Yep, it was a spectacularly bad example. Climate change is a belief which is not only well supported by evidence, but also one which belief in has a generally n

Yep, it was a spectacularly bad example. Climate change is a belief which is not only well supported by evidence, but also one which belief in has a generally negative payoff (it makes us feel bad about our foreign holiday and makes entire countries switch to more expensive energy supplies) and not one which is likely to make you any more popular at picnics than bringing up the subject of the minimum wage. Needless to say there's also plenty of literature on incentive structures and practical limitations which discourage humanity from doing more. Of course, it's possible to become a climate activist to try to impress others, or to avoid making what you feel is a completely watertight argument in favour of Big Oil to avoid being accused of being a monster, but I don't think this incentive structure explains why so many people believe what their teacher and news anchor and favourite documentary presenter tell them about what scientists think. Indeed I'm reminded of earlier in the piece where the author argues that 'crony beliefs' encompasses the tendency to "bristle and hold unorthodox beliefs, in order to demonstrate that we're independent thinkers" earlier in the piece. In this case, it's not to difficult to see how the edgy example of how everyone else might be acknowledging well established scientific fact in bad faith (or due to inappropriately motivated reasoning) validates the rationalist community's core beliefs in prediction markets and how superior their way of reasoning is to the average person That argument also, incidentally, actually fails the author's own implicit test for a 'merit' belief (i.e something the author actually acts on or would with better incentive structures).