If a minority that happens to know a truth, but they all keep quiet about it, what’s to keep the masses from remaining ignorant indefinitely?
In my experience, loudly proclaiming an unfamiliar truth is one of the best ways to keep people ignorant.
The only sorts of knowledge that need to be protected and preserved are the ones that involve contingency: biodiversity, history, paleontology and archeology, etc. can all be harmed if their data is lost. Undying truths can always be rediscovered no matter how many times they’re lost.
When nearby (in idea space) nodes encounter an unfamiliar truth, that unfamiliar truth attracts new adherents, mostly early-adopters. Those early adopters will be few if the truth is obviously crazy or “losing.” Once early adopters grow to a “viable network” threshold, they are adopted more easily, by conformists. Such unfamiliar truths, following this progression, do not remain unfamiliar long.
This is how popular untruths come into being, often with force at their core. Such popular untruths then “max out” at a certain high percentage, and rationalists either fight against them, or ignore them. Some popular untruths then proceed to kill all the rationalists, delaying progress. ( When Lilburne, Walwin, and Overton died, there weren’t really any equals to follow them, but the Quakers took their principles to the USA. Progress fell behind in England, but it continued in new networks.)
There may be limits to the types of truths that a majority can hold onto, given the random distribution of sociopaths and conformists. The sociopaths tend to capture conformist networks and put them to use/servitude. This is the nature of most of the planet’s surface right now, to some large extent. In this case, the majority won’t rediscover the truth, but the minority never lost it.
In my experience, loudly proclaiming an unfamiliar truth is one of the best ways to keep people ignorant.
The only sorts of knowledge that need to be protected and preserved are the ones that involve contingency: biodiversity, history, paleontology and archeology, etc. can all be harmed if their data is lost. Undying truths can always be rediscovered no matter how many times they’re lost.
When nearby (in idea space) nodes encounter an unfamiliar truth, that unfamiliar truth attracts new adherents, mostly early-adopters. Those early adopters will be few if the truth is obviously crazy or “losing.” Once early adopters grow to a “viable network” threshold, they are adopted more easily, by conformists. Such unfamiliar truths, following this progression, do not remain unfamiliar long.
This is how popular untruths come into being, often with force at their core. Such popular untruths then “max out” at a certain high percentage, and rationalists either fight against them, or ignore them. Some popular untruths then proceed to kill all the rationalists, delaying progress. ( When Lilburne, Walwin, and Overton died, there weren’t really any equals to follow them, but the Quakers took their principles to the USA. Progress fell behind in England, but it continued in new networks.)
There may be limits to the types of truths that a majority can hold onto, given the random distribution of sociopaths and conformists. The sociopaths tend to capture conformist networks and put them to use/servitude. This is the nature of most of the planet’s surface right now, to some large extent. In this case, the majority won’t rediscover the truth, but the minority never lost it.