False opinions are like false money, struck first of all by guilty men and thereafter circulated by honest people who perpetuate the crime without knowing what they are doing
--Joseph de Maistre, Les soirées de Saint-Pétersbourg, Ch. I
I think this quote implies that most false opinions were deliberately invented to further someone’s agenda, and I don’t think that’s true. People’s brains just aren’t optimised for forming true opinions.
(This is something of a sore point with me, as I’ve met too many religious people who challenge atheism with “What? You think [famously good guy X] was lying?”)
And if you say that “guilty” here means not bothering to properly investigate before forming an opinion, then those who continue circulating it are equally guilty for not bothering to investigate before accepting an opinion.
(This is something of a sore point with me, as I’ve met too many religious people who challenge atheism with “What? You think [famously good guy X] was lying?”)
Which exemplifies why “faith” isn’t about belief in propositions so much as it is about trust in individuals (including imagined or possible individuals). Many religionists will even tell you so out front: that while the creed is important, having a trust relationship with God (or Jesus, or the Church, or a guru, etc.) is what their faith is all about.
To my way of thinking, it’s quite possible for me to be fully responsible for a chain of events (for example, if they would not have occurred if not for my action, and I was aware of the likelihood of them occurring given my action, and no external forces constrained my choice so as to preclude acting differently) and for other people upstream and downstream of me to also be fully responsible for that chain of events. This is no more contradictory than my belief that object A is to the left of object B from one perspective and simultaneously to the right of object A from another. Responsibility is not some mysterious fluid out there in the world that gets portioned out to individuals, it’s an attribute that we assign to entities in a mental and/or social model.
You seem to be claiming that models wherein total responsibility for an event is conserved across the entire known causal chain are superior to mental models where it isn’t, but I don’t quite see why i ought to believe that.
You seem to be claiming that models wherein total responsibility for an event is conserved across the entire known causal chain are superior to mental models where it isn’t, but I don’t quite see why i ought to believe that.
My instinct tells me that dividing 1 responsibility per outcome throughout responsible actors is doomed to reduce to “The full responsibility is equally divided across the entire states of the Universe leading up to this point, since any small difference could have led to a different outcome”. This would make it awfully similar to the argument that no human can be responsible for any crime in a deterministic universe since they did not have control over their actions.
To me, it feels anti-bayesian, but I lack the expertise to verify this.
I don’t endorse the model of “1 responsibility per outcome” that can be divided. Neither do I endorse the idea that responsibility is incompatible with a deterministic universe. Also, I have no idea what you mean by “anti-bayesian” here.
Yes, the post was in agreement with you, and attempting to visualize / illustrate / imagine a potential way the model could be shown to be flawed.
As for feeling “anti-bayesian”, the idea that a set amount of responsibility exists to be distributed over actors for any event seems completely uncorrelated with reality and independent of any evidence. It feels just like an arbitrary system of categorization, like using “golborf” as a new term for “LessWrong users that own a house, don’t brush their teeth daily, drink milk daily, enjoy classical music and don’t work in IT-related fields”.
That little feeling somewhere that “This thing doesn’t belong here in my model.”, that there are freeloading nodes that need to be purged.
I’m very surprised as to why is this so upvoted, other than the fact that some of the LW crowd really loves 19th century right-wing writers. The statement is patently untrue.
Even in regard to hard-line reactionaries themselves and their political circumstances; did de Maistre think that Voltaire or Rousseau or even Robespierre ever consciously produced “false opinions” to befuddle the masses?
No way; even later conservatives, like Burke and Chesterton, have admitted that if the French Revolution went wrong somewhere (and Chesterton thought it was off to a good start), it must have been a mistake, not a crime.
I know ~nothing about the historical events which you allude to, but I upvoted the quote because experience tells me it’s very true in real life. E.g. a journalist writes a news article that contains lies about its subject matter, and the link to the article gets widely shared by honest people who presume that it’s telling the truth. Or a dishonest scientist makes up his data, and then gets cited by honest scientists.
Oh. In that case, well, it’s true about local “opinions” but false about views on global things. Like the so-called free market (which is mostly not free) or the so-called democracy (which is mostly not ruled by the People): I believe that most nominally educated people today have a pretty reasonable assessment of their value: they kinda work, and even bring some standard of living, but do so very ineffectively. So the only “false opinions” on this scale are just ritual statements semi-consciously produced out of fear of empowering the enemies of the present structure. I might make a great and benevolent dictator, but I can’t trust my heir; so I’d rather endorse “democracy” steered by experts. Both the “democracy” and the “free market” are part of what we are, therefore we must defend them vigilantly.
Fortunately, we’re leaving such close-mindedness behind. Unfortunately, we might have the illusion of not needing any other abstract concepts to use for our social identity. Humans always do! If we don’t believe in Democracy, then we must believe in the Catholic Church, or Fascism, or Moldbuggery, or Communism, or Direct Theocracy (like in Banks’ Culture). But believe we will.
Unfortunately, we might have the illusion of not needing any other abstract concepts to use for our social identity. Humans always do! If we don’t believe in Democracy, then we must believe in the Catholic Church, or Fascism, or Moldbuggery, or Communism, or Direct Theocracy (like in Banks’ Culture). But believe we will.
This sounds somewhat like the assertion, usually made by religious critics of science, that “everyone believes in something; your faith is in Science” (or Darwin, or the like). Would you care to distinguish these assertions?
I’m very surprised as to why is this so upvoted, other than the fact that some of the LW crowd really loves 19th century right-wing writers.
I don’t think it’s a very good quote but I’d guess that the majority of readers didn’t know/notice/remember he was a 19th century right-wing writer. As such few people would associate this quote with opposition to the French Revolution, or even politics—people would first think of such things as religions.
And I’d put money on Mohammed, Joseph Smith and Apostle Paul to have been deliberate conmen. (I’m leaving out Jesus, because I’d put odds on him being just delusional)
--Joseph de Maistre, Les soirées de Saint-Pétersbourg, Ch. I
I think this quote implies that most false opinions were deliberately invented to further someone’s agenda, and I don’t think that’s true. People’s brains just aren’t optimised for forming true opinions.
(This is something of a sore point with me, as I’ve met too many religious people who challenge atheism with “What? You think [famously good guy X] was lying?”)
And if you say that “guilty” here means not bothering to properly investigate before forming an opinion, then those who continue circulating it are equally guilty for not bothering to investigate before accepting an opinion.
Which exemplifies why “faith” isn’t about belief in propositions so much as it is about trust in individuals (including imagined or possible individuals). Many religionists will even tell you so out front: that while the creed is important, having a trust relationship with God (or Jesus, or the Church, or a guru, etc.) is what their faith is all about.
Some guilt also falls onto those who are not eager enough to verify those opinions or the money they circulate.
The man on the top (at the beginning) is NOT guilty for everything.
To my way of thinking, it’s quite possible for me to be fully responsible for a chain of events (for example, if they would not have occurred if not for my action, and I was aware of the likelihood of them occurring given my action, and no external forces constrained my choice so as to preclude acting differently) and for other people upstream and downstream of me to also be fully responsible for that chain of events. This is no more contradictory than my belief that object A is to the left of object B from one perspective and simultaneously to the right of object A from another. Responsibility is not some mysterious fluid out there in the world that gets portioned out to individuals, it’s an attribute that we assign to entities in a mental and/or social model.
You seem to be claiming that models wherein total responsibility for an event is conserved across the entire known causal chain are superior to mental models where it isn’t, but I don’t quite see why i ought to believe that.
My instinct tells me that dividing 1 responsibility per outcome throughout responsible actors is doomed to reduce to “The full responsibility is equally divided across the entire states of the Universe leading up to this point, since any small difference could have led to a different outcome”. This would make it awfully similar to the argument that no human can be responsible for any crime in a deterministic universe since they did not have control over their actions.
To me, it feels anti-bayesian, but I lack the expertise to verify this.
I don’t endorse the model of “1 responsibility per outcome” that can be divided.
Neither do I endorse the idea that responsibility is incompatible with a deterministic universe.
Also, I have no idea what you mean by “anti-bayesian” here.
It took me a while, but his post made much more sense to me once I realized he was agreeing with you.
Oh!
Huh.
Yeah, I see what you mean.
Heh, sorry, kind of skipped the preamble there.
Yes, the post was in agreement with you, and attempting to visualize / illustrate / imagine a potential way the model could be shown to be flawed.
As for feeling “anti-bayesian”, the idea that a set amount of responsibility exists to be distributed over actors for any event seems completely uncorrelated with reality and independent of any evidence. It feels just like an arbitrary system of categorization, like using “golborf” as a new term for “LessWrong users that own a house, don’t brush their teeth daily, drink milk daily, enjoy classical music and don’t work in IT-related fields”.
That little feeling somewhere that “This thing doesn’t belong here in my model.”, that there are freeloading nodes that need to be purged.
I’m very surprised as to why is this so upvoted, other than the fact that some of the LW crowd really loves 19th century right-wing writers. The statement is patently untrue.
Even in regard to hard-line reactionaries themselves and their political circumstances; did de Maistre think that Voltaire or Rousseau or even Robespierre ever consciously produced “false opinions” to befuddle the masses?
No way; even later conservatives, like Burke and Chesterton, have admitted that if the French Revolution went wrong somewhere (and Chesterton thought it was off to a good start), it must have been a mistake, not a crime.
I know ~nothing about the historical events which you allude to, but I upvoted the quote because experience tells me it’s very true in real life. E.g. a journalist writes a news article that contains lies about its subject matter, and the link to the article gets widely shared by honest people who presume that it’s telling the truth. Or a dishonest scientist makes up his data, and then gets cited by honest scientists.
Oh. In that case, well, it’s true about local “opinions” but false about views on global things. Like the so-called free market (which is mostly not free) or the so-called democracy (which is mostly not ruled by the People): I believe that most nominally educated people today have a pretty reasonable assessment of their value: they kinda work, and even bring some standard of living, but do so very ineffectively. So the only “false opinions” on this scale are just ritual statements semi-consciously produced out of fear of empowering the enemies of the present structure. I might make a great and benevolent dictator, but I can’t trust my heir; so I’d rather endorse “democracy” steered by experts. Both the “democracy” and the “free market” are part of what we are, therefore we must defend them vigilantly.
Fortunately, we’re leaving such close-mindedness behind. Unfortunately, we might have the illusion of not needing any other abstract concepts to use for our social identity. Humans always do! If we don’t believe in Democracy, then we must believe in the Catholic Church, or Fascism, or Moldbuggery, or Communism, or Direct Theocracy (like in Banks’ Culture). But believe we will.
This sounds somewhat like the assertion, usually made by religious critics of science, that “everyone believes in something; your faith is in Science” (or Darwin, or the like). Would you care to distinguish these assertions?
I don’t think it’s a very good quote but I’d guess that the majority of readers didn’t know/notice/remember he was a 19th century right-wing writer. As such few people would associate this quote with opposition to the French Revolution, or even politics—people would first think of such things as religions.
And I’d put money on Mohammed, Joseph Smith and Apostle Paul to have been deliberate conmen. (I’m leaving out Jesus, because I’d put odds on him being just delusional)