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Many orthodox people speak as though it were the business of sceptics to disprove received dogmas rather than of dogmatists to prove them. This is, of course, a
by singron 6y ago
Many orthodox people speak as though it were the business of sceptics to disprove received dogmas rather than of dogmatists to prove them. This is, of course, a mistake. If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time.
--Bertrand Russell
It's an important skill to independently discern the likely from the unlikely on your own, but any idea repeated often enough becomes "truth", and it's an important function of society to recognize fake truths and purge them.
- switchbak 6y ago"Fake truth" - that hurts my head almost as much as "alternative facts". Maybe this is a term we can keep out of circulation.
- nbardy 6y agoYou get rid of bad ideas by engaging with them, not by shoving them out of sight.
- dTal 6y agoYou seem rather confident of that. Engaging bad ideas gives them volume, legitimacy, momentum. Sidelining them is a powerful response.
- colordrops 6y agoUntil you are the one sidelined.
- niwork 6y agoThat sounds nice in practice, but in our post-truth, post-evidence world I am not sure what else we can do. It's impossible to dissuade some of these people and many people viewing YouTube are vulnerable to falling for their bullshit.
- GreenHeuristics 6y agoGreat! I will then sideline all your ideas from now on.
- ntsplnkv2 6y agoYou already do. You can't consume every possible idea. You automatically filter them, most of it subconsciously, just like everyone else.
- mr_toad 6y ago> You get rid of bad ideas by engaging with them ‘Never feed a troll’
- UncleMeat 6y agoHow many times. One time? A thousand times? The ideas have been engaged with. At what point can we stop?
- colordrops 6y ago> At what point can we stop? What gave you the idea that there is an end-game? The social dialogue is never ending.
- travisjungroth 6y agoThe comment they’re replying to said “get rid of”. That implies an end-game.
- UncleMeat 6y ago> What gave you the idea that there is an end-game? The social dialogue is never ending. Then this is a denial-of-service attack. Bad-faith actors can hijack the public conversation forever by simply refusing the budge. The public conversation then becomes a free and indefinite platform for them to spread propaganda, and any attempt to change that is portrayed as a great evil.
- lame-robot-hoax 6y agoYet we still deal with Holocaust deniers.
- hcnews 6y agoI don't try to change people irl. If they don't understand in a couple of tries, it's better to ignore them and let them go their merry way. It's not my job to educate tons of willfully ignorant people. Something something, don't fight with a pig, it will drag you down to its own level and win with experience.
- rtpg 6y agoWhy not? Why does no longer publishing flat earth videos not kill the idea for the most part? How do you think these critical masses around _specific ideas_ are formed? Qanon isn't a whisper campaign. A thought experiment: we burn all books about Area 51 alien stuff. The whole myth would probably die along with our generation. There's no more stuff reinforcing it, no large traces. No more grainy photos. That original quote might work for a general ideology but I don't think it works nearly as well when applied to specific narratives. (Of course this works in all directions, see the obliteration of socialist movements in the 50s and 60s)
- whycombinater 6y ago'It's an important skill to independently discern the likely from the unlikely on your own, but any idea repeated often enough becomes "truth", and it's an important function of society to recognize fake truths and purge them.' Prove that an important function of society is fake truth purging. And define truth. How big are the fake truths, how much damage do they cause, and how expensive is it to disprove them? If a young child claims that the temperature of a hydrogen atom 52 light years away is 0.1K, but in reality it is 0.01K, shall we: A. censor the child to stop the spread of misinformation B. print 8 billion flyers to correct anyone who may have overheard the child C. put teams of MIT scientists to run experiments to determine the most recent temperature of the atom D. ignore it E. claim it's 0K according to god's will In a more practical example, most people are probably split between C, D and E. The C people might land on the moon sooner, the E people might be more fulfilled. D is watching their son's soccer game. Who is "right"? Acquiring the true "truth" has a cost, and that cost may be too high, and until we have a proper document from god detailing the worth of each person, we can't know who should live and who should die. If we don't produce enough food, somebody will starve. Who should starve? Perhaps the person with the highest metabolism, to spare as much food as possible. Perhaps the dumbest, to ensure future generations aren't crippled and the problem gets solved quicker. Perhaps the meanest, to spare future conflict. Or perhaps future conflict is good, to weed out the weak. "Truth" might mean maximizing human potential, which could imply minimizing human "drag". Spray peanut dust in stadiums! Shoot people who wear glasses! Gene edit everyone to be 9 feet tall! Kill everyone and create and feed a world-spanning singular ultra-brain (skynet?), for _IT_ shall determine "truth". The word "truth" almost has a political bias to it, belonging to the party of science-people. I say that with a straight face as someone familiar and trusting of mathematics. It's great that we can build F-22s and nukes with it, but, maybe we were better off worshipping Zeus. Actually, people are a relatively new thing, and the main spreaders of "lies". Perhaps the universe was "truer" before people came around. Perhaps birthing a child is to "lie". And what is the endgame? What happens after our perfect system of rationalism solves every known fact and theoretical possibility in the entire universe? Did we win? Is our final score 42? Truth is a lie.
- mike00632 6y agoIf Trump wills it to be "truth" that he won the election then that will indeed cause a lot of damage. This effort is extremely damaging.