by charlieirish on 11/1/24, 10:46 AM with 4 comments
by xg15 on 11/1/24, 1:00 PM
There is nothing bad in strengthening people's skills in the scientific method, educating them about cognitive biases and teaching them how do be aware about the sources and context of statements.
What worries me about the proposed method is that it does not work without any kind of objective sense of truth: Which statements you present as "truth" and which as "falsehood" is completely arbitrary - it just depends on the kind of weakened strawman argument you present. This makes it more a political propaganda tool that can be used to present your side's narrative as the absolute truth. And that feels sinister and downright authoritarian.
(Even if you're a True Patriot for whatever side you're on and believe manipulating people like this is just and moral for the cause: Keep in mind that the other side could use the exact same inoculation strategy against you)
I think we should acknowledge that currently the world is in a deep epistemic crisis: We're back in a cold war situation where there are (at least) two deeply incompatible explanations of the world's power structures, each one seen as the "obvious truth" by billions of people. The differences have become so irreconcilable that we've already arrived at a point of open war between the two sides.
I think this situation should give you pause when thinking about absolute (political) truths.
by austin-cheney on 11/1/24, 11:20 AM
If, somehow, these people could be altered with different non-social goals it would cure a substantial portion of the problem.
by caekislove on 11/1/24, 8:08 PM
/s