I do think there’s something sort of like a silent evidence problem for civilizational inadequacy. Something resembling green rationalists. There’s a natural tendency for claims of inadequacy to offend someone, because there’s a claim that someone is doing something wrong. As a result, there’s a natural tendency for evidence and arguments for inadequacy to soften as they get passed along the social web. A tendency to preferentially fill in excuses rather than condemnations.
So I have a tendency to pay more attention to the pro-inadequacy pieces of evidence that make it to me, because I think they’re probably more like what the real world looks like under the hood, and somewhat ignore arguments to the effect that they’re not as big a failure as they first appear.
Makes sense.
I do think there’s something sort of like a silent evidence problem for civilizational inadequacy. Something resembling green rationalists. There’s a natural tendency for claims of inadequacy to offend someone, because there’s a claim that someone is doing something wrong. As a result, there’s a natural tendency for evidence and arguments for inadequacy to soften as they get passed along the social web. A tendency to preferentially fill in excuses rather than condemnations.
Self-consciousness wants to make everything about itself. It’s like the parable of the gullible king.
So I have a tendency to pay more attention to the pro-inadequacy pieces of evidence that make it to me, because I think they’re probably more like what the real world looks like under the hood, and somewhat ignore arguments to the effect that they’re not as big a failure as they first appear.
But such reasoning should be employed cautiously.