I can’t speak for you because I don’t know what your values are, but if I knew that the U.S. government was secretly mass-murdering its citizens, I would decide that the best thing I could do would be to reform or overthrow that government. I’m sure if I thought for five minutes I could come up with a way to do this. If there is a 9/11 conspiracy then I really want to know that there is a 9/11 conspiracy.
A better reason for making the 9/11 conspiracy theory harder to notice would involve its sheer implausibility.
“Somebody would have noticed” if there were a way to reform or overthrow the US government that you could come up with after five minutes of thinking about it. If there were, someone would have not only thought of it, but done it too.
I’m not a US citizen and I don’t live in the US. I might feel differently if I did. Thinking the best thing to do is to reform or overthrow the government and actually having any reasonable possibility of achieving that goal through your individual actions are rather different things however. I prefer to prioritize establishing the truth of beliefs where there are things I can do as an individual that have high expected value if the belief is true and low expected value if the belief is false.
I would decide that the best thing I could do would be to reform or overthrow that government. I’m sure if I thought for five minutes I could come up with a way to do this.
Ah. It’s probably worth noting that US citizens are taught from a very young age that the revolutionaries are to be admired, and that our constitution says that we’re in charge of the country and we have the right to replace the government entirely if we need to. Also that the government can’t have a monopoly on firearms.
The rhetoric and the means are not hard to come by, and the movement would not be hard to start if the government were really mass-murdering its citizens.
“God forbid we go 10 years without a revolution!”—Sam Adams (a brewer and a patriot)
I’m aware of that and it’s a feature of American democracy that I think is admirable but I think we’re talking about slightly different questions. This ties back into the ‘but somebody would have noticed’ problem again. The fact that a small but passionate minority has been trying for years to convince everyone else that 9/11 is a conspiracy suggests that the currently available information isn’t sufficient to convince the broader public of their theories. In the absence of some game-changing new evidence there is little reason to suppose that I would be more convincing than the existing truthers. If I studied the evidence and became convinced the truthers were right there is no particular reason to suppose I would have any better luck convincing the rest of the population than they have. Overthrowing the government is possible with sufficient popular support but currently it appears that that support could only be obtained with dramatic new evidence.
I’m saying I prioritize things which I can take meaningful individual action over. Some contrarian truths can be useful to believe without needing to convince a majority or even significant minority of the population of them. In fact, some contrarian truths are most profitable when few other people believe them.
Nope, no joke. I just brainstormed for five minutes and came up with nine things I could do towards the goal of reforming or overthrowing the government in a 9/11 conspiracy scenario, and I believe that there would be a decent chance of success. Now almost none of those are things I could do by myself. I’d need to leverage my communication and leadership skills to find many like-minded activists to cooperate with. Does your idea of “individual actions” exclude such cooperation?
Regardless of what one’s values are, one should be wary of undervaluing epistemic rationality simply because some problems seem too hard to solve. It’s just too easy to throw up your hands and say, “There’s nothing worthwhile I can do to solve this problem” if you haven’t tried to find out if the problem actually exists.
Does your idea of “individual actions” exclude such cooperation?
Changing people’s minds is hard. If your plans involve convincing other people to believe the same things as you then you face a difficult problem. The more people you need to convince the harder the problem is. As I said in my reply to thomblake, if you plan to be more convincing using the same evidence as the people who have already been trying unsuccessfully to make the case then you have a difficult problem. We are not talking about a situation where some new incontrovertible evidence comes to light that makes you believe—in that case others are likely to be swayed by the new evidence as well. We are talking about situations where you are changing your mind based on researching information that already exists.
I just brainstormed for five minutes and came up with nine things I could do towards the goal of reforming or overthrowing the government in a 9/11 conspiracy scenario, and I believe that there would be a decent chance of success.
At any given time there are many people working towards the goal of reforming or overthrowing governments. What makes you think you have come up with a better plan in 5 minutes of thinking than all of the people who are already dedicated to such goals?
It’s just too easy to throw up your hands and say, “There’s nothing worthwhile I can do to solve this problem” if you haven’t tried to find out if the problem actually exists.
I prefer problems whose solution does not require convincing large numbers of other people to change their minds. Maximizing the expected value of your actions requires considering both the value of the outcome and the probability of success.
What makes you think you have come up with a better plan in 5 minutes of thinking than all of the people who are already dedicated to such goals?
Presumably, I’d have the Truth on my side, as well as the Will of the American People, as soon as I’d convinced them. And in this counterfactual I still believe that most 9/11 Truthers are lunatics, or not very smart, so their failure to be taken seriously isn’t very discouraging.
Changing people’s beliefs is indeed hard, and so is getting people to do things; but it’s not impossible. The successful civil rights movements provide historical examples. Examples of problems we still face include stopping genocide, protecting human rights, preventing catastrophic climate change, and mitigating existential risks. Some of these problems are already hard enough without the necessity of having to convince lots of obstinate people that their beliefs are incorrect or that they need to take action. But it seems to me the payoffs are worth enough to do something about them.
You don’t have to agree. Maybe if you came to believe the 9/11 Truthers, you wouldn’t do anything differently. In that case, you have no motive to even have a belief on the matter. But if I learned about a crazy-huge problem that no one is doing anything about, I’d ask “What can we do to solve this problem?”
But if I learned about a crazy-huge problem that no one is doing anything about, I’d ask “What can we do to solve this problem?”
Perhaps the difference in attitude is our prior beliefs regarding governments and politicians. If I learned that 9/11 was a conspiracy I wouldn’t be shocked to discover that government / politicians are morally worse than I thought, I would be shocked to discover that they were more competent and more omnipotent than I thought. It sounds like you would interpret things differently.
I would be shocked to discover that they were more competent and more omnipotent than I thought.
Ah, we’re in agreement on this point. We are perhaps fortunate that our political leaders can’t help but make fools of themselves, individually and collectively, on a regular basis. A political entity that could actually fool everyone all of the time would be way too scary.
I can’t speak for you because I don’t know what your values are, but if I knew that the U.S. government was secretly mass-murdering its citizens, I would decide that the best thing I could do would be to reform or overthrow that government. I’m sure if I thought for five minutes I could come up with a way to do this. If there is a 9/11 conspiracy then I really want to know that there is a 9/11 conspiracy.
A better reason for making the 9/11 conspiracy theory harder to notice would involve its sheer implausibility.
“Somebody would have noticed” if there were a way to reform or overthrow the US government that you could come up with after five minutes of thinking about it. If there were, someone would have not only thought of it, but done it too.
You’re right. Someone would have done something.
I’m not a US citizen and I don’t live in the US. I might feel differently if I did. Thinking the best thing to do is to reform or overthrow the government and actually having any reasonable possibility of achieving that goal through your individual actions are rather different things however. I prefer to prioritize establishing the truth of beliefs where there are things I can do as an individual that have high expected value if the belief is true and low expected value if the belief is false.
That’s a joke right?
Ah. It’s probably worth noting that US citizens are taught from a very young age that the revolutionaries are to be admired, and that our constitution says that we’re in charge of the country and we have the right to replace the government entirely if we need to. Also that the government can’t have a monopoly on firearms.
The rhetoric and the means are not hard to come by, and the movement would not be hard to start if the government were really mass-murdering its citizens.
“God forbid we go 10 years without a revolution!”—Sam Adams (a brewer and a patriot)
I’m aware of that and it’s a feature of American democracy that I think is admirable but I think we’re talking about slightly different questions. This ties back into the ‘but somebody would have noticed’ problem again. The fact that a small but passionate minority has been trying for years to convince everyone else that 9/11 is a conspiracy suggests that the currently available information isn’t sufficient to convince the broader public of their theories. In the absence of some game-changing new evidence there is little reason to suppose that I would be more convincing than the existing truthers. If I studied the evidence and became convinced the truthers were right there is no particular reason to suppose I would have any better luck convincing the rest of the population than they have. Overthrowing the government is possible with sufficient popular support but currently it appears that that support could only be obtained with dramatic new evidence.
I’m saying I prioritize things which I can take meaningful individual action over. Some contrarian truths can be useful to believe without needing to convince a majority or even significant minority of the population of them. In fact, some contrarian truths are most profitable when few other people believe them.
Nope, no joke. I just brainstormed for five minutes and came up with nine things I could do towards the goal of reforming or overthrowing the government in a 9/11 conspiracy scenario, and I believe that there would be a decent chance of success. Now almost none of those are things I could do by myself. I’d need to leverage my communication and leadership skills to find many like-minded activists to cooperate with. Does your idea of “individual actions” exclude such cooperation?
Regardless of what one’s values are, one should be wary of undervaluing epistemic rationality simply because some problems seem too hard to solve. It’s just too easy to throw up your hands and say, “There’s nothing worthwhile I can do to solve this problem” if you haven’t tried to find out if the problem actually exists.
Changing people’s minds is hard. If your plans involve convincing other people to believe the same things as you then you face a difficult problem. The more people you need to convince the harder the problem is. As I said in my reply to thomblake, if you plan to be more convincing using the same evidence as the people who have already been trying unsuccessfully to make the case then you have a difficult problem. We are not talking about a situation where some new incontrovertible evidence comes to light that makes you believe—in that case others are likely to be swayed by the new evidence as well. We are talking about situations where you are changing your mind based on researching information that already exists.
At any given time there are many people working towards the goal of reforming or overthrowing governments. What makes you think you have come up with a better plan in 5 minutes of thinking than all of the people who are already dedicated to such goals?
I prefer problems whose solution does not require convincing large numbers of other people to change their minds. Maximizing the expected value of your actions requires considering both the value of the outcome and the probability of success.
Presumably, I’d have the Truth on my side, as well as the Will of the American People, as soon as I’d convinced them. And in this counterfactual I still believe that most 9/11 Truthers are lunatics, or not very smart, so their failure to be taken seriously isn’t very discouraging.
Changing people’s beliefs is indeed hard, and so is getting people to do things; but it’s not impossible. The successful civil rights movements provide historical examples. Examples of problems we still face include stopping genocide, protecting human rights, preventing catastrophic climate change, and mitigating existential risks. Some of these problems are already hard enough without the necessity of having to convince lots of obstinate people that their beliefs are incorrect or that they need to take action. But it seems to me the payoffs are worth enough to do something about them.
You don’t have to agree. Maybe if you came to believe the 9/11 Truthers, you wouldn’t do anything differently. In that case, you have no motive to even have a belief on the matter. But if I learned about a crazy-huge problem that no one is doing anything about, I’d ask “What can we do to solve this problem?”
Perhaps the difference in attitude is our prior beliefs regarding governments and politicians. If I learned that 9/11 was a conspiracy I wouldn’t be shocked to discover that government / politicians are morally worse than I thought, I would be shocked to discover that they were more competent and more omnipotent than I thought. It sounds like you would interpret things differently.
Ah, we’re in agreement on this point. We are perhaps fortunate that our political leaders can’t help but make fools of themselves, individually and collectively, on a regular basis. A political entity that could actually fool everyone all of the time would be way too scary.