Let’s test your idea that “There are no good arguments for X” is simply how having a successful social taboo against X feels from inside:
“There are no good arguments for the phlogiston theory of chemistry” is simply how having a successful social taboo against the phlogiston theory of chemistry feels from inside.
“There are no good arguments for Ptolemaic astronomy” is simply how having a successful social taboo against Ptolemaic astronomy feels from inside.
“There are no good arguments for Aristotelian physics” is simply how having a successful social taboo against Aristotelian physics feels from inside.
There are in fact good arguments for all three of those theories, and better arguments against. I’m guessing you don’t know either arguments, and base your belief in all three based on argument from authority.
Edit: Also the situation isn’t exactly analogous due to the difference between debates about physical facts, and debates about policy.
There were good arguments for all of those things when they were still in use. There are no good Arguments today for favoring Aristotelian physics over Newtonian physics, Ptolemaic over Copernican, or the phlogiston theory over the oxygen theory, where an Argument means a complete consideration of the evidence and the individual arguments.
Viliam’s comment, which I’m sad to see has 10 points on LessWrong, uses the impreciseness of what I meant when I said “no good arguments” to crowbar in a claim that we just can’t say some theories are wrong. We can.
It should be obvious to anybody reading my original post that digressions into what is a “good argument” are irrelevant; the point is that many activists motivate people by advocating ideas that are false, or deceptively one-sided to the point that they are lies of omission. My question is what the distribution of the degree of necessary lying is as a function of a cause’s social utility.
Stop hyper-focusing on individual words to try to score debating points when the intent behind their use is clear from the context, everybody on LessWrong.
There were good arguments for all of those things when they were still in use. There are no good Arguments today for favoring Aristotelian physics over Newtonian physics, Ptolemaic over Copernican, or the phlogiston theory over the oxygen theory, where an Argument means a complete consideration of the evidence and the individual arguments.
I’m not trying to score debating points. I have a serious point, namely that chances are you don’t actually know most of the arguments involved, either here or in the political debate. Instead you rely on appeals to authority. This raises the question of how reliable are the authorities. Probably reasonable reliable in the case of physics, rather less so in the case of political issues.
I did not appeal to any authorities. I relied on the readers here being well-educated. I am and was familiar with the history of these ideas, and with the specific arguments that at one time made Ptolemaic astronomy seem more reasonable, such as the apparent diameter of stars caused by atmospheric refraction, and that made phlogiston (which was just “negative oxygen”) seem reasonable, which are recounted in detail in Kuhn’s Structure of Scientific Revolutions. I’m not familiar with any arguments giving Aristotelian physics advantages over Newtonian physics. It probably wasn’t immediately obvious to some people why things floated in water, or why hot air balloons rose; I suppose that could count.
I don’t think questions of appealing to authorities are relevant here. There are theories that are wrong. There seems to be a positive correlation between theories of action that require lies to inspire action, and theories that are wrong. My post asks about the strength of that correlation. Not knowing which theories are correct makes it harder to answer the question, but neither ignorance, nor knowledge, of the correctness of theories makes that question itself go away.
There are in fact good arguments for all three of those theories, and better arguments against. I’m guessing you don’t know either arguments, and base your belief in all three based on argument from authority.
Edit: Also the situation isn’t exactly analogous due to the difference between debates about physical facts, and debates about policy.
There were good arguments for all of those things when they were still in use. There are no good Arguments today for favoring Aristotelian physics over Newtonian physics, Ptolemaic over Copernican, or the phlogiston theory over the oxygen theory, where an Argument means a complete consideration of the evidence and the individual arguments.
Viliam’s comment, which I’m sad to see has 10 points on LessWrong, uses the impreciseness of what I meant when I said “no good arguments” to crowbar in a claim that we just can’t say some theories are wrong. We can.
It should be obvious to anybody reading my original post that digressions into what is a “good argument” are irrelevant; the point is that many activists motivate people by advocating ideas that are false, or deceptively one-sided to the point that they are lies of omission. My question is what the distribution of the degree of necessary lying is as a function of a cause’s social utility.
I’m not trying to score debating points. I have a serious point, namely that chances are you don’t actually know most of the arguments involved, either here or in the political debate. Instead you rely on appeals to authority. This raises the question of how reliable are the authorities. Probably reasonable reliable in the case of physics, rather less so in the case of political issues.
I did not appeal to any authorities. I relied on the readers here being well-educated. I am and was familiar with the history of these ideas, and with the specific arguments that at one time made Ptolemaic astronomy seem more reasonable, such as the apparent diameter of stars caused by atmospheric refraction, and that made phlogiston (which was just “negative oxygen”) seem reasonable, which are recounted in detail in Kuhn’s Structure of Scientific Revolutions. I’m not familiar with any arguments giving Aristotelian physics advantages over Newtonian physics. It probably wasn’t immediately obvious to some people why things floated in water, or why hot air balloons rose; I suppose that could count.
I don’t think questions of appealing to authorities are relevant here. There are theories that are wrong. There seems to be a positive correlation between theories of action that require lies to inspire action, and theories that are wrong. My post asks about the strength of that correlation. Not knowing which theories are correct makes it harder to answer the question, but neither ignorance, nor knowledge, of the correctness of theories makes that question itself go away.