Doom skeptics have the daunting task of trying to prove a negative. It is very hard to conclusively prove anything is safe in a generalized, unconditional way.
As to arguments that were seen as intuitively false yet were solid, there is a huge class of human rights topics: racial and gender equality, gay rights, even going back to giving peasants the vote and democratic government. All of these were intuitively ridiculous, yet it’s hard to make credible counter-arguments.
There were some counter-arguments against democracy that seemed pretty good. Even the founding fathers were deeply worried about them. They aren’t seen as credible today, but back then they were viewed as quite strong.
Agreed, but you can the same about interracial marriage or allowing women to vote: within the frameworks and assumptions people had then, there were strong arguments that made the ideas ridiculous and obviously wrong on the face of it.
Doom skeptics have the daunting task of trying to prove a negative. It is very hard to conclusively prove anything is safe in a generalized, unconditional way.
As to arguments that were seen as intuitively false yet were solid, there is a huge class of human rights topics: racial and gender equality, gay rights, even going back to giving peasants the vote and democratic government. All of these were intuitively ridiculous, yet it’s hard to make credible counter-arguments.
There were some counter-arguments against democracy that seemed pretty good. Even the founding fathers were deeply worried about them. They aren’t seen as credible today, but back then they were viewed as quite strong.
Agreed, but you can the same about interracial marriage or allowing women to vote: within the frameworks and assumptions people had then, there were strong arguments that made the ideas ridiculous and obviously wrong on the face of it.