Re:Orthodox Privilege
by mistermann on Wednesday July 15, 2020 @02:52PM
(#23849891)
> "Animal species are being driven extinct" is an "is" belief.
This is stating a prediction of the future not as speculation, but as fact. Now it's almost certainly at least partially true (at least one species will likely become extinct in the future, at least as far as we are able to measure such things, which is often not entirely accurate), but nonetheless, it is unknown.
I'd like to see HN try some variation of @derefr's "I would be highly interested in watching (or maybe participating) in a forum where the rule is..." idea [1] on occasional appropriate HN threads, and see what happens. With the advent of the internet (and some other things), a very serious problem (of literally "existential risk" magnitude in my opinion) seems to have arisen in the sphere of human communication, both domestic and international. I do not know of all that many people or organizations who are studying this problem even in theory or with small trials, and not one single organization who is studying it in practice, with real people, at scale. I believe HN is an ideal place to do something like this, because most everyone here could easily understand the details, and why [2] we are doing it. If no one steps up to the plate and this phenomenon gets completely out of control (I'd say that happened long ago) leading to a major fundamental breakdown in society, what might be the ultimate consequences?
Obviously, going forward with some sort of initiative like this is the choice of HN & @dang, but I really wish we could have a discussion on the matter. Do few people see the potential value in this idea (speaking of Orthodox Privilege)?
With respect to:
> B: "Global warming is not real." A: "It is real. Here are peer-reviewed articles, etc. etc."
...what seems to not be apparent to many people is that there is a major but unrealized disagreement on the definition of the term "Global warming", in numerous ways. It is a very semantically overloaded [3] term.
[1] I'd approach it by group brainstorming a set of various "rules" that should be considered, and then these rules could be A/B tested in designated threads to see what happens. I can think of several ideas for rules, and I imagine others could come up with many that never crossed my mind.
This is stating a prediction of the future not as speculation, but as fact. Now it's almost certainly at least partially true (at least one species will likely become extinct in the future, at least as far as we are able to measure such things, which is often not entirely accurate), but nonetheless, it is unknown.
I'd like to see HN try some variation of @derefr's "I would be highly interested in watching (or maybe participating) in a forum where the rule is..." idea [1] on occasional appropriate HN threads, and see what happens. With the advent of the internet (and some other things), a very serious problem (of literally "existential risk" magnitude in my opinion) seems to have arisen in the sphere of human communication, both domestic and international. I do not know of all that many people or organizations who are studying this problem even in theory or with small trials, and not one single organization who is studying it in practice, with real people, at scale. I believe HN is an ideal place to do something like this, because most everyone here could easily understand the details, and why [2] we are doing it. If no one steps up to the plate and this phenomenon gets completely out of control (I'd say that happened long ago) leading to a major fundamental breakdown in society, what might be the ultimate consequences?
Obviously, going forward with some sort of initiative like this is the choice of HN & @dang, but I really wish we could have a discussion on the matter. Do few people see the potential value in this idea (speaking of Orthodox Privilege)?
With respect to:
> B: "Global warming is not real." A: "It is real. Here are peer-reviewed articles, etc. etc."
...what seems to not be apparent to many people is that there is a major but unrealized disagreement on the definition of the term "Global warming", in numerous ways. It is a very semantically overloaded [3] term.
[1] I'd approach it by group brainstorming a set of various "rules" that should be considered, and then these rules could be A/B tested in designated threads to see what happens. I can think of several ideas for rules, and I imagine others could come up with many that never crossed my mind.
[2] Just some of the many reasons are included in the LW article @derefr posted: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Mc6QcrsbH5NRXbCRX/dissolving...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_overload