Vladimir_M comments on Reasons for being rational - Less Wrong

57 Post author: Swimmer963 01 July 2011 03:28PM

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Comment author: Vladimir_M 27 June 2011 01:45:41AM *  7 points [-]

Very little is actually unthinkable in the educated world -- but if you're going to voice opinions outside the Overton window you'd better voice them in terms of actual arguments.

That depends on how far you are outside the Overton window, and also in what direction. On some particularly charged topics where the respectable opinion is remote from reality (or at the very least lacking firm justification and open to serious doubt), people are aware that there are plausible-sounding arguments against the respectable opinion, but believe that this is just seductive propaganda by crackpots or villains that has been decidedly debunked by the respectable authorities. (Even though that's not the case, and the existing attempts at debunking are in fact severely flawed.) So even if you make a perfectly calm, logical, and scholarly argument against the respectable opinion, you'll just trigger people's alarms, without being able to make them listen.

Comment author: khafra 27 June 2011 06:42:26PM 3 points [-]

Anecdotally, the recent essay advocating whipping ("In Defense of Flogging") in place of jail sentences has been reprinted everywhere from the CBC to my local free paper.

Comment author: sam0345 28 June 2011 02:15:20AM 2 points [-]

Not seeing reprints of Nei's paper "The Root of the Phylogenetic Tree of Human Populations"

Comment author: [deleted] 29 June 2011 07:39:24AM 0 points [-]

It's available freely online.

Comment author: jsalvatier 27 June 2011 05:01:39PM 3 points [-]