CriticalSteel comments on Intro-level training materials for rationality / critical thinking - Less Wrong
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Comments (58)
The "here be dragons" video is nonsence. Sorry.
He commits fallacies of his own in his explanation of fallacies.
He straw mans the entire vaccine debate and the fact that 9/11 was an inside job. Furthermore he casts doubt on "conspiracy theories" with a generalisation (that they are all theories) like a true evangelist.
There are many conspiracies that are historical fact; the Reichstag fire, the gulf of Tonkin, even Caesar’s murder.
I know mentioning the law is an appeal to authority, but, even the law knows of conspiracies. They have conspiracies to pervert the course of justice, conspiracies to commit crimes. And these arnt just coincidental terms.
"Here be dragons" fails, badly. Mainly, by assuming that Critical Thinking is on some sort of political side with science, or at least, the whole of science. Instead of being, in entirety, about analysing evidence.
Anyone who downvoted CriticalSteel just for his unpopular positions should be ashamed of themselves.
That having been said, he deserves enough downvotes, for the obnoxious and arrogant manner he uses later in the thread. Just not for this initial post.
Not at all. It is entirely legitimate to down-vote completely crackpot ideas purely because hearing the same old completely crackpot ideas can be annoying. It would also be legitimate to downvote the grandparent based off the arguments therein. They aren't nearly as ridiculous as what they descend into later in the thread but the "like a true evangelist" line as well as move to the entirely different kind of 'conspiracy' used in law (rather far removed from popular 'conspiracy theories') are both potentially downvote-worthy.
Would it be legitimate for me to downvote people the next time they mention ideas that I consider completely crackpot (like quantum immortality), or ideas that most of the world considers completely crackpot (like many-worlds)?
The arguments contained in the ancestor post criticize "Here Be Dragons" for actual failings contained therein. That the specific ideas mentioned (9/11 conspiracy, autism-vaccine connection) are considered crackpot doesn't mean one is allowed to strawman them. It's all the more reason that one doesn''t even have to strawman them.
I tend to presume less control of other people's voting behavior than you seem to.
I tried to accommodate the 9/11 trutherism by pointing to videos discussing the problems inherent in conspiracy theories that did not use that as an example. I didn't downvote the original post and ignored early signs of confusion about how words work:
This was followed in subsequent posts by map-territory confusion:
That the video did not use the word "evidence" does not strongly imply that evidence was not provided. Spelling and grammar are tools to limit confusion, and writing "the word 'evidence'" as "the word evidence" isn't helping him.
The response:
At this point, I was done but he went on:
To his credit, he apparently actually went and read about it, as he later said:
He doesn't understand how words work, doesn't understand beliefs and reality, and doesn't understand how to change his mind. I disagree with the implication that things other than tone aren't sufficient reasons to downvote his other posts.
It is not a coincidence that one person's arguments, sentences, and words are all muddled.
I endorse what wedrifid said as a reply to the new person's posts:
I agree. I downvoted some of his posts, not because he might not have a point, but because he was using a style that I do not appreciate on lesswrong: unneeded profanity, half-formed thoughts, aggressive tone, and (I'll admit) bad spelling.
However, I would not (and did not) down vote this original post, which seems like a reasonable argument (from the POV of someone who has not watched whatever video they are discussing)
...the Al-Qaeda conspiracies to blow up the World Trade Center...
HBD is tedious, and The Critical Thinker just added better conspiracy theory videos.
Part 1, Part 2