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I Find You Guilty of Crimes Against Reason
5 years ago
General
So a topical piece of art was posted here, and the scent attracted one of FA's devoted conspiracy theorists, who began posting comments on it. Why did this make me feel particularly irritated, given everything else going on?
Sorry I can't reiterate the comments, or even provide a link to the artwork, but that would only give more oxygen to the conspiracy theory, wouldn't it? So let's just say that the poster of the comments, whose existence I hadn't been aware of 'til recently, piqued my interest. I did a little digging, read their old journals, looked at their comments on other people's submissions...Turns out they're one of FA's village explainers, someone with little to contribute besides a habit of "correcting" everyone else.
Now, you might say, "So what? If they want to believe crackpot theories, that's their business. Who are they supposed to be harming by speaking their minds?" I wish I could shrug off the promulgation of nonsense that easily, but I do seem to take intellectual fraud rather personally. If the owner of the artwork hadn't belatedly disabled comments on it, I could've told the conspiracy theorist that they had committed a logical fallacy which philosophical folk call "the appeal to ignorance" -- that in the absence of proof that a proposition is false, then it must be true. (Never mind that things generally work the opposite way.)
Would I have changed anyone's mind? I can understand some of the appeal of conspiracy theories: the aura of mystery, the righteous pursuit of Truth, the absolute dedication to exposing the facts that They Don't Want You to Know...it's like religious faith, only really dumb. *
(I'm assuming, of course, that this theorist really believes their own bullshit and isn't cynically sowing doubt and confusion to make themselves seem smarter than they are.)
But again, so what? What's my problem with letting other folks express their opinions? Well, I keep wondering, how much damage has this person done over the years by muddying the intellectual waters? Even fools can be influential: just look at YouTube.
Believing in conspiracy theories is certainly easier and more appealing than putting one's mind on a diet of philosophy, logic, and critical analysis, but even without all that, isn't the simplest explanation usually the most accurate one?
* I'm not knocking people in the religious community. Logical analysis doesn't apply to religious faith; if it did, faith would be meaningless. This doesn't mean that religious people are illogical.
Sorry I can't reiterate the comments, or even provide a link to the artwork, but that would only give more oxygen to the conspiracy theory, wouldn't it? So let's just say that the poster of the comments, whose existence I hadn't been aware of 'til recently, piqued my interest. I did a little digging, read their old journals, looked at their comments on other people's submissions...Turns out they're one of FA's village explainers, someone with little to contribute besides a habit of "correcting" everyone else.
Now, you might say, "So what? If they want to believe crackpot theories, that's their business. Who are they supposed to be harming by speaking their minds?" I wish I could shrug off the promulgation of nonsense that easily, but I do seem to take intellectual fraud rather personally. If the owner of the artwork hadn't belatedly disabled comments on it, I could've told the conspiracy theorist that they had committed a logical fallacy which philosophical folk call "the appeal to ignorance" -- that in the absence of proof that a proposition is false, then it must be true. (Never mind that things generally work the opposite way.)
Would I have changed anyone's mind? I can understand some of the appeal of conspiracy theories: the aura of mystery, the righteous pursuit of Truth, the absolute dedication to exposing the facts that They Don't Want You to Know...it's like religious faith, only really dumb. *
(I'm assuming, of course, that this theorist really believes their own bullshit and isn't cynically sowing doubt and confusion to make themselves seem smarter than they are.)
But again, so what? What's my problem with letting other folks express their opinions? Well, I keep wondering, how much damage has this person done over the years by muddying the intellectual waters? Even fools can be influential: just look at YouTube.
Believing in conspiracy theories is certainly easier and more appealing than putting one's mind on a diet of philosophy, logic, and critical analysis, but even without all that, isn't the simplest explanation usually the most accurate one?
* I'm not knocking people in the religious community. Logical analysis doesn't apply to religious faith; if it did, faith would be meaningless. This doesn't mean that religious people are illogical.
(One of my favourite bugbears is the argument that, if you dislike one alternative, like being fired, more than another, like working weekends without even overtime pay, then the reverse is also true, that you like working weekends more than you like being fired. The conclusion is then that you like working weekends and do not want overtime pay. After all, a negative times a negative is a positive. This is true, BUT ONLY IN MATHEMATICS! You cannot simultaneously like and dislike something, they're opposite!)
I don't blame you for not naming the logic criminal. I'll just have to hope I already have them blocked.