That seems to generalize to “no-one is allowed to make any claim whatsoever without consuming all of the information in the world”.
Just because someone generated a vast amount of content analysing the topic, does not mean you’re obliged to consume it before forming your opinions. Nay, I think consuming all object-level evidence should be considered entirely sufficient (which I assume was done in this case). Other people’s analyses based on the same data are basically superfluous, then.
Even less than that, it seems reasonable to stop gathering evidence the moment you don’t expect any additional information to overturn the conclusions you’ve formed (as long as you’re justified in that expectation, i. e. if you have a model of the domain strong enough to have an idea regarding what sort of additional (counter)evidence may turn up and how you’d update on it).
That seems to generalize to “no-one is allowed to make any claim whatsoever without consuming all of the information in the world”.
I would say that it generalises to ‘one shouldn’t make a confident proclamation of near-certainty without consuming what seems to be very relevant information to the truth of the claim’. Which I would agree with.
I think what is missing here is that this debate has been cited repeatedly in rationalist spaces, by people who were already quite engaged with the topic, familiar with the evidence, and in possession of carefully-formed views, as having been extremely valuable and informative, and having shifted their position significantly. I think it’s reasonable to expect someone to consume that information before claiming near-certainty on the question.
I think what is missing here is that this debate has been cited repeatedly in rationalist spaces, by people who were already quite engaged with the topic, familiar with the evidence, and in possession of carefully-formed views, as having been extremely valuable and informative, and having shifted their position significantly.
I’m not sure who you’re referring to and can’t think of examples, but in case it’s me, I wasn’t already very engaged with the topic or in possession of carefully-formed views.
That seems to generalize to “no-one is allowed to make any claim whatsoever without consuming all of the information in the world”.
Just because someone generated a vast amount of content analysing the topic, does not mean you’re obliged to consume it before forming your opinions. Nay, I think consuming all object-level evidence should be considered entirely sufficient (which I assume was done in this case). Other people’s analyses based on the same data are basically superfluous, then.
Even less than that, it seems reasonable to stop gathering evidence the moment you don’t expect any additional information to overturn the conclusions you’ve formed (as long as you’re justified in that expectation, i. e. if you have a model of the domain strong enough to have an idea regarding what sort of additional (counter)evidence may turn up and how you’d update on it).
I would say that it generalises to ‘one shouldn’t make a confident proclamation of near-certainty without consuming what seems to be very relevant information to the truth of the claim’. Which I would agree with.
I think what is missing here is that this debate has been cited repeatedly in rationalist spaces, by people who were already quite engaged with the topic, familiar with the evidence, and in possession of carefully-formed views, as having been extremely valuable and informative, and having shifted their position significantly. I think it’s reasonable to expect someone to consume that information before claiming near-certainty on the question.
I’m not sure who you’re referring to and can’t think of examples, but in case it’s me, I wasn’t already very engaged with the topic or in possession of carefully-formed views.
Well it wouldn’t be you then, would it?