On Investigating Conspiracy Theories

A key point underpinning my thoughts, which I don't think this really responds to, is that scientific consensus actually is really good, so good I have trouble finding anecdotes of things in the reference class of ivermectin turning out to be true (reference class: things that almost all the relevant experts think are false and denounce full-throatedly as a conspiracy theory after spending a lot of time looking at the evidence).

There are some, maybe many, examples of weaker problems. For example, there are frequent examples of things that journalists/the government/professional associations want to *pretend* is scientific consensus, getting proven wrong - I claim if you really look carefully, the scientists weren't really saying those things, at least not as intensely as they were saying ivermectin didn't work. There are frequent examples of scientists being sloppy and firing off an opinion on something they weren't really thinking hard about and being wrong. There are frequent examples of scientists having dumb political opinions and trying to dress them up as science. I can't give a perfect necessary-and-sufficient definition of the relevant reference class. But I think it's there and recognizable.

I stick to my advice that people who know they're not sophisticated should avoid trying to second-guess the mainstream, and people who think they might be sophisticated should sometimes second-guess the mainstream when there isn't the exact type of scientific consensus which has a really good track record (and hopefully they're sophisticated enough to know when that is).

I'm not sure how you're using "free riding" here. I agree that someone needs to do the work of forming/testing/challenging opinions, but I think if there's basically no chance you're right (eg you're a 15 year old with no scientific background who thinks they've discovered a flaw in E=mc^2), that person is not you, and your input is not necessary to move science forward. I agree that person shouldn't cravenly quash their own doubt and pretend to believe, they should continue believing whatever rationality compels them to believe, which should probably be something like "This thing about relativity doesn't seem quite right, but given that I'm 15 and know nothing, on the Outside View I'm probably wrong." Then they can either try to learn more (including asking people what they think of their objection) and eventually reach a point where maybe they do think they're right, or they can ignore it and go on with their lives.

1. The ones telling you not to ‘do your own research’ are probably the baddies.
2. Also applies to the ones telling you to ‘trust us and Trust the Science’ and calling you an idiot or racist or calling for you to be censored if you disagree.

It's bad enough to use the same epistemology habits for in-person communication and social media (lesswrong is a third category, not social media). But implying that people should run the exact same bayesian algorithms on social media and in-person communication, without distinguishing between the two at all, without implying there is a distinction, is really a serious issue.

Like, there are no baddies in person. Given that you're in person, you're probably talking with them, and given that you're talking with them, you're probably at least a little invested in that particular conversation being not awful. On social media, basically nothing is worth doing, and everyone is only there because they've vastly overestimated the value that social media gives them.

Very much not asking that anyone write a new post on Climate Change, since I assume a good discussion on that topic exists, but ... does anyone have a recommended link to a critical analysis of those questions comparable to Scott Alexander's discussion of Ivermectin, one that neither assumes a priori that the environmental science community will always get such questions right nor that those who question the approved science are idiots?

And, yes, I have read Climate Change 2022: Mitigation of Climate Change (ipcc.ch), and several previous editions, but that is not at all what I am looking for. 

Note: My intended audience is the occasional college student who asks in good faith, generally almost in a whisper because of the (inappropriate) stigma of even asking. 

When I was about ten years old, the experts told me that animal fat was poisonous to a top predator. I did try eating margarine, but it seemed kind of nasty.

Ever since, I have had a certain amount of trouble trusting the experts. I wonder if the methods the experts are using are really the sorts of methods that reliably find the truth.

But as a very wise man once said:

Three can keep a secret, if two be dead. And if I thought my hat knew my counsel I would cast it into the fire.

If a theory relies on there being a conspiracy, then that is a priori a very high burden on it. Conspiracies are hard and unstable.

Once there's an actual conspiracy theory about your conspiracy, the cat is pretty much out of the bag, and it becomes even harder and less stable.

I do think that it can be a good heuristic to pay attention to the thoughts that are unwise to express in polite company. But it's usually not so much a conspiracy as the usual human tendency to try to silence political enemies, which needs little co-ordination.

the goal is to have fewer people believe things in the category ‘conspiracy theory.’ 

Depends how we define the term — a "conspiracy theory" is more than just a hypothesis that a conspiracy took place. Conspiracy theories tend to come with a bundle of suspicious behaviors.

Consider: as soon as three of four Nord Stream pipelines ruptured, I figured that Putin ordered it. This is an even more "conspiratorial" thought than I usually have, mainly because, before it happened, I thought Putin was bluffing by shutting down Nord Stream 1 and that he would (1) restore the gas within a month or two and (2) finally back down from the whole "Special Military Operation" thing. So I thought Putin would do X one week and decided that he had done opposite-of-X  the next week, and that's suspicious—just how a conspiracy theorist might respond to undeniable facts! Was I doing something epistemically wrong? I think it helped that I had contemplated whether Putin would double down and do a "partial mobilization" literally a few minutes before I heard the news that he had done exactly that. I had given a 40% chance to that event, so when it happened, I felt like my understanding wasn't too far off base. And, once Putin had made another belligerent, foolish and rash decision in 2022, it made sense that he might do a third thing that was belligerent, foolish and rash; blowing up pipelines certainly fits the bill. Plus, I was only like 90% sure Putin did it (the most well-known proponents of conspiracy theorists usually seem even more certain).

When I finally posted my "conspiracy theory" on Slashdot, it was well-received, even though I was mistaken in my mind about the Freeport explosion (it only reduced U.S. export capacity by 16%; I expected more). I then honed the argument a bit for the ACX version. I think most people who read it didn't pick up on it being a "conspiracy theory". So... what's different about what I posted versus what people recognize as a "conspiracy theory"?

• I didn't express certainty
• I just admitted a mistake about Freeport. Conspiracy theorists rarely weaken their theory based on new evidence. Also note that I found the 16% figure by actively seeking it out, and I updated my thinking based on it, though it didn't shift the probability by a lot. (I would've edited my post, but Slashdot doesn't support editing.)
• I didn't "sound nuts" (conspiracy theorists often lack self-awareness about how they sound)
• It didn't appear to be in the "conspiracy theory cluster". Conspiracy theorists usually believe lots of odd things. Their warped world model usually bleeds into the conspiracy theory somehow, making it "look like" a conspiracy theory.

My comment appears in response to award-winning^[1] journalist Seymour Hersh's piece. Hersh has a single anonymous source saying that Joe Biden blew up Nord Stream, even though this would harm the economic interests of U.S. allies. He shows no signs of having vetted his information, but he solicits official opinions and is told "this is false and complete fiction". After that, he treats his source's claims as undisputed facts — so undisputed that claims from the anonymous source are simply stated as raw statements of truth, e.g. he says "The plan to blow up Nord Stream 1 and 2 was suddenly downgraded" rather than "The source went on to say that the plan to blow up Nord Stream 1 and 2 was suddenly downgraded". Later, OSINT investigator Oliver Alexander pokes holes in the story, and then finds evidence that NS2 ruptured accidentally (which explains why only one of the two NS2 lines was affected) while NS1 was blown up with help from the Minerva Julie, owned by a Russia-linked company. He also notes that the explosives destroyed low points in the pipelines that would minimize corrosion damage to the rest of the lines. This information doesn't affect Hersh's opinions, and his responses are a little strange [1][2][3]. Finally, Oliver points out that the NS1 damage looks different from the NS2 damage.

If you see a theory whose proponents have high certainty, refuse to acknowledge data that doesn't fit the theory (OR: enlarge the conspiracy to "explain" the new data by assuming it was falsified), speak in the "conspiracy theory genre", and sound unhinged, you see a "conspiracy theory"^[2]. If it's just a hypothesis that a conspiracy happened, then no.

So, as long as people are looking for the right signs of a "conspiracy theory", we should want fewer people to believe things in that category. So in that vein, it's worth discussing which signs are more or less important. What other signs can we look for?

1. ^{^}

   He won a Pulitzer Prize 53 years ago

2. ^{^}

   Hersh arguably ticks all these boxes, but especially the first two which are the most important. Hersh ignores the satellite data, and assumes the AIS ship location data is falsified (on both the U.S. military ship(s) and the Russia-linked ship?)

(Mod note: The TM in Science™ wasn't supposed to be gigantic, that happened during crossposting. I have edited it back to normal size.)

If you think you can beat the American __ Association over a long run average, that's great news for you!  That means free money!

Being right is super valuable, and you should monetize it immediately.

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Anything else is just hot air.

When it seems worthwhile, do your own research.

If you leave it at "seems", it is going to be bias driven [*]. How about "develop the ability to reason objectively about when you should do your own research"?

[*] Note how contrarianism about climate change and evolution are driven by politics and religion.

No, we cannot assume that the medical establishment, or any other establishment, will always get such questions right. That is not how any of this works. Even the best possible version of the medical (or other) establishment will sometimes get it wrong, if no one points it out without being dismissed as a conspiracy theorist or racist then the establishment will keep getting it wrong and so will you, and criticism is the only known antidote to error in such situations

But remember that just because the official version of X is imperfect , that doesn't mean the alternative version is better. Distinguish the absolute and the relative.

Idiocy, Intellect, and Infohazard

Formulating these illustrates the key technique for productively engaging the obviously false, or the hopelessly muddled: make up simple frames, doesn't matter if they are apt and capture the intended nuance, develop them enough to restate some of the claims in a coherent way, gain ability to clearly think about something related, even if it's not the intended thing.

At best, you'll capture a kernel of a truth in all the nonsense, even if it's not actually there in the intended senses of the claims being made; and if it's there, a seed for framing it should be easy to notice. At worst, you'll give too much credence to some nonsense, so it's best to give priority to understanding (what the claims you made up mean, which distinctions and arguments should be natural to consider important), not to knowing (whether you understand the intended claims and not just your own made up claims correctly, if the intended claims are true, which arguments are well-supported).

As always, the hard part is not saying "Boo! conspiracy theory!" and "Yay! scientific theory!"

The hard part is deciding which is which