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i've settled tentatively on the notion that nothing simplistic works for societal truthseeking, but a series of principles like education, community, (instituti
by clairity 4y ago
i've settled tentatively on the notion that nothing simplistic works for societal truthseeking, but a series of principles like education, community, (institutional and economic) fairness, etc. do work in concert to combat mediopolitical narratives that are wholly unconcerned with truth but rather control. this need for multidimenionalism is why change is so grindingly slow, but it's totally worth continuing to support and advance these principles at a local and state level against motivated, moneyed interests.
i should note that i do believe in science and the scientific method but reject scientism and expertise. part of this faith is understanding that no one person can embody the truth of a field, but all of the practitioners together can tell you insightful things about it. it's still ultimately up to the discernment of the observer to reach reasonable conclusions based on that imparted knowledge though.
- mistermann 4y agoAgree almost across the board. So: what to do? :)
- clairity 4y agodunno? do you think there could be an easy answer? for me, it boils down to keeping the brain open and helping others do the same. but that's a personal heuristic. most people don't want to pay the socioeconomic cost of being an independent thinker.
- mistermann 4y ago> it boils down to keeping the brain open and helping others do the same This seems like a no-brainer to me...but now you have two problems!
- clairity 4y agowell, you always had those two problems, it's just more apparent this way.
- mistermann 4y agoThere is more than one way to have a problem though: with awareness of it, or not. And then within that binary there is...what? A spectrum? So goes the saying. But what if that much better representation is just starting to climb the curve of competence/complexity? Is it highly unlikely that humanity might some time in the next couple hundred years look back at us and shake their heads about how simplistic and naive we are, and I include the so-called "experts" in that. Is it impossible that there's something that no one sees? Or maybe even more complex than that? Well, it's possible a species would not find such a thing, because it never thought to look for it. Perhaps too busy looking for other things, of questionable utility.
- clairity 4y agofor sure there will be a subset of humanity looking back and shaking their heads, and some of them will even have legitimate reasons for doing so. for instance, our brazenness around (bio-)chemistry, given that we are at the very beginning of that vast learning curve. that includes drugs, synthetic materials, fuels, combustion byproducts, you name it. but yes, it's highly unlikely that they could shake their heads at every instance of today's ignorance and hubris in totality.
- mistermann 4y ago> for sure there will be a subset of humanity looking back and shaking their heads Maybe that subset could be us! > but yes, it's highly unlikely that they could shake their heads at every instance of today's ignorance and hubris in totality. Why not? Can you not do this?
- clairity 4y agoi just meant that no future population will see each and every foible we exhibit perfectly, because that's like hitting a trillion heads in a row. effectively impossible. but they could perhaps hit a hundred. in any case, the hard part is not finding candidates but culling them down, analogous to the halting problem (or the bullshit asymmetry problem). is it an infinite calculation? probably. and this thread has dropped pretty far into the archives, so i think it might be time to retire it. perhaps we can continue in a future thread.