> If the choice was to be invited to participate in the conversation or not, wouldn’t you tone down your public statements in order to have a hope of influe

> If the choice was to be invited to participate in the conversation or not, wouldn’t you tone down your public statements in order to have a hope of influencing policy? An interesting bind is called "The Critics' Dilemma", best understood through a (Chinese) story. One day some farmers see an invading army coming over the hill. They rush into the city to tell the emperor. "Emperor, a huge army is approaching, we're surely doomed!" Not wanting to have the whole city panic the emperor has the men executed to silence them. Invaders enter the city and slaughter all the imperial soldiers. Many years later two farmers are watching the horizon when they see an army gathering. "Quickly, let's warn the citizens" says one. "No. Remember the story of what happened to our grandfathers." says the other. So they return to the city and tell the emperor, "We saw a few bandits gathered by the woods". The emperors soldiers go to confront them and are all killed, The city is raided again. The dilemma is "Tell them too much and they will deny you out of fear. Tell them too little and they will be unprepared." This applies, along with the Cassandra effect, right to the heart of all intelligent critique. People are happy to die from ignorance so long as you don't upset them with cognitive dissonance. Later, when they are in imminent peril, they'll blame you for not speaking up sooner.