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Polymeron comments on Dark Side Epistemology - Less Wrong
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Comments (110)
>I'm looking for Dark Side epistemology itself - the Generic Defenses of Fail.
Relax. It will be over soon.
We're past that now.
X is supernatural.
X is natural.
You're correct, but it will make people uncomfortable.
You're smart. You should go to college.
Why do you consider
among these? It seems like the odd one out.
I've had forms of this said to me; it basically means "I'm losing the debate because you personally are smart, not because I'm wrong. Whichever authority I listen to in order to reinforce my existing beliefs would surely crush all your arguments. So stop assailing me with logic..."
It's Dark Side because it surrenders personal understanding to authority, and treats it as a default epistemological position.
Dark side or not it is quite often valid. People who do not trust their ability to filter bullshit from knowledge should not defer to whatever powerful debater attempts to influence them.
It is no error to assign a low value to p(the conclusion expressed is valid | I find the argument convincing).
No, and argument from authority can be a useful heuristic in certain cases, but at least you'd want to take away the one or two arguments you found most compelling and check them out later. In that sense, this is borderline.
Usually, however, this tactic is employed by people who are just looking for an excuse to flee into the warm embrace of an unassailable authority, often after scores of arguments they made were easily refuted. It is a mistake to give a low value to p(my position is mistaken | 10 arguments I have made have been refuted to my satisfaction in short order).
Isn't "Dark Side" approximately "effective, but dangerous"?