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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   29600 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 6, 2023

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I really don't like the rat-adjacent obsession with the idea of "priors". It's just a fancy way of saying "I believe X" or "I don't believe X" and acting like that somehow means the burden of proof is on the opposition.

I’d change my mind if mainstream outlets can point to a smoking gun.

Sure much like with the Twitter Files, it'll be a conspiracy theory until it becomes undeniable, at which point we'll hear "this is nothing new, why are you talking about it?".

If the OP wants personal opinions, priors are appropriate. I don’t believe the US did it, or that Sy Hersh would be scooping it on substack if we did. As such, yeah, I’m claiming the burden of proof is on the opposition—if they care about convincing me.

the difference between prior assumptions and beliefs is that priors are expected to update or change with new info whereas beliefs tend to be much closer to permanent. Its a way for people to say "i currently believe X but i'm not married to the conclusion" in fewer words.

That said its also the designated socially acceptable space to traffic obvious personal bias into an otherwise ratty conversation, so i do understand being annoyed by it. "those aren't my unsupported dogmatic opinions, those are just my priors"

It's funny because netstack was basically saying "I believe the US will never blow up energy infrastructure" and "I don't believe in evidence from substack."

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