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thomblake comments on Is Politics the Mindkiller? An Inconclusive Test - Less Wrong
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META: Upvoted for using empiricism.
Where can I find a defense of the (ETA: seemingly) implied claim that whatever sells itself as testing something can be assumed to have greater benefits than costs without further analysis?
I don't see the implication. If I upvoted a post for its eloquence, would you infer that I assume without further analysis that any eloquently phrased idea has greater benefits than costs?
If an eloquent but otherwise really damaging post were made, and someone commented "upvoted for eloquence" and received a lot of upvotes in turn, I might similarly complain. Moreover, eloquence (with its resulting good feelings in the reader) is more of a goal that one can sometimes successfully achieve, whereas empiricism is more of a strategy that one can freely take but that often isn't worthwhile; this makes me skeptical of the analogy.
ETA: also, there may be relevant differences between upvoting for eloquence and saying one is upvoting for eloquence, and between claiming that something can be assumed and assuming.
You have added a hypothesis: namely that the original post is "really damaging." If you think so about this particular post, come out and say it. Moreover, if you do think so, you should make it a top-level comment, rather than hiding it in this thread, as if Thom Blake and Pragmatist were the only people who disagree with you. Practically everyone participating in this thread is implicitly claiming that the thread is not "really damaging" simply by participating.
Claim not implied. I would like to see more posts where people try to use empiricism. People should generally be encouraged to actually test things more often.