59. Those who generate anxiety in you and promise that they have the solution are grifters. See: politicians, marketers, new masculinity gurus, etc. Avoid these.
Although grifters do this, there are real problems and real solutions out there. Someone telling you the truth is not necessarily a grifter. They could be an honest, sincere “friendly”. Easy examples: public health officials during COVID. Climate scientists. Sometimes, people who tell you not to be anxious are the grifters.
It seems to me that you could hardly have picked more controversial examples!
I have no opinion to express at this time on either topic, but it cannot be denied that in the case of both “public health officials during COVID” and “climate scientists”, there are many (not obviously irrational) people who would respond to your claim with “one man’s modus ponens is another man’s modus tollens”. In other words, there are quite a few people who would say that these two examples are the exceptions that (in the classic sense of the phrase) prove the rule: seeming to be exceptions, they test the rule, and find it valid—by turning out not to be exceptions, after all.
What would you say to such an interlocutor? (“That’s obviously wrong” will clearly not suffice—the matter’s such that ‘obvious’ to you, and ‘obvious’ to me, may differ!)
As you formulate your response, consider also this: there is another category of allegedly “honest, sincere ‘friendlies’” you might have added to your short list of examples: the politicians, pundits, and public intellectuals who, in the course of this new century’s first decade, advocated for Western powers (the U.S. its allies, that’s to say) to engage in military action in the Middle East, thereby to eliminate a source of dire peril to the citizens of their respective nations. They, too, had as their modus operandi the arousal of anxiety in their audiences and constituencies; they, too, offered up all sorts of ‘truths’ (WMDs! The Axis of Evil! The War on… and so forth); they, too, had “real solutions” to the “real problems” we (or so we were told!) then faced.
Yet it now seems to most of us, in retrospect, that they were grifters one and all, extracting our attention, votes, and dollars.
By no means does this prove that your examples are false. But if I wish to have a principled way to distinguish the true examples from the false ones—is there one? Can you provide it? (It would help, I note, to have case studies upon which we may bring to bear the already-rendered judgment of history—a test your examples fail, unfortunately.)
I think that the burden of proof is rather on you to prove that all statements that are anxiety-inducing and have solutions, are false. Or that all people who make such statements are grifters (have ulterior motives that do not include your wellbeing). I don’t think it follows necessarily, and that is simply my point.
As you formulate your response, consider also this: there is another category of allegedly “honest, sincere ‘friendlies’”
That’s why I said “sometimes” and “although grifters do this...”. So I don’t think that this is a valid point, and I’ll skip it.
I could select other examples, such as measles (“those who tell you to get vaccinated are grifters”), cigarettes (“those oncologists are grifters”), climbing rope vendors (“those people are afraid of gravity and are grifters”), heart attacks (“Big pharma are selling you Warfarin! Grifters!”), car accidents (“who needs to maintain their brakes? People who sell brake pads are grifters!”), etc. The examples can get ridiculous, but the point is that there are real hazards out there and that there are people who are thoughtful and provide a solution. Often, they make money out of it. But that doesn’t mean that it isn’t a good product/service.
But if I wish to have a principled way to distinguish the true examples from the false ones—is there one? Can you provide it?
The examples depend on the claims being made. I’m sorry, but I’m not going to provide a perfect solution to distinguishing truth from falsehood in all situations in the answer to a blog post ;)
I think that the burden of proof is rather on you to prove that all statements that are anxiety-inducing and have solutions, are false. Or that all people who make such statements are grifters (have ulterior motives that do not include your wellbeing).
But I never claimed this, so why would I need to prove it…?
My problem was with your examples (and, more speculatively, with what your choice of examples—and their problematic nature—tells us about the larger point). I am not the OP, however, and will not attempt to defend statements I never made!
The other examples you have now given are both better and worse than your original two. Better, because less controversial… but worse, because less representative (most of them lack the quality of their claimants attempting to induce anxiety in the supposed beneficiaries). (Take the “Big Pharma” example, which is particularly interesting. The pharmaceutical substances which are most unquestionably beneficial also tend to be the least profitable, and tend to be least associated with anxiety-inducing advertising and messaging. The correlation is imperfect, yet quite evident. Is this not another example that proves the rule? …or would not, at least, many people say so, who are, again, not obviously irrational?)
Perhaps one general point to extract from this is that it’s misleading to equivocate between “someone tells you the truth” and “someone generates anxiety in you”. Truth may be anxiety-inducing, yet these two activities aren’t the same.
Just for the record, climate change is not really controversial or doubtful in any meaningful, scientific way. I am sincerely puzzled by you viewing it as such. Maybe it is because of my scientific training and having looked at the data from the perspective of a scientist. Taking appropriate measures against COVID to avoid a public health crisis in the form of overburdened hospitals (even if I myself would probably be ok if I contracted it) also does not seem all that controversial to me. So I think those examples are fine, but I really don’t want to start a debate about that. I would just refer you to the relevant literature.
My initial claim is your conclusion:
it’s misleading to equivocate between “someone tells you the truth” and “someone generates anxiety in you”
Maybe it is because of my scientific training and having looked at the data from the perspective of a scientist.
Indeed, this is one of the answers to the fundamental question of epistemic rationality, i.e. “what do you think you know, and how do you think you know it?”. Oftentimes the answer to the latter clause is “because someone told me”, but that just pushes back the problem: whom can you trust to provide you with truth? Of course we have to get some (indeed, most!) of our information about the world from others, but it’s a thorny problem, to be sure… but as you imply, one way to sidestep it is “nullius in verba”—to personally gain the relevant expertise, and to apply it to the problem at hand.
But we cannot do this for every problem! There are only so many hours in the day (not to speak of more fundamental difficulties, like the possibility that we might find some given problem to be beyond our capacity for understanding, try as we might to unravel it). And it obviously does no good for you (or anyone else) to say “fear not, I have investigated the problem on your behalf, and here is the answer”, because in that case we’re right back to “whom to trust”…
All of this is to say that if you investigate some question (e.g., climate change), and find an answer to your own satisfaction, then you have solved the epistemic problem—for yourself only. Absolutely no one else is helped by this unless you can convince them that your judgment is reliably correct (or, of course, induce them to undertake the same journey of discovery as you did). This is surely frustrating (I know from personal experience), and indeed you may decide not to bother trying to convince others (and few would blame you for it)… but the fact remains that there’s no royal road to truth, and in particular “just take the word of someone who has figured it out” isn’t it.
Just for the record, climate change is not really controversial or doubtful in any meaningful, scientific way. I am sincerely puzzled by you viewing it as such.
Just for the record, I most certainly did not say that I view climate change as “controversial or doubtful” in any “meaningful, scientific way”. (Indeed I went out of my way to note that I am not expressing any opinion on the topic!)
However, as I said, many people hold the view that you are puzzled by—people who are, I repeat, not obviously irrational.
In that sense, it’s clear that the matter is controversial, in the most straightforward and ordinary sense of the word!
I make no claims to scientific expertise, either on my own behalf or on behalf of the aforementioned (and unspecified) others. But you must recognize, I think, that there is such a thing as public controversy; and also, that experience shows us that it’s foolish to surrender the burden of judgment to some group of credentialed experts, merely on the strength of their being labeled, formally or by convention, as “scientists” of one sort or another. (The replication crisis alone is proof enough of that; and the history of science is rife with more examples.)
As to the matter of COVID, others have addressed this in sibling threads, so I will comment no more on it here.
Gotta agree with Said, your examples seem pretty bad to me. Especially the first one. Public health officials have lied repeatedly throughout the crisis – there was the stuff about masks (which we didn’t fall for on LW – 1, 2, 3), and there was the time when one of the major public advisors literally admitted to lying. I could name lots more, but in sum no, do not defer to public health officials, they lied multiple times, instead think critically when incorporating their judgments into your own.
I have followed the climate stuff less well. I can tell that lots of government officials and news media types are exaggerating and fitting narratives everywhere, and don’t trust them. I’ve less of an opinion on the scientists.
Those public health official examples seem unrelated to tip #59 (“Those who generate anxiety in you and promise that they have the solution are grifters.”).
I took hermanc1 to be pointing to how, in Feb-Mar 2020, the people who were saying scary sounding stuff (like using the word “pandemic”) and proposing things to do about it were the ones who had insights and were telling it straight. Meanwhile many other people were calling those people out for “fearmongering” or spinning things to downplay the risk in order to prevent panic.
There are grifters who try to generate anxiety so they can sell you something. And also the world contains problems, and noticing problems can induce anxiety, and searching for & sharing (partial) solutions to problems is good. Maybe a sophisticated way of following tip #59 can distinguish between those, but the naive way of doing it can run into trouble and fail to see the smoke.
I of course agree (with original parent comment) that there are real problems and real solutions. I think three things are needed to qualify as a grifter, as compared to an honest informer.
1) The sell. A grifter doesn’t just tell you there’s a problem, they will share the solution for a price. If you give them money (or control), they’ll relieve your worry.
2) The exclusivity. Alternative solutions are specifically highlighted as being insufficient or counterproductive. Somebody engaging in good-faith can acknowledge the costs and benefits of different approaches (while still believing their solution is best).
3) The promise. Grifts promise a solution, not just a tool. An honest informer will have ideas about what can help, but won’t guarantee their success.
I think somebody can fit two of these three and still be in good-faith.
Those public health official examples seem unrelated to tip #59 (“Those who generate anxiety in you and promise that they have the solution are grifters.”).
To the contrary, I think they are directly related, for the same reason that my anti-example of pro-“war on terrorism” public figures is related.
Yeah, I was also looking at the Far Eastern public health officials rather than the Western ones (and definitely not the US). So I forgot about the mask fiasco. I was wearing a mask on a flight back in Feb.
Although some people do exaggerate the claims regarding climate science (Extinction Rebellion), I have not seen government officials do so. If you could point me to a source, that would be interesting. Generally the threat of climate change has been de-emphasised, to the alarm of scientists.
Although grifters do this, there are real problems and real solutions out there. Someone telling you the truth is not necessarily a grifter. They could be an honest, sincere “friendly”. Easy examples: public health officials during COVID. Climate scientists. Sometimes, people who tell you not to be anxious are the grifters.
It seems to me that you could hardly have picked more controversial examples!
I have no opinion to express at this time on either topic, but it cannot be denied that in the case of both “public health officials during COVID” and “climate scientists”, there are many (not obviously irrational) people who would respond to your claim with “one man’s modus ponens is another man’s modus tollens”. In other words, there are quite a few people who would say that these two examples are the exceptions that (in the classic sense of the phrase) prove the rule: seeming to be exceptions, they test the rule, and find it valid—by turning out not to be exceptions, after all.
What would you say to such an interlocutor? (“That’s obviously wrong” will clearly not suffice—the matter’s such that ‘obvious’ to you, and ‘obvious’ to me, may differ!)
As you formulate your response, consider also this: there is another category of allegedly “honest, sincere ‘friendlies’” you might have added to your short list of examples: the politicians, pundits, and public intellectuals who, in the course of this new century’s first decade, advocated for Western powers (the U.S. its allies, that’s to say) to engage in military action in the Middle East, thereby to eliminate a source of dire peril to the citizens of their respective nations. They, too, had as their modus operandi the arousal of anxiety in their audiences and constituencies; they, too, offered up all sorts of ‘truths’ (WMDs! The Axis of Evil! The War on… and so forth); they, too, had “real solutions” to the “real problems” we (or so we were told!) then faced.
Yet it now seems to most of us, in retrospect, that they were grifters one and all, extracting our attention, votes, and dollars.
By no means does this prove that your examples are false. But if I wish to have a principled way to distinguish the true examples from the false ones—is there one? Can you provide it? (It would help, I note, to have case studies upon which we may bring to bear the already-rendered judgment of history—a test your examples fail, unfortunately.)
I think that the burden of proof is rather on you to prove that all statements that are anxiety-inducing and have solutions, are false. Or that all people who make such statements are grifters (have ulterior motives that do not include your wellbeing). I don’t think it follows necessarily, and that is simply my point.
That’s why I said “sometimes” and “although grifters do this...”. So I don’t think that this is a valid point, and I’ll skip it.
I could select other examples, such as measles (“those who tell you to get vaccinated are grifters”), cigarettes (“those oncologists are grifters”), climbing rope vendors (“those people are afraid of gravity and are grifters”), heart attacks (“Big pharma are selling you Warfarin! Grifters!”), car accidents (“who needs to maintain their brakes? People who sell brake pads are grifters!”), etc. The examples can get ridiculous, but the point is that there are real hazards out there and that there are people who are thoughtful and provide a solution. Often, they make money out of it. But that doesn’t mean that it isn’t a good product/service.
The examples depend on the claims being made. I’m sorry, but I’m not going to provide a perfect solution to distinguishing truth from falsehood in all situations in the answer to a blog post ;)
[Edited typos]
But I never claimed this, so why would I need to prove it…?
My problem was with your examples (and, more speculatively, with what your choice of examples—and their problematic nature—tells us about the larger point). I am not the OP, however, and will not attempt to defend statements I never made!
The other examples you have now given are both better and worse than your original two. Better, because less controversial… but worse, because less representative (most of them lack the quality of their claimants attempting to induce anxiety in the supposed beneficiaries). (Take the “Big Pharma” example, which is particularly interesting. The pharmaceutical substances which are most unquestionably beneficial also tend to be the least profitable, and tend to be least associated with anxiety-inducing advertising and messaging. The correlation is imperfect, yet quite evident. Is this not another example that proves the rule? …or would not, at least, many people say so, who are, again, not obviously irrational?)
Perhaps one general point to extract from this is that it’s misleading to equivocate between “someone tells you the truth” and “someone generates anxiety in you”. Truth may be anxiety-inducing, yet these two activities aren’t the same.
Just for the record, climate change is not really controversial or doubtful in any meaningful, scientific way. I am sincerely puzzled by you viewing it as such. Maybe it is because of my scientific training and having looked at the data from the perspective of a scientist. Taking appropriate measures against COVID to avoid a public health crisis in the form of overburdened hospitals (even if I myself would probably be ok if I contracted it) also does not seem all that controversial to me. So I think those examples are fine, but I really don’t want to start a debate about that. I would just refer you to the relevant literature.
My initial claim is your conclusion:
So I think that we agree now.
A tangential comment—you say:
Indeed, this is one of the answers to the fundamental question of epistemic rationality, i.e. “what do you think you know, and how do you think you know it?”. Oftentimes the answer to the latter clause is “because someone told me”, but that just pushes back the problem: whom can you trust to provide you with truth? Of course we have to get some (indeed, most!) of our information about the world from others, but it’s a thorny problem, to be sure… but as you imply, one way to sidestep it is “nullius in verba”—to personally gain the relevant expertise, and to apply it to the problem at hand.
But we cannot do this for every problem! There are only so many hours in the day (not to speak of more fundamental difficulties, like the possibility that we might find some given problem to be beyond our capacity for understanding, try as we might to unravel it). And it obviously does no good for you (or anyone else) to say “fear not, I have investigated the problem on your behalf, and here is the answer”, because in that case we’re right back to “whom to trust”…
All of this is to say that if you investigate some question (e.g., climate change), and find an answer to your own satisfaction, then you have solved the epistemic problem—for yourself only. Absolutely no one else is helped by this unless you can convince them that your judgment is reliably correct (or, of course, induce them to undertake the same journey of discovery as you did). This is surely frustrating (I know from personal experience), and indeed you may decide not to bother trying to convince others (and few would blame you for it)… but the fact remains that there’s no royal road to truth, and in particular “just take the word of someone who has figured it out” isn’t it.
Just for the record, I most certainly did not say that I view climate change as “controversial or doubtful” in any “meaningful, scientific way”. (Indeed I went out of my way to note that I am not expressing any opinion on the topic!)
However, as I said, many people hold the view that you are puzzled by—people who are, I repeat, not obviously irrational.
In that sense, it’s clear that the matter is controversial, in the most straightforward and ordinary sense of the word!
I make no claims to scientific expertise, either on my own behalf or on behalf of the aforementioned (and unspecified) others. But you must recognize, I think, that there is such a thing as public controversy; and also, that experience shows us that it’s foolish to surrender the burden of judgment to some group of credentialed experts, merely on the strength of their being labeled, formally or by convention, as “scientists” of one sort or another. (The replication crisis alone is proof enough of that; and the history of science is rife with more examples.)
As to the matter of COVID, others have addressed this in sibling threads, so I will comment no more on it here.
Gotta agree with Said, your examples seem pretty bad to me. Especially the first one. Public health officials have lied repeatedly throughout the crisis – there was the stuff about masks (which we didn’t fall for on LW – 1, 2, 3), and there was the time when one of the major public advisors literally admitted to lying. I could name lots more, but in sum no, do not defer to public health officials, they lied multiple times, instead think critically when incorporating their judgments into your own.
I have followed the climate stuff less well. I can tell that lots of government officials and news media types are exaggerating and fitting narratives everywhere, and don’t trust them. I’ve less of an opinion on the scientists.
Those public health official examples seem unrelated to tip #59 (“Those who generate anxiety in you and promise that they have the solution are grifters.”).
I took hermanc1 to be pointing to how, in Feb-Mar 2020, the people who were saying scary sounding stuff (like using the word “pandemic”) and proposing things to do about it were the ones who had insights and were telling it straight. Meanwhile many other people were calling those people out for “fearmongering” or spinning things to downplay the risk in order to prevent panic.
There are grifters who try to generate anxiety so they can sell you something. And also the world contains problems, and noticing problems can induce anxiety, and searching for & sharing (partial) solutions to problems is good. Maybe a sophisticated way of following tip #59 can distinguish between those, but the naive way of doing it can run into trouble and fail to see the smoke.
I of course agree (with original parent comment) that there are real problems and real solutions. I think three things are needed to qualify as a grifter, as compared to an honest informer.
1) The sell. A grifter doesn’t just tell you there’s a problem, they will share the solution for a price. If you give them money (or control), they’ll relieve your worry.
2) The exclusivity. Alternative solutions are specifically highlighted as being insufficient or counterproductive. Somebody engaging in good-faith can acknowledge the costs and benefits of different approaches (while still believing their solution is best).
3) The promise. Grifts promise a solution, not just a tool. An honest informer will have ideas about what can help, but won’t guarantee their success.
I think somebody can fit two of these three and still be in good-faith.
To the contrary, I think they are directly related, for the same reason that my anti-example of pro-“war on terrorism” public figures is related.
Grifters aren’t always out for your money.
Yeah, I was also looking at the Far Eastern public health officials rather than the Western ones (and definitely not the US). So I forgot about the mask fiasco. I was wearing a mask on a flight back in Feb.
Although some people do exaggerate the claims regarding climate science (Extinction Rebellion), I have not seen government officials do so. If you could point me to a source, that would be interesting. Generally the threat of climate change has been de-emphasised, to the alarm of scientists.