I remember someone in the LessWrong community (I think Eliezer Yudkowsky, but maybe Robin Hanson or someone else, or maybe only Rationalist-adjacent; maybe an article or a podcast) saying that people believing in “UFOs” (or people believing in unproven theories of conspiracy) would stop being so enthusiastic about those if they became actually known as true with good evidence for them. does anyone know what I’m referring to?
If You Demand Magic, Magic Won’t Help” where he says at one point: “The worst catastrophe you could visit upon the New Age community would be for their rituals to start working reliably, and for UFOs to actually appear in the skies. What would be the point of believing in aliens, if they were just there, and everyone else could see them too? In a world where psychic powers were merely real, New Agers wouldn’t believe in psychic powers, any more than anyone cares enough about gravity to believe in it.
https://www.lesswrong.com/s/6BFkmEgre7uwhDxDR/p/iiWiHgtQekWNnmE6Q?fbclid=IwAR3xEBpBr_U_3sn_kVPvVbzYyq_6dDn4kzXDtSCgeFR6qgXl3dGXPWftIyo
I remember someone in the LessWrong community (I think Eliezer Yudkowsky, but maybe Robin Hanson or someone else, or maybe only Rationalist-adjacent; maybe an article or a podcast) saying that people believing in “UFOs” (or people believing in unproven theories of conspiracy) would stop being so enthusiastic about those if they became actually known as true with good evidence for them. does anyone know what I’m referring to?
Eliezer talks about how dragons wouldn’t be exciting if they were real, I recall.
I’m not sure that’s correct.
ah, someone found it: