CraigMichael's Shortform

Richard Hanania mentions Metaculus at like 10:05 here. Was just happy to see discussion of predictions markets in this context.

Do you know how to say “Chesterton’s fence” in Latin? It’s “quod supplantandum, prius bene sciendum” which translates to "You must thoroughly understand that which you hope to supplant.”

I came across it on the Wikipedia list of Latin phrases. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_Latin_phrases_(full)&previous=yes

If you've been following the FLCCC/Ivermectin story, this interview with Eric Osgood and David Fuller will likely be interesting to you. Eric was part of the FLCCC and recently left over their views on Covid vaccines. https://rebelwisdom.podbean.com/e/ivermectin-the-backstory-of-the-flccc-eric-osgood/

I believe there's a lot we can learn about rationalism from this saga, and I'm anxious to write a full article dissecting some of the lessons. There's something like the failure of the Information Hypothesis, and the problem of  "smarter" and more educated people tending to become polarized more easily. 

https://www.vox.com/2014/4/6/5556462/brain-dead-how-politics-makes-us-stupid

https://www.pnas.org/content/114/36/9587

A point David made towards the end (paraphrasing) "if you know anything about human psychology, you know that shaming people doesn't change their minds" should be surfaced as discussed more often. I've seen this phenomenon where people, when attacked, just dig in their heels more. I feel a bit like there should be a term for this, but I'm not currently aware of one.

Anyway-- I feel like that's what's happened with Bret, Heather and other rationalist-adjacent people here: they're very smart, educated, and heterodox thinkers, but they were attacked in a vicious way and became more polarized. It reminds me a bit of effort justification or sunk cost, but it's not exactly either of those. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effort_justification

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_cost

If you're looking for a solid take from the Israeli side regarding the current conflict, I would start here: 

https://www.jewishagency.org/special-briefing-05-2021/

It was cut short because the air-raid sirens started going about 22 minutes in. As far as I know everyone on the video is safe at the moment. 

I was in Israel in February of 2020, just slightly before the world changed, and had an opportunity to meet Michael Oren (I suppose you could say I had some bias because my wife is related to him in a roundabout way... which I suppose means I'm related to him in a... circuitous way?). I don't agree with him on everything, but I can speak to quality of his character. 

Since traveling there, my take on all things Israeli-Palestinian conflict--if the person talking about it hasn't spent time in Israeli and Palestine, seen the area, and talked to people there... I hate to sound close-minded, but I'm likely to discount what they say, especially since taking one side or the other in the US is sometimes more about virtue signaling than genuine concern.

Trust me, I had plenty of opinions on the matter and was well aware of the counter points to them that are common in the US. Every idea I had fell flat when I encountered the on-the-ground complexity.  

The larger problem--even for the people who are genuinely concerned--the conflict there is not sufficiently analogous to other historical situations (or current and better understood political conflicts) that I'm aware of. If you're in North America and have never been there, whatever model you have of it in your mind almost certainly has significant gaps. 

I left with some vague ideas of different ways of looking at it that might help, but was more or less thinking "wow... I'm not a stupid person, but this situation is really complicated and I have no idea what the next best move is. I'm scared to even hazard a guess because I'd hate for anyone to misconstrue it as advice and share some burden for things potentially going sideways."