In questions of this appalling magnitude, I find the best way to “overcome bias” is often to find perspectives which seem to make each answer obvious. Once we recognize that both A and B are obviously true, and A is inconsistent with B, we are in the right mindset for actual thought.
This sounds like bad advice. In Moldbug’s application of it, for example, making things “obvious” corresponds to making bad arguments—arguments that, in some alternate reality, possibly made of straw, would correspond to some possibly straw person who found the argument very obvious. And then you say “well, obvious argument #1 is awful, so by process of elimination let’s go with obvious argument #2! Q.E.D.”
--Mencius Moldbug
Remember sources please; “How Dawkins got pwned (part 7)”, 8 November 2007
You have a thing for Moldbug too, don’t you? ^_^
This sounds like bad advice. In Moldbug’s application of it, for example, making things “obvious” corresponds to making bad arguments—arguments that, in some alternate reality, possibly made of straw, would correspond to some possibly straw person who found the argument very obvious. And then you say “well, obvious argument #1 is awful, so by process of elimination let’s go with obvious argument #2! Q.E.D.”