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Socrates on the blessing of being refuted

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Re: Socrates on the blessing of being refuted

#31

Post by arrosenberg »

steelstraw wrote: post #22
teachrdan wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honest question: If Joe Rogan continues to amplify the voices of conspiracists, and his listeners continue to heed them -- for example, by refusing to get vaccinated against Covid -- does his thanking his "haters" matter? Isn't the point that he should stop providing a platform to people who deny that Covid is a threat or that climate change is real? I don't mean to sound like a dick here. But I think it's a bit of a…

I reject that hypothesis. Open dialogue is not what's harmful and those who seek to silence or censor have never ended up on the right side of history. The only thing that works over the course of time is fighting bad information with better information. Besides, no one could do as much damage as the official sources have done to themselves throughout the Covid pandemic. People are just forgetting the mountain of mis…

One doesn't have to be pro-government to recognize that Joe Rogan is acting in extremely bad faith. He has a lucrative financial agreement that incentivizes him to drive viewership - he's not promoting open dialogue, he's promoting topics and guests that will attract polemics to drive ratings.

Re: Socrates on the blessing of being refuted

#32

Post by teachrdan »

aeternum wrote: post #28
teachrdan wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honest question: If Joe Rogan continues to amplify the voices of conspiracists, and his listeners continue to heed them -- for example, by refusing to get vaccinated against Covid -- does his thanking his "haters" matter? Isn't the point that he should stop providing a platform to people who deny that Covid is a threat or that climate change is real? I don't mean to sound like a dick here. But I think it's a bit of a…

> Isn't the point that he should stop providing a platform to people who deny No, people should listen and decide for themselves. By denying a platform, you often feed conspiracy theories and fringe ideas. This must be a powerful, true, and dangerous idea if so many people are trying to hide it. Instead focus the discussion on how we experimentally determine which idea is more true. Ask people and consider yourself w…

> Ask people and consider yourself what it would take to disprove some of the things you believe to be true.

Sure. If the past 7 years had been the coldest on record, I'd be a lot more skeptical of the consensus theory of climate change. Instead, they were the hottest on record.[0] And yet Joe Rogan lets Jordan Peterson, a clinical psychologist (!), go one his show and claim that the theory of climate change is a fraud because: "Your models are based on a set number of variables. So that means you've reduced the variables -- which are everything -- to that set. But how did you decide which set of variables to include in the equation if it's about everything?"[1]

> By denying a platform, you often feed conspiracy theories and fringe ideas. This must be a powerful, true, and dangerous idea if so many people are trying to hide it.

It's not clear to me if you personally believe this statement or if it's a reference to irrational conspiratorial thinking. But we deny platforms all the time. You won't find Holocaust deniers getting equal time in a history textbook. You similarly won't find flat Earthers teaching geology at an accredited university. And when Joe Rogan got paid $100 million for having a popular podcast, he was incentivized to appeal to an increasingly irrational listener base, regardless of what the truth was.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/01/1...

https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/27/us/joe-rogan-jordan-peterson-...

Re: Socrates on the blessing of being refuted

#33

Post by optimalsolver »

Funny, coz Socrates' interlocutors in Plato's dialogues exist only to agree and affirm all his arguments like bobbleheads, or to be epically dunked on.

Epistemic humility is more discussed for signalling purposes than actually practiced.

The Republic is a particularly notable example of this kind of thing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqGsg01ycpk

Re: Socrates on the blessing of being refuted

#34

Post by vraks »

tenebrisalietum wrote: post #24
NikolaNovak wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm, what is a morally unacceptable debate? How is it defined and who agrees to the definition? I've been trying very hard most of my life not to have mental or discussion taboos. I may find a position, request, action, etc disagreeable or even reprehensible, but I see no winning outcome in making it a taboo. And I struggle to visualize a debate itself that is morally unacceptable. Quite the opposite. (on the other h…

Proposed definition of "immoral debates": An immoral debate depends on the definition of a corrupt debate. A corrupt debate is where: 1) debaters willfully produce responses that contain bad arguments or logical fallacies 2) debaters willfully conduct arguments toward an audience without knowledge of logical fallacies and/or without knowledge of critical thinking 3) debaters willfully conduct arguments in a venue or…

So basically an "immoral debate" would be one that's propaganda in disguise? But why would it be inherently immoral to knowingly propagandize a false idea? What if believing a particular false idea leads to behavior that's safer in large scale? For example, you convince everyone that, I don't know, gasoline makes you impotent. Your rhetoric is so good that everyone is convinced, even in the absence of evidence, and people stop driving so much and pollution is reduced.

Is it immoral to use rhetoric to spread false ideas for a good reason?

Re: Socrates on the blessing of being refuted

#35

Post by dfxm12 »

I think the article is operating under the false assumption that most political discourse is meant to be a Socratic conversation. It's really not. Look at a political debate, or a talking heads show on cable news. There is no truth that is sought out, no hypotheses to accept, no exploration of if a conclusion follows the premises logically. All there is, is persuasive sound bytes, with no deference paid to the truth and no refraining from the "false opinion concerning the subjects of the present conversation".

The media drives a lot of this with the format of their shows/political debates. I'm sure these sound bytes are better for ratings, but they are poor for getting to the bottom of a political platform and how that's really best for the general population.

Re: Socrates on the blessing of being refuted

#36

Post by Kranar »

steelstraw wrote: post #18

Joe Rogan actually just made that basic point in his response regarding the Spotify controversy. He thanked even his haters and addressed the concerns. Some changes have already been made. He was very gracious to Neil Young to boot. https://www.instagram.com/tv/CZYQ_nDJi6G/ If more people had that kind of response and mindset, maybe we could get back to solving problems instead of the constant tit for tat tribalism t…

He's been saying that for years though, from the time he perpetuated 9/11 being an inside job, to arguing that the moon landing was a hoax, to his current position on COVID. What exact mindset inspired by Joe Rogan would you advocate for people? To believe in and promote fringe opinions for the sake of being contrarian, and then after some degree of damage has been done you go ahead apologize for it, say you're going to work harder only until the next fringe idea comes along for you to capitalize off of?

I don't agree that such a mindset would help accomplish much.

Re: Socrates on the blessing of being refuted

#37

Post by feoren »

jorgesborges wrote: post #26
teachrdan wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honest question: If Joe Rogan continues to amplify the voices of conspiracists, and his listeners continue to heed them -- for example, by refusing to get vaccinated against Covid -- does his thanking his "haters" matter? Isn't the point that he should stop providing a platform to people who deny that Covid is a threat or that climate change is real? I don't mean to sound like a dick here. But I think it's a bit of a…

I think when you call certain people conspiracists it’s unproductive. Who are you referring to? Sure Alex Jones is a nutty conspiracy theorist. But highly credentialed physicians and academics who simply have opinions that deviate from the established consensus? No, that’s unfair. Did you watch the posted ten minute video? Have you watched any of his podcasts in full? He explains why he has those guests on and conced…

> But highly credentialed physicians and academics who simply have opinions that deviate from the established consensus?

This is called the Halo effect: someone who is good in one way is surely good in all ways.

If Terence Tao posted on his blog tomorrow that he has video proof that Hillary Clinton is a secret lizard person, I would certainly be shocked, and I might even read what he has to say, but I would still immediately classify him as a nutty conspiracy theorist (one who espouses a nutty conspiracy theory). It wouldn't really diminish everything else he's done, and I would view it as an incredibly sad case of an otherwise amazing brain getting infected by a particularly virulent mind-virus.

Say Joe Rogan split his segment into two halves, and the first half was devoted to someone arguing that the 14th century was invented by the Illuminati in order to hide the fact that Finland doesn't really exist and is just a cover to hide the fact that Russian fishermen discovered aliens there, who took their bodies and are now infiltrating society, etc. etc. The second half was devoted to an actual historian saying "um, no, that's really ridiculous for many reasons". Would you call that fair and balanced? Is that a good point-counterpoint? Hell no. It's the classic false equivalency, fake-centrist B.S. that is used so often to promote crazy and dangerous ideas.

Re: Socrates on the blessing of being refuted

#38

Post by cmurf »

rgrieselhuber wrote: post #15
zalo wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you kidding? If someone really has good evidence for the Earth being flat, that could potentially be one of the most important observations of all time! As the Litany of Tarski goes: “If the Earth is flat, I desire to believe the Earth is flat…” etc. (Though, I will admit that it gets boring later when you’ve heard all the arguments and rebuttals.)

I have yet to hear a FE believer explain their position without them raising their voice.

Same for "microwaves are bad" believers. They are angry people. Over what, I do not know, but I think they have a deep fear of their own ignorance and use anger to compensate. Somehow they learned at a young age the winner of an argument is perceived as correct or smart, and the way to win is to wear people down. Every conversation is arm wrestling.

Re: Socrates on the blessing of being refuted

#39

Post by feoren »

aeternum wrote: post #28
teachrdan wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honest question: If Joe Rogan continues to amplify the voices of conspiracists, and his listeners continue to heed them -- for example, by refusing to get vaccinated against Covid -- does his thanking his "haters" matter? Isn't the point that he should stop providing a platform to people who deny that Covid is a threat or that climate change is real? I don't mean to sound like a dick here. But I think it's a bit of a…

> Isn't the point that he should stop providing a platform to people who deny No, people should listen and decide for themselves. By denying a platform, you often feed conspiracy theories and fringe ideas. This must be a powerful, true, and dangerous idea if so many people are trying to hide it. Instead focus the discussion on how we experimentally determine which idea is more true. Ask people and consider yourself w…

What really happened during the Holocaust? Let's call the truth theory A. Some people, who don't actually really care what happened during the Holocaust and seek to argue in bad faith, would love to see "equal time" be given to theory A and their own "theory", B. But we can take it further. Let's give equal time to each of theories A, B1, B2, B3, B4, B5, B6, ... B327 (ancient Egyptian mummies coming back for revenge against the Jews), B328 (an early prototype of their space laser malfunctioned), etc.

Now A gets 1% of the time and crazy gets 99% of the time. Decide for yourself what's true!

Re: Socrates on the blessing of being refuted

#40

Post by jorgesborges »

feoren wrote: post #37
jorgesborges wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think when you call certain people conspiracists it’s unproductive. Who are you referring to? Sure Alex Jones is a nutty conspiracy theorist. But highly credentialed physicians and academics who simply have opinions that deviate from the established consensus? No, that’s unfair. Did you watch the posted ten minute video? Have you watched any of his podcasts in full? He explains why he has those guests on and conced…

> But highly credentialed physicians and academics who simply have opinions that deviate from the established consensus? This is called the Halo effect: someone who is good in one way is surely good in all ways. If Terence Tao posted on his blog tomorrow that he has video proof that Hillary Clinton is a secret lizard person, I would certainly be shocked, and I might even read what he has to say, but I would still imm…

Are you saying that lizard theory is fairly analogous to physicians questioning the efficacy of health protocols during an unprecedented global pandemic?
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