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The problem with witch hunts is witches aren't real; every witch you find is guaranteed to be a false positive. A witch hunt that finds actual witches everywhe
by ceejayoz 9mo ago
The problem with witch hunts is witches aren't real; every witch you find is guaranteed to be a false positive.
A witch hunt that finds actual witches everywhere isn't really a "witch hunt" in the sense the term is usually used.
- Lerc 9mo agoYou are saying that from our perspective. I don't think the argument that witches are not real would have gained you much ground back then. We don't have the years of analysis of what actually happened for things happening right now. While a lot of people feel a lot of certainty about all manner of social media harms, the scientific consensus is much less clear. Sure you can pull up studies showing something that looks pretty bad, but you can also find ones that say that climate change is not occurring. The best we have to go on is scientific consensus. The consensus, is not there yet. How do you tell if Jonathan Haidt is another Andrew Wakefield?
- kelseyfrog 9mo agoThe most important question is, how do you know you're not the next Andrew Wakefield? I'm genuinely curious how you keep your own epistemic house in order.
- Lerc 9mo agoI'm not making any claims of certaincy. I have not published any books making claims of harm. I have not gone on a tour of interviews the world over trying to build public opinion instead of building consensus that the information is true. That's how I know. I also don't go around talking about race based differences in IQ, but that's just Haidt. I am prepared to go with scientific consensus.