Sometimes it is. Sometimes you have other enemies though, and signalling to them that you will shoot them might inspire them to gang up against you and shoot you first.
Most people reading this post will have some value functions that are not actually that different from each other, which are meant to optimise for general day-to-day flourishing of themselves and some limited set of other people they care about, and then perhaps to a lesser extent some aesthetic and moral preferences about the larger society they find themselves in. What I was aiming to demonstrate is that those people can quite rationally - towards their own value function - decide to dismiss this essay and not shift their opinion on Ivermectin, contra the "rationalists proven not so rational after all!" rhetoric that has been surrounding its propagation.
What I was aiming to demonstrate is that those people can quite rationally - towards their own value function - decide to dismiss this essay and not shift their opinion on Ivermectin
Only if their value function is not about making correct arguments and believing accurate things.
Of course, this then becomes a motte and bailey, where the motte is "it's rational because it wins according to a value function that doesn't value truth" and the bailey is "it's rational in the way that 'rational' is ordinarily used in this context".
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Why are you called The Motte?
A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently,
it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey",
originally identified by
philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial
but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens
this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for
the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired
propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."
On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.
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Notes -
Sometimes it is. Sometimes you have other enemies though, and signalling to them that you will shoot them might inspire them to gang up against you and shoot you first.
Most people reading this post will have some value functions that are not actually that different from each other, which are meant to optimise for general day-to-day flourishing of themselves and some limited set of other people they care about, and then perhaps to a lesser extent some aesthetic and moral preferences about the larger society they find themselves in. What I was aiming to demonstrate is that those people can quite rationally - towards their own value function - decide to dismiss this essay and not shift their opinion on Ivermectin, contra the "rationalists proven not so rational after all!" rhetoric that has been surrounding its propagation.
Only if their value function is not about making correct arguments and believing accurate things.
Of course, this then becomes a motte and bailey, where the motte is "it's rational because it wins according to a value function that doesn't value truth" and the bailey is "it's rational in the way that 'rational' is ordinarily used in this context".
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