"Still Crying Wolf"

The author of Slate Star Codex, which is a stellar example of blogging at its best, has a piece refuting the idea that Donald Trump is appealing to racism.

In general I think this author is worth considering carefully, and I note that he did not publish this piece until after the election precisely because he didn't want to sway people into voting for Trump. So this is an argument against interests, politically; but in favor of knowing the truth, which is the real interest of both the author and all true philosophers. You may think he's wrong, but he is clearly trying to be honest with himself.

I'm only going to quote a small subset of the argument, way down the page, because it's interesting in itself.
Suppose you’re talking to one of those ancient-Atlantean secrets-of-the-Pyramids people. They give you various pieces of evidence for their latest crazy theory, such as (and all of these are true):

1. The latitude of the Great Pyramid matches the speed of light in a vacuum to five decimal places.
2. Famous prophet Edgar Cayce, who predicted a lot of stuff with uncanny accuracy, said he had seen ancient Atlanteans building the Pyramid in a vision.
3. There are hieroglyphs near the pyramid that look a lot like pictures of helicopters.
4. In his dialogue Critias, Plato relayed a tradition of secret knowledge describing a 9,000-year-old Atlantean civilization.
5. The Egyptian pyramids look a lot like the Mesoamerican pyramids, and the Mesoamerican name for the ancient home of civilization is “Aztlan”
6. There’s an underwater road in the Caribbean, whose discovery Edgar Cayce predicted, and which he said was built by Atlantis
7. There are underwater pyramids near the island of Yonaguni.
8. The Sphinx has apparent signs of water erosion, which would mean it has to be more than 10,000 years old.

She asks you, the reasonable and well-educated supporter of the archaeological consensus, to explain these facts. After looking through the literature, you come up with the following:

1. This is just a weird coincidence.
2. Prophecies have so many degrees of freedom that anyone who gets even a little lucky can sound “uncannily accurate”, and this is probably just what happened with Cayce, so who cares what he thinks?
3. Lots of things look like helicopters, so whatever.
4. Plato was probably lying, or maybe speaking in metaphors.
5. There are only so many ways to build big stone things, and “pyramid” is a natural form. The “Atlantis/Atzlan” thing is probably a coincidence.
6. Those are probably just rocks in the shape of a road, and Edgar Cayce just got lucky.
7. Those are probably just rocks in the shape of pyramids. But if they do turn out to be real, that area was submerged pretty recently under the consensus understanding of geology, so they might also just be pyramids built by a perfectly normal non-Atlantean civilization.
8. We still don’t understand everything about erosion, and there could be some reason why an object less than 10,000 years old could have erosion patterns typical of older objects.

I want you to read those last eight points from the view of an Atlantis believer, and realize that they sound really weaselly. They’re all “Yeah, but that’s probably a coincidence”, and “Look, we don’t know exactly why this thing happened, but it’s probably not Atlantis, so shut up.”
Chesterton would say that the person denying the validity of the Atlantis theory has a doctrine against Atlantis, while the ancient-Atlantean person was the one being scientific and looking for evidence. Of course, evidence that tends to confirm a theory is not what we really want in science: no theory can ever be confirmed, after all. What we're really looking for is ways to collect evidence that would disprove a theory.

But that's not what we have here, or there, and there's an important question about what to do in these cases.

20 comments:

Christopher B said...

As I've watched opinions play out following the election, one thing I've wanted to scream at people in this regard is that you can't figure out why someone came to a different opinion about Trump by looking in the mirror. Your reasons for voting against him (racism and sexism specifically) are not necessarily the reason they voted for him.

This is something that plays out on the GOP side as well. There is a tendency to assume, as an example, that because I vote GOP and wouldn't want to be on welfare, then the people who vote Democrat must therefore like being on welfare (if they are). That might be the case but you need to find independent evidence outside your reflection in the mirror.

Texan99 said...

Exactly. I know from experience what caused me to vote for Democrats in my youth, and it's nothing like what many people assume motivates Democrats today. Sometimes it's similar to what makes my progressive friends and family vote for Democrats today, and sometime no doubt it's completely different. Similarly, the explanations for why Republicans vote the way they do have nothing to do with how I analyze my vote.

It frustrates me no end to feel that I'm putting real effort into understanding why my friends and family vote D, but they appear to put almost none into why I vote R. I pause to reflect, however, that they probably think the same of me in reverse. I believe, nevertheless, that they are exposed to very little in the way of first-hand conservative thought, whereas I can hardly avoid running into a lot of first-hand progressive expression, pretty much everywhere I turn in the popular culture. These people rarely raise issues or facts with me that I haven't encountered before, whereas they so often seem completely unfamiliar with what I bring up. My sister will casually observe that there's some kind of silly movie out about Clinton's role in Benghazi, and she's heard that some people had some kind of issue with it, though she's not sure what. This is an intelligent and generally well-read woman. Former colleagues--very bright people--seem completely unaware of the context of the FBI investigation into Clinton. They've heard that there's some kind of witch-hunt, and that's about it. Weird, but it does point up the fact that they're not supporting Clinton with the full conscious knowledge of these problems, and therefore don't have anything like the mindset I would have to have in order to have supported her in the election.

Ymar Sakar said...

It matters who is in the Alt Right. Trum is just their tool.

In some ways, that is true of Hussein as well. Even without Hussein, the Leftist alliance would still be pushing and using the power to destroy Americans, and by extension, enslaving humanity itself.

Hussein could not have won without the full support of the Leftist alliance boosting his political OFA. And Trum could not have won without the Alt RIght backing him.

Ymar Sakar said...

Weird, but it does point up the fact that they're not supporting Clinton with the full conscious knowledge of these problems, and therefore don't have anything like the mindset I would have to have in order to have supported her in the election.



Leftist zombies don't have a mind set, that's what mind control was for.

But the same excuse can't be used when people tell them that Hussein care is hurting them personally. What is their rely, that they understand your pain? That is not their rely. They are no longer ignorant, because they Were Told to their face what the truth was. When they choose to deny that, that is a conscious choice equal to rejecting Jesus Christ or demanding that he be crucified for heresy. It is not merely a mentality of ignorance at work.

Ymar Sakar said...

. You may think he's wrong, but he is clearly trying to be honest with himself.

If he was honest, he would have published before the election. Since his ultimate loyalty is to politics or power, that abrogates or nullifies virtues he has placed on a lesser priority. Just as Ted Kennedy's vices were so extreme when he was living, it nullified his loyalty to party and his hard working attitudes.

Assistant Village Idiot said...

Ymar Sakar - you don't get to define honesty according the the results you want. You seem unable to be influenced by anything that anyone else says.

Please stop lecturing the rest of us about how stupid we are and don't understand things, which would be cured if we only agreed with you.

You don't think you are doing that, I'm sure. Your framing is that you are just stating your opinion forcefully. You're wrong.

Ymar Sakar said...

Ymar Sakar - you don't get to define honesty according the the results you want.

I was not defining what honesty is, I'm talking about priorities. Unless you can point to something else here that proves me wrong.

Please stop lecturing the rest of us about how stupid we are and don't understand things

I wasn't aware that I care enough to lecture you Assistant, of anything. It depends on the person, wouldn't you agree.

Your framing is that you are just stating your opinion forcefully. You're wrong.

Is that your professional opinion as a psychotherapist or psychologist?

If I wanted to waste time lecturing you Assistant, I would call you out by name. Please do me and us the kindness of not assuming you know what's going on past this cyber screen and liquid LED white space. If I want you to know what's going on over here, I will inform you of it. If you want to argue your case, then you're free to do so under the Grim Aegis. But merely stating it forcefully as if your opinion was fact, is quite wrong.

which would be cured if we only agreed with you.

Then you need to pay closer attention. I don't like people who agree with me and I don't like them when they disagree with me. If I wrote that at Neo Neo, where I do believe you also comment on Assistant, but not here, then I'll repeat that here for that reason.

Whatever problem you have with me is personal, due to something I've said in the past. I can see that, but what it is, is not something I care to work figuring out. If you want to be honest about it, that's up to you though. I got more important things to figure out than whatever personal offense people take online.

Ymar Sakar said...

Is there a point in deleting my reply. Or is that just petty tyranny at work.

Grim said...

Please -- I am not a petty tyrant. I assure you that when I bother to exercise tyranny, it's really first-class.

If your reply didn't come though, it's because you said something that tripped the spam filter, or because some technical issue prevented it.

Ymar Sakar said...

While I would like to find out why blogger posts my comment to this page and then it's gone 10 seconds later, as that is something I've seen it do only once in about 8 years, to be efficient I'll just put my reply to Assistant on my blog, dated to a year ago.

https://ymarsakar.wordpress.com/2015/11/17/private-replies-to-avi/
pw=1234

raven said...

Tex,
My take is that if they (leftists)really tried to understand what the conservatives were talking about, it would be like facing the Hydra-the shock would be lethal to their sense of self.
This is why Grims helping some to select a gun and go shooting may be an effective tool- the leftist world view admits no heresy- once a crack appears, it is very likely to propagate rapidly.

Ymar Sakar said...

If your reply didn't come though, it's because you said something that tripped the spam filter, or because some technical issue prevented it.

I'm not accusing you of petty tyranny, Grim, since while I'm unfamiliar with Blogger, giving people access to posts may also give them access to the comments moderation. Or rather what little there is in Blogger.

This has happened before, only when I'm arguing with someone. Could be coincidence, but it's hard believe I had avoided triggering an automatic filter for x years until now.

I learned to acquire a suspicious mind, so I ignored the last time.

So my line was directed against the mysterious force or person that might have adjusted some things. If that is merely my imagination, then that's fine, but to find that out I would have to do some interesting and annoying copy/paste in this thread and other threads to see what does or doesn't go through.

Ymar Sakar said...

This is why Grims helping some to select a gun and go shooting may be an effective tool- the leftist world view admits no heresy- once a crack appears, it is very likely to propagate rapidly.

One of the surprisingly things was that Katie Couric hosted, apparently objectively or positively, Tim Larkin's intro to Target Focus Training. Since Larkin didn't talk about guns, it was like Couric was a rational, normal person again.


Some attacks against the mind of Leftists may penetrate their armor, or it might bypass it entirely, as the propaganda had not fortified it against. Guns, they know are evil tools. Perhaps they find it harder to think of their bodies as evil. But the result is the same, lethal force.

https://youtu.be/vPMBfX7D4WU?t=29m54s

The cannibal serial killer talks about converting to Christianity. If Jesus Christ can change that person through the Holy Spirit, perhaps Couric and other Leftists are also capable of change. There was a good post at VoxDay about material evil, spirits causing problems. Dahmer's story lines up with obsessions caused by evil spirits. Most stories I see of humans is them converting to evil. Only in rare cases, do they convert back from evil to good. Usually most people follow along to get along. They aren't evil master minds.

Texan99 said...

On Facebook an old high school friend tried to start a moderate discussion about how they should all stop accusing Trump voters of evil motives, even though she understood the temptation, because, after all, evil, Satan, etc. I tried joining in a bit, to suggest that they might not completely understand the motives of someone like myself, and offering to explain a bit. All I could get back was, "Yes, that's all very interesting, but what I don't understand is how you could be aware of Trump quality A, B, and C and still support him unless you're evil."

Where I really began to lose patience was with the casual remark that "history tends to be on the side of protestors." Really? Even Tea Partiers? That's our standard now, if anyone protests, he must be right? They should be trying a little harder to think these things through; it makes me think some of the commenters almost never have direct contact with anyone who disagrees.

raven said...

; it makes me think some of the commenters almost never have direct contact with anyone who disagrees.

Living in the Puget Sound, I can see why. And although I rarely come in contact with the corporate/scholastic world, indications are, voicing the "wrong" views can have a penalty. so there is some incentive to keep quiet.

douglas said...

" once a crack appears, it is very likely to propagate rapidly."
Raven, oh how I wish that were so, but usually all I can realistically hope for is another small step in the right direction. Most people aren't into politics enough to be suddenly swung- it's mostly peripheral to their everyday lives, except when it's not like when Trump wins, then suddenly their lives are ruined and they must rend their garments and wail loudly in public. The only stories I've seen of people who rather quickly changed their views are of people who were rather involved politically and things kept falling on the other side of the scale, but it wouldn't tip then one day something crossed the balance point and it tipped. The average person who isn't terribly political (beyond the usual 'virtue signaling' kind of 'political'), just isn't even having conversations that will drop something on the other side of the scale often enough.

Pretty much all I hope for is to make them a little more tolerant and understanding of us.

Texan99 said...

I was very involved in neighborhood politics back in Houston in the early 2000s, as we banded together to fight off a proposal to form a Homeowners' Association with lien and foreclosure powers. The battle lines were more big/small government, or sort of corporate/populist, than they were D/R. In fact the neighborhood was almost evenly split D/R. Lots of us worked in the trenches for quite a while before discovering that we were on opposite sides according to national political parties. It gave me a greater appreciation of D assumptions, so I hope it gave some of them a greater appreciation of mine. It was disappointing, though, how often someone would say, in effect, "I'm surprised to hear you have right-wing views. You seemed so reasonable." I would never have said the same to them in reverse. We were all interested in freedom; I could understand what the D party said to them about freedom, but honestly I'm not sure most of them ever understood what the R party said to me on the subject. They had a caricature of Rs as evil bankers or KKK members or something that couldn't easily be shaken. My gay friends still shake their heads doubtfully over me. I hear them thinking "How can you?"

Another thing I noticed was the sharp divide between what I think of as "country club R" and whatever I am. On my side of divide was a visceral hatred of intrusive deed restrictions, but on the country-club side there was more concern about keeping the neighborhood looking nice and uniform and spiffily middle-class, without those icky boats in the driveways. I didn't disagree 100%, I was just concerned that some of them didn't see a downside that needed to be guarded against. In the end, the whole "pooper-scooper" mentality got to me so badly that we needed to move far away into the sticks.

Grim said...

As I may have mentioned, a frequent experience of mine at the DNC protests was realizing that the wild-eyed Leftist radicals and I agree on everything -- except solutions. We were totally on board with each other until we got to, "...and thus let's seize the means of production!"

It was somewhat like the SNL "Black Jeopardy" sketch, except with left/right substituted for black/white.

Texan99 said...

So much of the problem is a disagreement about how things work. I often realize I share almost no assumptions with my interlocutors about where wealth comes from.

Ymar Sakar said...

Satan is said to also believe in God, he's not an atheist. But that doesn't mean Satan agrees with God what the solution to humanity should be or what the Divine Family should do with its disagreements.

In Iraq, the Sunni and Shia agree on many things, but that is precisely why they can kill each other. They argue over what to do about the things they agree on. And it is precisely why an outsider like the US military, can be trusted to arbitrate tribal and religious issues. Because they don't understand the US military, because they are so foreign and alien. Once the US military demonstrates honor and trust, it is easier for Kurds and Sunni to trust the US military leaders than it is for them to trust Shia tribals or vice a versa.

The Left doesn't have politics, they have a religion. It is trying to change their politics, that has made so many American patriots fail to change minds and hearts. If people treated it more like converting a Muslim to a Christian, as has happened, it would go with better results. Challenging theology and the fundamental axioms of the Left's religion is more effective than talking about emotions or motivations or facts or policies. Unfortunately, many Christian churches, fragments of Christendom, don't teach theological details and levers. People know as much about evil and the Divine War and God's Divine Family, as they do about how their microwave works, and with about as much motivation in learning.