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Notes -
I think part of the reason (which you seem to understand) that people immediately resort to extremely sketchy thinking in culture war debates is that often the debate is really more about inherently unfalsifiable, aesthetic, ethical or metaphysical claims that aren’t arrived at through logic or reason. But trying to argue my personal aesthetic or ethical preferences are the best is very unconvincing to anyone, so these debates turn into the battle of who has more studies they can toss out there to prove their preferences are objectively better for everyone.
Often this turns out to a tennis match of who’s studies are more methodologically flawed or faked or whatever. But I think another part of the problem with Data and Studies is that most people have certain opinions where they think they know what’s good for other people, better than those other people know for themselves. And I think in those cases, how can you possibly use data to change someone’s mind?
You could come up with the most methodologically sound study in the world which proves that everyone is happier when they do XYZ. But if my belief is that, sure, I think those people think they are happier when they do XYZ, but it actually makes everything worse in some difficult to quantify way, then there’s basically no amount of data showing that people are subjectively better off doing XYZ that can convince you otherwise. And I don’t think that’s an irrational position to hold, or the same thing as assuming the conclusion and arguing backwards from there. I think most people feel something close to this about drugs or junk food. But it’s very difficult to argue this convincingly to anyone who doesn’t already agree in some sense, especially in a short debate format and on a topic where it’s near impossible to quantitatively prove the causality for XYZ being a net harm.
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