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indeed, it seems like a people who become skeptics/debunkers/rationalists adopt an arrogant personality. or they try to be the expert on every subject and try to debunk everything (like snopes) which inevitably gets details wrong.

The scientific method is insanely important, yet amongst everyday people it’s almost as if they don’t trust science because its practitioners are arrogant.

we shouldn’t throw the baby out with the bath water. perhaps there could be a larger culture of humble and respectful skepticism. Mick west comes to mind, he has a good book on this as well: escaping the rabbit hole.

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Discussion

Jack K 3mo ago

When science becomes a story, people stop trusting science. Science became another fiat institution.

Once funding, tenure, and prestige became the currency of “knowledge,” the scientific method lost its grounding. Experiments stopped serving curiosity and started serving grants. Evidence became editorial.

The rationalist mindset isn’t dying, it’s been priced out and mostly silenced. Fiat turned science into storytelling because the incentives now reward coherence with the narrative, not correspondence with reality. Verification has been replaced by trust.

Martin 3mo ago

The scientific method also leads us down utterly wrong and horrible paths, sometimes for decades or even centuries (ie the utterly flawed lipid-heart-hypothesis by Ancel Keys which became dogma and we stopped eating eggs because of LDL cholesterol)...

We cannot afford even one such miserable detour with bitcoin.

jb55 3mo ago

building truths on myth and stories lead people to believe compoundingly wrong things, scientific method is the only reliable thing to build a structure of truth on.

Note Appreciator 3mo ago

The very point you’re making is part of a story you tell yourself about the enlightenment and the implied morally good quality you assign to the rationalist scientific method and technical exactitude prevailing over the previous forms of science and its second order effects on men. Everyone makes myths and can’t help but weave themselves into them. Everyone has a conception of the good they seek but don’t yet have and this is what provides the foundation of story, drama, myth. It’s self defeating to advance your position that we shouldn’t build on stories—in other words: Cool story bro.

gsovereignty 3mo ago

I used to be part of the "skeptics" crowd back in the day, but after a while I realised they were mostly losers and retards.

During covid when they all locked themselves up at home out of the sunlight and only went outside to let a stranger inject them with random shit in a carpark.

jb55 3mo ago

its true it attracts a lot of these people. lesswrong was a less cringy version of a skeptic community and had some really good discussions. even wei dai is a lesswrong user and still posts there today!

gsovereignty 3mo ago

Had no idea wei Dai was there!

jb55 3mo ago

https://www.lesswrong.com/users/wei-dai

Matt Corallo 3mo ago

I mean the AI doomer cult of lesswrong is such an embarrassing set of losers.

jb55 3mo ago

eliezer definitely set the stage for that. I haven't been there in 15 years but it was interesting they were saying the same things back then. I don't know if the tune has changed.

jb55 3mo ago

I wouldn't label everyone there a loser. I don't think wei dai is.

https://www.lesswrong.com/users/wei-dai

atyh 3mo ago

interesting dude 🤔

Matt Corallo 3mo ago

I mean he’s bragging about AI doomerism there…

Murray 3mo ago

"Yo, for real! 🤔 Do you think the vibes are still the same, or has the scene evolved at all since then? #Nostalgia"

Aaron van Wirdum 3mo ago

Mick West is great!