The thing that needs to be more explicitly acknowledged in the conversation about how to promote true beliefs and social processes that help people acquire true beliefs is that acquiring true beliefs is a profoundly horrifying experience, and if you are not screaming as you do it then you are not really having it.
I think this is an important question and I don’t have an answer, but a first step I’d push for is to scream when you encounter something worth screaming about, and to allow yourself to live in a world where you may have to scream a lot.
One thing—maybe the only thing—that creeps people out about the sort of people who go around talking about uncomfortable truths is that they seem way too goddamn comfortable with them. If that’s what you’re doing then you’re not letting them sink in enough to scream.
Screaming is almost never truth-maximimizing. Truths are not comfortable nor un-, they just are true. The fact that many are creeped out by your apparent comfort with certain truths, and they prefer to deny those truths in order to be comfortable, is just one of those truths you’ll need to get comfortable with.
Why is comfort truth-maximizing? From Twelve Virtues:
If the iron approaches your face, and you believe it is cool, and it is hot, the Way opposes your calm. Evaluate your beliefs first and then arrive at your emotions.
If the chair is made of barbed wire, does the Way not oppose my comfort in sitting there? I think Hufflepuff Cynicism more or less agrees that screeming is not truth-maximizing (“If you must scream,” says my inner hufflepuff cynic, “do so exactly once!”), but I’m not sure I agree.
Quoting myself from Facebook:
I think this is an important question and I don’t have an answer, but a first step I’d push for is to scream when you encounter something worth screaming about, and to allow yourself to live in a world where you may have to scream a lot.
One thing—maybe the only thing—that creeps people out about the sort of people who go around talking about uncomfortable truths is that they seem way too goddamn comfortable with them. If that’s what you’re doing then you’re not letting them sink in enough to scream.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on A Fable Of Politics And Science. Would you say that Barron’s attitude is better than Ferris’s, at least sometimes?
I think Barron sees something important that Ferris is missing, but that he’s also making a mistake.
Screaming is almost never truth-maximimizing. Truths are not comfortable nor un-, they just are true. The fact that many are creeped out by your apparent comfort with certain truths, and they prefer to deny those truths in order to be comfortable, is just one of those truths you’ll need to get comfortable with.
Why is comfort truth-maximizing? From Twelve Virtues:
If the chair is made of barbed wire, does the Way not oppose my comfort in sitting there? I think Hufflepuff Cynicism more or less agrees that screeming is not truth-maximizing (“If you must scream,” says my inner hufflepuff cynic, “do so exactly once!”), but I’m not sure I agree.