taw comments on Undiscriminating Skepticism - Less Wrong
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True, but that is ignorance-of-omission. You seemed to be advocating a conscious decision to keep yourself ignorant of certain well-defined areas of knowledge. Apologies if this is not so.
Well, here's the hedonistic vs. goal-oriented view of rationality again. Not everything I do is directly related to satisfying immediate whims. I am a voter and also an engineer, as it happens. Both of these circumstances imply I have an ethical obligation to be at least somewhat conversant on questions of public policy & the environment.
If my "world-saving instincts" should be triggered, I want them triggered. Again, as a bare minimum, public policy depends on an informed public, and GW is a policy problem. But uninformed consent in a democracy is pointless, it doesn't count. We might just as well save money on ballot paper and install a grand Doge for all the functional difference it would entail.
If democracy depended on informed voters, then we could as well give it up and set up a single party government.
Fortunately it does not.