matters is what you can prove and what the attorney finds is legally qualified. > You are suggesting an arbitrarily high bar for investigation As I should.
    - acituan 6y ago
      > In a real life investigation where the outcome can bring legal sanctions that destroys a person's life or career the opinion of the investigator has weight, but that opinion is irrelevant without evidence to connect the dots Truth is not under the monopoly of legal systems. Legal systems make use of truth to deliver justice, not to make sense and meaning of what is going on at large. They don’t orient us as a society regarding what is important to pay attention to. Besides, you can’t be suggesting legal investigations catch everything there is to investigate, nor lack of due investigation doesn’t destroy lives either. Nor every conspiracy is readily codified in law. Laws change and get applied as a function of what we bring into attention or not. Conspiracies by nature rely heavily on information asymmetries. It means most of the time we don’t even know what to investigate. That is why conspiracy hypotheses are crucial to be vigilant about the possible connections even with weak evidence. It is a preliminary exploration of the problem space; reasonable people don’t suggest we prosecute people based on hypotheses only. We are talking about a process that might or might not lead to an investigation but not an alternative to it.
      - austincheney 6y ago
        Truth is a product of belief systems and agreement, opposed to factuality, which is why evidence is given greater authority. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth

austincheney 6y ago

> Therefore it is imperative we be careful with what we ignore and what we don't. That is why investigations are a thing. The need for proofs is completely unrelated to complexity.

acituan 6y ago
> That is why investigations are a thing My point was exactly how states in the past could not un-corrupt themselves through investigations. That is why observing, questioning eyes of everyone is needed. > The need for proofs is completely unrelated to complexity. You couldn't be more wrong. Number of possible moves in a game of chess is 10^43. It exhausts the computation capacity of the most powerful computer, let alone a human's. They have to use heuristics, in other words, they have to decide what is relevant and what is not. Real life is infinitely more complex, rules are not self evident and there are many more players. Therefore we always have to decide how we will deal with complexity, therefore e.g. what we choose to investigate or what criteria we will use to assess the claims is much more consequential than you acknowledge. You are suggesting an arbitrarily high bar for investigation, assuming anything that doesn't readily have evidence will not be relevant. This is one way to narrow the problem space indeed, but it is not a good one. Things that have the most evidence are not always the things that are most relevant and vice versa.
- austincheney 6y ago
  > Real life is infinitely more complex As somebody who has conducted lawful investigations I am fully aware. In a real life investigation where the outcome can bring legal sanctions that destroys a person's life or career the opinion of the investigator has weight, but that opinion is irrelevant without evidence to connect the dots. A conspiracy theory will sink the credibility of the investigation. What matters is what you can prove and what the attorney finds is legally qualified. > You are suggesting an arbitrarily high bar for investigation As I should.
  - acituan 6y ago
    > In a real life investigation where the outcome can bring legal sanctions that destroys a person's life or career the opinion of the investigator has weight, but that opinion is irrelevant without evidence to connect the dots Truth is not under the monopoly of legal systems. Legal systems make use of truth to deliver justice, not to make sense and meaning of what is going on at large. They don’t orient us as a society regarding what is important to pay attention to. Besides, you can’t be suggesting legal investigations catch everything there is to investigate, nor lack of due investigation doesn’t destroy lives either. Nor every conspiracy is readily codified in law. Laws change and get applied as a function of what we bring into attention or not. Conspiracies by nature rely heavily on information asymmetries. It means most of the time we don’t even know what to investigate. That is why conspiracy hypotheses are crucial to be vigilant about the possible connections even with weak evidence. It is a preliminary exploration of the problem space; reasonable people don’t suggest we prosecute people based on hypotheses only. We are talking about a process that might or might not lead to an investigation but not an alternative to it.
    - austincheney 6y ago
      Truth is a product of belief systems and agreement, opposed to factuality, which is why evidence is given greater authority. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth