
Intellectual Denial of Service Attacks, Part 2 - beepp
https://techiavellian.com/the-map-to-nowhere
======
chicob
It feels great when I read something that, somehow, I always believed but
could not exactly articulate.

I know people that believe that, most of the time, the best way to respond to
unreasonable or irrational petitions is to do it by means of answering the
actual points made, even if completely unwarranted and time consuming.

For instance, claims of some random paranormal effect should be put to the
test with proper scientific investigation, _like that would satisfy the
claimant and not take us in a never-ending endeavour_...

Sometimes, the best way to answer the problem is to make use of well tested
heuristics that, instead of going into the specific details, just make the
elephant in room more evident: some problems are simply not well put, or some
answers miss the point (e.g. the paranormal claim is pseudo-scientific
therefore will never accept a negative result, whichever it may be; to feed
the troll will not satiate the troll, etc).

~~~
malms
Mm you should spend some time with in a flatearther fb group. Thats when i
learnt the true sentence "dont wrestle with pigs, you get dirty and the pig
likes it" ><

~~~
tomhoward
Isn’t the Flat Earth movement a 4chan troll?

~~~
malms
If only ^^. Look at the fb groups and all the videos on yt

~~~
tomhoward
I pay no attention this stuff so it's all unfamiliar to me, hence my curiosity
I guess...

But how do you know that the people you're interacting with on FB aren't
trolls having a joke at your expense?

I get that there are some people who take it seriously, but I'm not sure it'd
be easy to tell the difference between a believer and a troll in an online
forum.

~~~
malms
I don't know they have normal profile of middle-class americans. Why so many
people would they lose time doing so much trolling without clear profit ?
Occam razor is my call here.

Also as Einstein said: there really only two things infinite: the universe and
people's stupidity.

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nilskidoo
As an alternative to a bad map or no map, sometimes alternative solutions get
shot down over pure arrogance, as with Musk's clear jealousy of that swim team
guy who saved the kids from the cave. Musk wanted to be the hero, that
mattered to him more than actually saving anybody, and so he went out of his
way to critique and defame. Instead of appreciating the job well done and
lives saved, he inserted himself into the situation. Jealousy can be a
powerful motive all by itself, and is too often weaponized.

Also, I wonder where the dividing line between epistemic humility and thinking
outside of boxes rests. I mean, is it purely circumstantial, or dependent upon
personality traits?

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jancsika
> Because of an epidemic of suicides and mental health issues, the government
> should provide unlimited free candy to every citizen, to make everyone
> happier.

I just noticed there are actually full performances on Youtube of Erik Satie's
_Vexations_ \-- a piece written in the 1890s in which the player is asked to
repeat a dissonant chorale theme 860 times.

That is a common, effective, and ethical rhetorical tactic people use every
day in conversation.

It's common because people aren't automatons who must respond to every
potential point of debate.

It's effective because it forces the would-be debater to reveal information.
Either they roll with the subject change and reveal their utterance as light
novelty and disarm, or they attempt to switch the conversation back to their
novelty, revealing themselves as a zealot (in this case).

It's ethical because if anyone in the group wants to participate in that
zealotry they can continue on the original topic. But everyone else has an
easy out through the non-sequitur. And it works just as well if the initial
utterance was a truth told to an ignorant crowd. Those who want to know more
can break off without the entire group being forced to become students.

Finally, if the interlocutor misjudged the situation, the non-sequitur is
ignored and the conversation continues unabated.

In all cases DOS is avoided.

If a medium doesn't support this tactic you might want to question the
efficacy of the medium.

~~~
soneca
Sorry, I didn't understand your comment. Do you care explaining it a little
bit more?

 _" That is a common, effective, and ethical rhetorical tactic people use
every day in conversation."_

What is a common, effective, rhetorical tactic? Repeating something dissonant
forever? I do not follow

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j_m_b
"The map is not the territory" is an idea originating from Alfred Korzybski.
He isn't even mentioned in this article.

~~~
beepp
I have edited my post to rectify this. Thank you for the suggestion.

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PaulHoule
I have a funny feeling that this guy is going to push an agenda, particularly
with his "free candy" example.

The trouble with the "the revolt of the masses" theme is that institutions are
failing us, experts are frequently wrong, and if you want to see fake experts
turn on cable news and there you are... Cokie Roberts is always warning
democrats to turn the right or otherwise we'll have to have somebody like
Pinochet purge the left (she won't tell you her husband was a foreign agent
for the Pinochet regime.)

All b.s. All the time was not invented by Facebook, look at how the rush
Limbaugh show was reality free before the web was invented.

~~~
atoav
Experts are frequently wrong, because they are frequently either not experts
at all, misrepresented or haven’t learned not to make wild guesses on the
media.

The media doesn’t care about anything, they want a face who can act as an
expert of the matter at hand, they don’t care if the expert has real expertise
— they care if the expert can say something experty that simple minds
understand.

Everbody who has seen known experts in a field on TV knows that they will tell
you afterwards that of that long interview session they just _had_ to take the
two sentences were you made the mistake of speculation. A mistake that stops
many real experts from speculating on TV or stops them totally from ever doing
TV stuff at all.

Of course you will always find real experts who enjoy it to have their voice
heard and their face seen, and they will abandon all ideals to get their egos
massaged — these will be kept on fast-dial by TV producers.

------
conjectures
There's definitely space for more thinking about epistemic security issues.

------
JTbane
>Experts wielding their jargon and credentials as devices to shut up non-
experts, even if non-experts have credible critiques and ideas to offer

I don't know if I can agree with this: a layperson might make some ridiculous
claim about vaccines causing autism, and a medical doctor absolutely has the
right to dismiss them based on credentials.

~~~
beepp
At this point, there is no _credible_ evidence I'm aware of that suggests
vaccines cause autism. Hence, a doctor dismissing those claims is reasonable
and expected. There is no claim here that non-experts necessarily have the
same credibility as experts.

My statement was more in reference to e.g. the use by some experts of esoteric
and potentially inaccurate models to silence critique by overwhelming non-
experts with jargon. "I spent years developing this model, what do you know?"

~~~
mistermann
> At this point, there is no _credible_ evidence I'm aware of that suggests
> vaccines cause autism.

This is true, but is the data upon which the statistics "proving" no causative
relationship _at all_ between vaccines and autism completely comprehensive and
absolutely correct? I wonder how many people who consider themselves educated
on the matter of vaccines have bothered to actually do any significant reading
on the subject.

> Hence, a doctor dismissing those claims is reasonable and expected.

Reasonable and expected sure, but objectively correct is another thing.

Similarly, asserting that vaccines _do_ cause autism is a very different thing
than simply asking for evidence that they do not, _ever_ , and wanting to know
specific details on the source/methodology behind the evidence.

Related, hat tip to lp2019 in the thread for part 1 of this essay:
[https://taibbi.substack.com/p/introduction-the-
fairway](https://taibbi.substack.com/p/introduction-the-fairway)

~~~
beepp
I do not consider myself educated on the matter of vaccines and am ill-
equipped to defend any position on either side :) To your point, proving a
negative such as "vaccines definitively do NOT cause autism, ever" with 100%
certainty is nontrivial. I simply haven't seen any compelling evidence that
they _are_ causally linked to autism, which is usually the claim.

~~~
mistermann
> I simply haven't seen any compelling evidence that they are causally linked
> to autism, which is usually the claim.

Nor have I, I am referring more so to the general public census (and
accompanying confidence level), and a very careful and critical reading of the
"facts" as presented by the medical "community".

Just as a fun mental experiment, imagine a purely hypothetical scenario where
vaccination reaction data is not _comprehensively_ collected, where the
methodology behind the statistical reporting involves an element of _personal
judgement_ (and therefore to some degree inconsistent and subject to personal
error), and the reporting guidelines are written in a way that there is a
relatively high bar before an adverse reaction incident should be reported. In
this hypothetical scenario, might it be _possible_ that the statistics
necessary to _suggest_ a _possible_ causative relationship _literally do not
exist_?

Now, go do some reading on the details of the _actual reality_ of the data and
the methodology behind its compilation. Then compare that to what is written
_about_ it in literature, or how it is discussed.

~~~
xtiansimon
Mistermann: “...asserting that vaccines do cause autism is a very different
thing than simply asking for evidence that they do not, ever...”

Logically, this doesn’t seem true—100% causality or 100% non-causality. The
very premise doesn’t seem “scientific”. Are you serious about this claim or
laying the groundwork for a different punchline?

I don’t know—maybe you should write an article outlining your response? I’ll
read it ;)

~~~
mistermann
> Logically, this doesn’t seem true—100% causality or 100% non-causality.

Even _sometimes_ satisfies "do cause autism". "do not, ever" (the popular
story), means zero.

We're told vaccines do not cause autism is a fact. Does comprehensive
"scientific" data exist to back this up, as we're told?

The punchline I guess is that everyone has a smug, rolling of the eyes
demeanor towards anyone who questions the narrative, but these people haven't
actually checked "the facts".

~~~
xtiansimon
"...but these people haven't actually checked "the facts"."

It sounds like a hard line, but science is not like that. I don't think
science leads to smugness. Science helps us make decisions, now. Ideology, on
the otherhand, is quick to judgment, undermines, subverts, misleads, and is a
general problem across all of society.

I knew a biologist who, believed their scientific findings, loved animals and
nature, but found humans lacking. That general disdain was eveident in
scarcastic jokes, and subversive attitudes towards society. They had to delete
their Facebook page for all the crap they would say, which people would jump
on. That's ideology, a secret belief in the way the world works.

