I do like the replies in the comments saying “Sure, but if you’re saying ‘It’s hard to predict, so we should act like the probability is low’, you’re still implicitly claiming we can get reliable information somehow, otherwise you’d be saying ‘It’s hard to predict, so we should act like the probability is moderate.’”
But I think we could dig a little deeper down by rejecting some of the absolutism (“there are no reference classes, it’s impossible to do deduction”) and having a more nuanced discussion about what society in general should do when there are only tenuous reference classes, and when it’s hard to do deduction and even experts disagree.
I don’t really have a good solution, and if I did it probably wouldn’t fit in a comment. But it probably still involves all sides sharing their views with policymakers, and governments sometimes choosing to act under uncertainty rather than always betting on the status quo holding. (The atomic bomb seems like a good anti-betting-on-status-quo example, and overpopulation doomerism seems like a good pro-betting-on-status-quo example.)
I do like the replies in the comments saying “Sure, but if you’re saying ‘It’s hard to predict, so we should act like the probability is low’, you’re still implicitly claiming we can get reliable information somehow, otherwise you’d be saying ‘It’s hard to predict, so we should act like the probability is moderate.’”
But I think we could dig a little deeper down by rejecting some of the absolutism (“there are no reference classes, it’s impossible to do deduction”) and having a more nuanced discussion about what society in general should do when there are only tenuous reference classes, and when it’s hard to do deduction and even experts disagree.
I don’t really have a good solution, and if I did it probably wouldn’t fit in a comment. But it probably still involves all sides sharing their views with policymakers, and governments sometimes choosing to act under uncertainty rather than always betting on the status quo holding. (The atomic bomb seems like a good anti-betting-on-status-quo example, and overpopulation doomerism seems like a good pro-betting-on-status-quo example.)