Note that these problems are not separate, but in fact are inextricably linked. This is because people Out There can come In Here (and will absolutely attempt to do so, in proportion to how successful your Citadel becomes), and also people In Here may decide to interact with social forces Out There.
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Note, as per my other comment, that we currently do not have any institutions that have just that as their goal. Really—none. (If you think that this claim is obviously wrong, then, as usual: provide examples!)
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It is the hard part. It really, really is.
I’m not sure our models here are that different. What I’d argue (not sure if you’d disagree), is something like:
We have no institutions whose sole goal is figure out the truth, but the reason for this is that to be an “institution” (as opposed to some random collection of people just quietly figuring stuff out) you need some kind of mechanism for maintaining the institution, and this inevitably ends up instantiating it’s own version of Local Politics even it initially didn’t have such a thing.
I don’t have clear examples, no, but my guess is that there are, in fact, various small citadels throughout the world, but any citadel that’s successful enough for both of us to have heard of it, was necessarily successful enough to attract attention from Powers That Be.
Wikipedia and Academic Science both come to mind as institutions that have their own politics, but which I (suspect), still do okay-ish at generating little pocket-citadels that succeed at focusing on whatever subset of truthseeking they’ve specialized in – individual departments, projects, or research groups. The trouble lies on the outside world distinguishing which pockets are generating “real truth” and which are not (because any institution that became known as a distinguishing tool would probably become corrupted)
Perhaps one core disagreement here is about which problem is ‘actually impossible’?
I say, you don’t have the option of avoiding Local Politics, so the task is figuring out how to minimize the damage that local politics can do to epistemics (possibly aided by forking off private bubbles that are mostly inert to outsiders, thinking on their own, but reporting their findings periodically)
You say… something like ‘local politics is so toxic that the task must be figure out a way to avoid it’?
Well, roughly. I don’t think it’s possible to entirely avoid “local politics”, in a totally literal sense, because any interaction of people within any group will end up being ‘politics’ in some sense.
But, certainly my view is closer to the latter than to the former, yes. Basically, it’s just what I said in this earlier comment. To put it another way: if you already have “local politics”, you’re starting out with a disadvantage so crippling that there’s no point in even trying to build any “citadel of truth”.
I’m not sure our models here are that different. What I’d argue (not sure if you’d disagree), is something like:
We have no institutions whose sole goal is figure out the truth, but the reason for this is that to be an “institution” (as opposed to some random collection of people just quietly figuring stuff out) you need some kind of mechanism for maintaining the institution, and this inevitably ends up instantiating it’s own version of Local Politics even it initially didn’t have such a thing.
I don’t have clear examples, no, but my guess is that there are, in fact, various small citadels throughout the world, but any citadel that’s successful enough for both of us to have heard of it, was necessarily successful enough to attract attention from Powers That Be.
Wikipedia and Academic Science both come to mind as institutions that have their own politics, but which I (suspect), still do okay-ish at generating little pocket-citadels that succeed at focusing on whatever subset of truthseeking they’ve specialized in – individual departments, projects, or research groups. The trouble lies on the outside world distinguishing which pockets are generating “real truth” and which are not (because any institution that became known as a distinguishing tool would probably become corrupted)
Perhaps one core disagreement here is about which problem is ‘actually impossible’?
I say, you don’t have the option of avoiding Local Politics, so the task is figuring out how to minimize the damage that local politics can do to epistemics (possibly aided by forking off private bubbles that are mostly inert to outsiders, thinking on their own, but reporting their findings periodically)
You say… something like ‘local politics is so toxic that the task must be figure out a way to avoid it’?
Does that sound right?
Well, roughly. I don’t think it’s possible to entirely avoid “local politics”, in a totally literal sense, because any interaction of people within any group will end up being ‘politics’ in some sense.
But, certainly my view is closer to the latter than to the former, yes. Basically, it’s just what I said in this earlier comment. To put it another way: if you already have “local politics”, you’re starting out with a disadvantage so crippling that there’s no point in even trying to build any “citadel of truth”.