Even if everyone’s map is distorted, I think there is an important difference whether people try to update, or don’t even try. Which is part of what this website is about.
In other words, I would be okay with an X-ist who says they could be convinced against X-ism by evidence, even if they obviously consider such evidence very unlikely.
(And I obviously wouldn’t be okay with people suggesting that presenting an evidence against X-ism should be punished.)
Right. Refusing beforehand to consider certain types of argument/conclusion without looking at their merits, and having freely-acknowledged yet apparently-not-seen-as-a-problem-and-even-actively-justified emotional reactions to those arguments that trigger that refusal[1], seem like exactly the sort of things this site—or any community dedicated to generating quality thought—would want to discourage as much as possible. And when the justification is given in the language of a thede/tribe/political movement/identity that is opposed to the types of argument/conclusion being rejected… well, creating/promoting/incentivizing those emotional reactions is very useful to the movement, but not at all conducive to generating quality thought.
(The fun part about all of this is that it looks like it leads straight to a version of Marcuse’s paradox (tolerance requires intolerance of intolerance): you have to refuse to update toward refusing to update.)
[1] I’ve been calling this sort of thing a memetic immune reaction, extending the memes-as-viruses metaphor. The justification for it isn’t always present, and the emotional trigger to the refusal isn’t always acknowledged, so that blog post is really an excellent case study. (edit: whoops, asterisks are bullet points, can’t footnote that way)
I strongly suspect that people who make the claim “no amount of evidence could convince me of not-X” have simply absorbed the meme that X must be supported as much as possible and not the meme that all beliefs should be subject to updating. I very much doubt that expressing the above claim is much evidence that the claim is true. And it’s hard to absorb memes like “all beliefs should be subject to updating” if you are made to feel unwelcome in the communities where those memes are common.
Even if everyone’s map is distorted, I think there is an important difference whether people try to update, or don’t even try. Which is part of what this website is about.
In other words, I would be okay with an X-ist who says they could be convinced against X-ism by evidence, even if they obviously consider such evidence very unlikely.
(And I obviously wouldn’t be okay with people suggesting that presenting an evidence against X-ism should be punished.)
Right. Refusing beforehand to consider certain types of argument/conclusion without looking at their merits, and having freely-acknowledged yet apparently-not-seen-as-a-problem-and-even-actively-justified emotional reactions to those arguments that trigger that refusal[1], seem like exactly the sort of things this site—or any community dedicated to generating quality thought—would want to discourage as much as possible. And when the justification is given in the language of a thede/tribe/political movement/identity that is opposed to the types of argument/conclusion being rejected… well, creating/promoting/incentivizing those emotional reactions is very useful to the movement, but not at all conducive to generating quality thought.
(The fun part about all of this is that it looks like it leads straight to a version of Marcuse’s paradox (tolerance requires intolerance of intolerance): you have to refuse to update toward refusing to update.)
[1] I’ve been calling this sort of thing a memetic immune reaction, extending the memes-as-viruses metaphor. The justification for it isn’t always present, and the emotional trigger to the refusal isn’t always acknowledged, so that blog post is really an excellent case study. (edit: whoops, asterisks are bullet points, can’t footnote that way)
I strongly suspect that people who make the claim “no amount of evidence could convince me of not-X” have simply absorbed the meme that X must be supported as much as possible and not the meme that all beliefs should be subject to updating. I very much doubt that expressing the above claim is much evidence that the claim is true. And it’s hard to absorb memes like “all beliefs should be subject to updating” if you are made to feel unwelcome in the communities where those memes are common.