Privileged Snuff

I like this method of inverted statement reasoning. It sounds very useful for rational reasoning in everyday life as well as these more esoteric questions.

We have done this one.

Today, in a Freshman Critical Thinking class I am taking to fill time, the professor brought up this specific issue today (Privileging the Hypothesis that the LHC could destroy the world), and the issues of the Creationist who attacks evolutionary theory.

Even though I already have most of the tools he will be providing in class, the class will be an excellent opportunity to do two things: 1) Keep my GPA high, and 2) keep practicing critical thinking skills. I supposed that I could add other things for which it will be an excellent opportunity (such as finding others who are interested in similar topics, and possibly directing them to LW).

And, then this evening, I had to endure a group of ignorant men who spent most of the evening discussing how they could privilege each other's hypotheses about life (and all were incredibly wrong right from the beginning). Yet, I was not in a position to point out the errors being committed. I will probably do so next time. These guys are not idiots, just very misled and pointed in the wrong direction.

I will need to keep this post in mind, so that I may re-read it before next week. It will be valuable in helping the lost and uncritical minds out there.

Not sure this is right for a top-level post - it could have been a comment in the discussion on The Prediction Hierarchy.

It is the hypothesis that snuffing out progress, extinguishing futures that might have been, is the safe option.

"Progress" is hindsight bias; you don't know when you're snuffing whether it'll eventually be understood as progress or regress by the people who survive the change to make the judgment.

Conversely, we know the LHC is not going to destroy the world, because nature has been banging particles together at much higher energy levels for billions of years. If that sufficed to destroy the world, it would already have happened, and any people you might happen to meet from time to time would be figments of a deranged imagination.

I don't know if this argument is quite valid. AFAIK there are specific differences in the way the particles are being banged together in the LHC. One of those being that at point of impact their relative speed to the earth will be reduced to 0 so any black hole created will be stationary in relation to the earth. Also there might actually be some places in the universe where black holes have been generated in similar fashion but we don't know about it.

The truth is I don't know enough physics to really understand the potential dangers and I assume that neither do most people who write about the LHC. All I can do is hope that the people who are in charge know what they are doing.

The fact that nature is banging particles at higher energies together should make it easy to get the million statements together. In 2011 no black hole will form because of two particles banging together with that amount of energy. In 2012 no no black hole will form because of two particles banging together with that amount of energy. ... In 1000012 no no black hole will form because of two particles banging together with that amount of energy.

There you have a million predictions and I'm certain that they are all true.

I only call green numbers probabilities.

I agree with the gist of your post, but this paragraph:

Conversely, we know the LHC is not going to destroy the world, because nature has been banging particles together at much higher energy levels for billions of years...

is a common argument, that doesn't really stand up once you take into account anthropic bias.