If the only way to get a clearer picture of the world—to enhance it epistemically, as it were—were to make it much better to start with, would the Utilitarians finally have found an argument that convinces any epistemic rationalist?
That is a very important subset of what I had in mind. So I`m glad you made that subset salient, as it seems independently important.
You could think more generally that if the world is more altruistic, morally enhanced, etc… there will be less externalities of bad kinds operating, and the instruments we use to understand the world would become more effective at so doing. A very simplified version is that because this would be a richer world, more institutions would have spare resources to grasp it.
I don’t think that’s the point CronoDAS was trying to make. Generally speaking, if you link to something on the internet, it means you want people to read it. The content of the link above is hidden both from people who don’t have LJ accounts and people who aren’t friends with celandine13 or whatever, so it’s de facto unreadable. It’s like linking to a paper that’s behind a paywall.
It’s like backing up an argument by linking to a paper that’s behind a paywall.
To be fair this is merely a quote thread. The author and link are there by way of attribution (often just a name is given, without a link). The quote should stand on its own merit.
This doesn’t have anything to do with the quote. I just think it’s kind of silly to give a link that people by default can’t read, and I think CronoDAS agrees with me.
I seem to have primed you in completely the wrong direction with the first half of that sentence. Would it be better if I edited it to “it’s like linking to a paper that’s behind a paywall”?
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If the only way to get a clearer picture of the world—to enhance it epistemically, as it were—were to make it much better to start with, would the Utilitarians finally have found an argument that convinces any epistemic rationalist?
Is the idea that, because people naturally shy away from bad info, making the world better also makes it easier (on the emotions) to understand?
...Very interesting. That is a thought that’s going to fester, in a good way.
That is a very important subset of what I had in mind. So I`m glad you made that subset salient, as it seems independently important.
You could think more generally that if the world is more altruistic, morally enhanced, etc… there will be less externalities of bad kinds operating, and the instruments we use to understand the world would become more effective at so doing. A very simplified version is that because this would be a richer world, more institutions would have spare resources to grasp it.
Only if there were no uncertainty about what “better” meant.
I wish I had access to that LJ.
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I don’t think that’s the point CronoDAS was trying to make. Generally speaking, if you link to something on the internet, it means you want people to read it. The content of the link above is hidden both from people who don’t have LJ accounts and people who aren’t friends with celandine13 or whatever, so it’s de facto unreadable. It’s like linking to a paper that’s behind a paywall.
To be fair this is merely a quote thread. The author and link are there by way of attribution (often just a name is given, without a link). The quote should stand on its own merit.
This doesn’t have anything to do with the quote. I just think it’s kind of silly to give a link that people by default can’t read, and I think CronoDAS agrees with me.
“This” is about the analogy quoted in the grandparent, which is unfair for the reason specified. The “it’s like” target is not-like.
I seem to have primed you in completely the wrong direction with the first half of that sentence. Would it be better if I edited it to “it’s like linking to a paper that’s behind a paywall”?
That would make the analogy apt. I would agree with such a comment.
(This should by no means be taken as an implicit endorsement of interpretations involving ‘priming’.)
I have a LiveJournal account already, so I guess I should try asking...