A big straw man. In real life some people are more or less diligent about their jobs, and more or less contrarian, and have different expertise, strengths and

A big straw man. In real life some people are more or less diligent about their jobs, and more or less contrarian, and have different expertise, strengths and weaknesses. Each of the vignettes portrays the counter position as stupid (literally using a rock as a metaphor). The reality is much different. In each of the cases there’s an argument to be made that the proposition was flawed- the security guard never finds anything but instead of just not looking anymore, maybe they propose installation of cameras. The volcanologists aren’t very helpful if they don’t have predictive value - if they are always waffling then they are no more useful than the rock cult. And if they are over-activated, then they run the risk of “boy who cried wolf” or of being dismissed because too frequent false positives cost the rest of the society too much. Overall I think the essay is shallow and not a useful treatment of the subject.