Would you, failing to observe anything on the subject after a couple of hours of Googling, conclude that your civilization must have some unknown good reason why not everyone was doing this already?
No, but not for “Civilizational Adequacy” reasons. In a hypothetical civilization that is Adequate in the relevant ways, but otherwise like ours, I would also not conclude that there was an unknown good reason why not everyone was doing this already. Here’s a simple model to apply for many values of X:
If civilization has an unknown-to-me reason why X is a good idea, I expect to observe search results saying that X is a good idea and giving the reason.
If civilization has an unknown-to-me reason why X is a bad idea, I expect to observe search results saying that X is a bad idea and giving the reason.
If civilization does not know if X is a good or bad idea, I expect to observe no search results, or mixed search results.
I don’t see any way for me to conclude, from a lack of search results, that civilization must have some unknown good reason why not everyone was doing this already.
I tried to disprove this by thinking of a really random and stupid X. Something so randomly stupid that I could be the first person in civilization to think of it. The idea of “inject bleach to cure covid” was already taken. What if I generalize to injecting some other thing to cure some other thing? My brain generated “cure cancer by injecting hydrogen peroxide”. No, sorry, not random and stupid enough, the internet contains Does Hydrogen Peroxide Therapy Work?, it was the first search result.
More randomness and stupidity needed! How about putting cats in the freezer to reduce their metabolism and therefore save money on cat food? Well, yes this appears to be a new innovation in the field of random stupid ideas. On the other hand the first ten search results included Cat survives 19-hour ordeal in freezer so civilization has a reason why that is a bad idea and it’s available for anyone who searches for it.
I’m obviously not creative enough so I asked Claude. After a few failed attempts (emojis in variables names! jumping jacks before meetings!) we got to:
Improve remote work meetings by requiring everyone to keep one finger touching their nose at all times while speaking, with their video on. Missing the nose means you lose speaking privileges for 30 seconds.
Success: a truly novel, truly terrible idea. In this case, civilization has multiple good reasons why not everyone is doing this already, but there aren’t any specific search results on this specific idea. Even then, if I spend a couple of hours searching and reading, I’m going to hit some tangential search results that will give me some hints.
No, but not for “Civilizational Adequacy” reasons. In a hypothetical civilization that is Adequate in the relevant ways, but otherwise like ours, I would also not conclude that there was an unknown good reason why not everyone was doing this already. Here’s a simple model to apply for many values of X:
If civilization has an unknown-to-me reason why X is a good idea, I expect to observe search results saying that X is a good idea and giving the reason.
If civilization has an unknown-to-me reason why X is a bad idea, I expect to observe search results saying that X is a bad idea and giving the reason.
If civilization does not know if X is a good or bad idea, I expect to observe no search results, or mixed search results.
I don’t see any way for me to conclude, from a lack of search results, that civilization must have some unknown good reason why not everyone was doing this already.
I tried to disprove this by thinking of a really random and stupid X. Something so randomly stupid that I could be the first person in civilization to think of it. The idea of “inject bleach to cure covid” was already taken. What if I generalize to injecting some other thing to cure some other thing? My brain generated “cure cancer by injecting hydrogen peroxide”. No, sorry, not random and stupid enough, the internet contains Does Hydrogen Peroxide Therapy Work?, it was the first search result.
More randomness and stupidity needed! How about putting cats in the freezer to reduce their metabolism and therefore save money on cat food? Well, yes this appears to be a new innovation in the field of random stupid ideas. On the other hand the first ten search results included Cat survives 19-hour ordeal in freezer so civilization has a reason why that is a bad idea and it’s available for anyone who searches for it.
I’m obviously not creative enough so I asked Claude. After a few failed attempts (emojis in variables names! jumping jacks before meetings!) we got to:
Success: a truly novel, truly terrible idea. In this case, civilization has multiple good reasons why not everyone is doing this already, but there aren’t any specific search results on this specific idea. Even then, if I spend a couple of hours searching and reading, I’m going to hit some tangential search results that will give me some hints.