Lots of things look like cults from the outside, for me at least the other HN thread from today about self-driving cars was a perfect example of that, it had lots and lots of commenters (I presume the big majority of them pretty smart people) saying things like “I believe” and dismissing those that didn’t “believe” (in the idea of self-driving cars, in that case).

When you talk about the future, there's only one thing you can actually do and that's believe (not in the religious sense), because it is uncertain. Especially sensationalist expressions like "self-driving cars will never happen".

Making absolute statements, especially about the future, is not a mark of an intellectual or of intelligence. But everything is relative.

Believing in self-driving cars is believing in AGI, and if some people find not believing in that “sensationalist” then it all kind of proves my point. I also don’t live in the SV bubble, maybe down there the AGI church is stronger, I wouldn’t know. I strongly recommend Jacques Ellul’s “The New Demons” [1], and Ellul’s works generally speaking.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/New-Demons-Jacques-Ellul/dp/081640266...

If you feel that way, just stay away from "social media" and consume scientific writing instead. If that is too demanding, fallback to read the likes of IPCC or NASA climate reports.

These reports are, in my non-scientific opinion, very conservative and tend to err on the no drama side.

You'll face roughly the same response from denying the Holocaust happened or for saying the earth is flat. I assume you don't think those are respectable positions that deserve serious consideration. If you do, then how about people who think they are vampires, and those who claim to be reborn pharaohs? Is there any limit where you just go "this is nonsense and I'm not gonna waste my time on it"? Are you part of a cult at that point?

The debate over climate denial boils down to what sort of respectability the position has, is it a serious contender, or is it a wacko idea?

It’s not a problem of respectability. There are simple reproducable experiments to demonstrate earth isn’t flat. Science isn’t relying on suppressing opinions to stand firm. The very definition of science is that it is claims that are falsifiable. The way you defend that the holocaust happened is by showing the evidences, which are numerous, not by casting anathema. You don’t convince people by calling them deniers.

sadly, and that is also scientifically discussed at length with strong evidence, you do not convince people with facts either.

people, me included are very bad at changing their mind. I remember how long it took me to accept that electric vehicles are even today net positive for the environment after some amount of lifetime. this amount depends on how the electricity is generated and how big the car. here in Germany current calculation says it is somewhere between 50k and 100k kilometers (roughly 30k to 60k miles). so an average lifespan for a car. my current car would be net positive right now had I had the chance to buy it as an e-car.

as said. it took me years to come to grips with this well understood fact. and probably there are many others that still are wrong in my mind.

but if I go to YouTube or Google to I form myself or to e en search for opposing facts as a way of researching a topic to write about, the algorithm is very fast in promoting the unscientific videos to me. I am led down a rabbit hole that isn't obvious to me. I see a majority of unscientific content and come to believe that this is a very big part of the story that's not being shown in traditional media. come the "truthers" that tell my they are suppressed and over time I might come to believe them. because "the evidence is right in front of me".

so I would not say that we need to silence these views. every scientific breakthrough was fringe in the beginning. but maybe we need to weight their importance and frequency of being shown not by user interest, but by some more objective function. let people find fringe views. but please do not actively promote them (and make them thereby seem bigger, more respectable than they are) for a quick buck.