Conversation

Notices

1. Dave Lane 🇳🇿 (lightweight@mastodon.nzoss.nz)'s status on Monday, 18-Apr-2022 10:46:20 UTC Dave Lane 🇳🇿

   This makes me despair at "the establishment" and its utter lack of intelligence, empathy, and conscience
   https://invidious.snopyta.org/watch?v=nNyg1DhT5SI or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNyg1DhT5SI because of these selfish, principle-less people (everyone but the climate activist), humanity's going to hell in a handbasket.

   • Dave Lane 🇳🇿 (lightweight@mastodon.nzoss.nz)'s status on Monday, 18-Apr-2022 10:46:10 UTC Dave Lane 🇳🇿

     in reply to

     • Chris Trottier

     @atomicpoet I'm not sure what you're suggesting... seems like you might be suggesting that non-scientific thinking (e.g. anecdote, hearsay, mythology, religion) are as legitimate as the scientific method. Yes, science is carried out by humans, so it's not foolproof, but it has safeguards that make it, generally, vastly superior to those other forms of knowledge.

   • Chris Trottier (atomicpoet@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 18-Apr-2022 10:46:13 UTC Chris Trottier

     in reply to

     @lightweight The problem is not just beliefs, it's the human need to prize narrative over all else.

     I've seen this with so-called rational people too. They buy into empiricism. They think their fidelity to empiricism makes them scientists. Anyone who doesn't buy into their empiricist views are the enemy.

   • Dave Lane 🇳🇿 (lightweight@mastodon.nzoss.nz)'s status on Monday, 18-Apr-2022 10:46:17 UTC Dave Lane 🇳🇿

     in reply to

     Everyone is welcome to believe what they like - legislating belief is pointless. That said, there're are lots of beliefs that are dangerous. Believing in comforting fictions might make some people happy, but when, on a societal level, it causes us to not take action to counter existential threats, it's ignorant and tragic in the extreme. And, as usual, it's not the 'believers' who bear the brunt. It's those whose words the believers chose to ignore.

   • Chris Trottier (atomicpoet@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 18-Apr-2022 10:46:46 UTC Chris Trottier

     in reply to

     @lightweight That's not what I'm saying at all.

     What I'm explaining is that people are biased towards narratives, not facts. That's not my opinion, it's scientific fact (see article).

     The trap that most people of an empiricist persuasion fall into is that they believe they are free from this bias. http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/02/27/why-facts-dont-change-our-minds