Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.
Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.
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Notes -
Easy. Until you hit the point where the person stating the belief will actually pay a significant personal cost for their stated belief turning out to be false.
This is one form of 'revealed preference.' If you say you believe something but you suffer no consequence for being incorrect, then you have no incentive to be truthful, and thus the signal is cheap and likely unreliable. Your REAL beliefs, on the other hand, will be reflected in how you behave when actual consequences, rewards, or punishment are on the line based on whether you get things right or not.
This is incidentally why Hanson strongly endorses prediction markets as a method of finding consensuses on 'truth' and why Caplan places bets on many of his own predictions.
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