I wasn’t commenting on whether it was OK to make a post about it, but on Eliezer’s description of it as “9/11 truthism”. Sorry if that wasn’t clear.
For what it’s worth, I think the question “how should one evaluate a big messy pile of ambiguous alleged evidence for something?” is a reasonable one, and any number of Things Widely Considered Irrational might make interesting test cases—“9/11 truthism”, ghosts, healing miracles, whatever. But:
Your post clearly gave Eliezer (and also me, for what it’s worth, though I was more inclined to give you the benefit of the doubt) the impression that it was preaching masquerading as a useful case study.
I think the most reliable way to avoid giving that impression is to take steps to make what you write not useful as preaching. (For instance: disclaimers along the lines of “This is the opinion of a tiny minority only, and I happen to be one of them. Discount as you see fit.”)
There are some topics (of which this may be one; I don’t know, but maybe Eliezer does) whose discussion consistently generates more heat than light. It might be entirely reasonable to do away with posts on such topics unless they have very strong counterbalancing virtues.
I wasn’t commenting on whether it was OK to make a post about it, but on Eliezer’s description of it as “9/11 truthism”. Sorry if that wasn’t clear.
For what it’s worth, I think the question “how should one evaluate a big messy pile of ambiguous alleged evidence for something?” is a reasonable one, and any number of Things Widely Considered Irrational might make interesting test cases—“9/11 truthism”, ghosts, healing miracles, whatever. But:
Your post clearly gave Eliezer (and also me, for what it’s worth, though I was more inclined to give you the benefit of the doubt) the impression that it was preaching masquerading as a useful case study.
I think the most reliable way to avoid giving that impression is to take steps to make what you write not useful as preaching. (For instance: disclaimers along the lines of “This is the opinion of a tiny minority only, and I happen to be one of them. Discount as you see fit.”)
There are some topics (of which this may be one; I don’t know, but maybe Eliezer does) whose discussion consistently generates more heat than light. It might be entirely reasonable to do away with posts on such topics unless they have very strong counterbalancing virtues.