"Bounded Distrust" where he defended Fauci's choice to lie to the public and to the congress was his coming out party and now this is simply who he is.
I suspected this was an inaccurate summary so I reread Bounded Distrust and he doesn't mention Fauci once. Also he doesn't defend anyone else either (besides defending conspiracy theorists as being understandably suspicious of mainstream sources), it's about extracting information from misleading/untrustworthy sources, not saying it is good for them to be misleading. It's so far from your description that I am wondering if this a distorted description of some other post but then you also remembered the wrong title.
He talks about Fauci here. Hlynka may have been getting these posts up, given that this post largely reads as apologia for Fauci being less-than-maximally honest.
I agree with Hlynka’s interpretation. Scott might as well have called it ‘In defense of liars’ – letting lies fester is his thing now.
In Bounded Distrust, he wants us to consider information in a vaccuum, possessing a certain deracinated signal-to-noise ratio. He wants us to ignore the liar status of the speaker, softly whispering that it's not that bad if he is. But there is a bright line here, between the speaker (journalist, sociologist, authority figure) who inadvertently tells a falsehood, and the one who knowingly does so.
The only reason why the latter still sometimes tells the truth, is because he doesn’t think he can get away with bigger lies. Morally, as far as I’m concerned, he’s done. As a source of information, we’re always better off asking another man, since the liar’s statements, at best, merely reflect what others can prove.
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Notes -
I suspected this was an inaccurate summary so I reread Bounded Distrust and he doesn't mention Fauci once. Also he doesn't defend anyone else either (besides defending conspiracy theorists as being understandably suspicious of mainstream sources), it's about extracting information from misleading/untrustworthy sources, not saying it is good for them to be misleading. It's so far from your description that I am wondering if this a distorted description of some other post but then you also remembered the wrong title.
He talks about Fauci here. Hlynka may have been getting these posts up, given that this post largely reads as apologia for Fauci being less-than-maximally honest.
More options
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I agree with Hlynka’s interpretation. Scott might as well have called it ‘In defense of liars’ – letting lies fester is his thing now.
In Bounded Distrust, he wants us to consider information in a vaccuum, possessing a certain deracinated signal-to-noise ratio. He wants us to ignore the liar status of the speaker, softly whispering that it's not that bad if he is. But there is a bright line here, between the speaker (journalist, sociologist, authority figure) who inadvertently tells a falsehood, and the one who knowingly does so.
The only reason why the latter still sometimes tells the truth, is because he doesn’t think he can get away with bigger lies. Morally, as far as I’m concerned, he’s done. As a source of information, we’re always better off asking another man, since the liar’s statements, at best, merely reflect what others can prove.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link