Well, thank you Vinod Goel. Many of us who are dismissed as "woke" have been saying that freedom is not absolute if you want to live in a non-violent society. You provided a clear argument made from reason!
This struggle around free speech and where it begins and ends is one of the great questions of the times. And I hear what you are saying and agree with some of it. But the perennial question of who decides what or who is 'reason responsive'? And in this age of the ability to censor on a massive scale means the usual 'gentlemanly' (no gender offense intended) process of scientific inquiry has the real potential of being very distorted, in my view there is no question that it already has been to a great degree. Your fellow Substack journalists Michael Shellenberger, Matt Taibbi and others have revealed the extent to which this is happening. And a recent thoughtful essay in Discourse by Andrey Mir on the changing concept of 'truth' is very alarming. As one given to self doubt (reason responsiveness?) I have been watching with increasing dismay over the past several years this censorship impulse grow and take root in institutions who wield much more power over the average person than has been the case in a long time. RE: elections. I have been married for 15 years to someone who has been an elected official for 35 years, the last 20 at the state level. The stories he has told me from his experience in this arena and the generalizations he made about it to the national scene took me years to believe to any degree and I was still dubious. I suppose reason responsiveness is better late than never. But after a brief retirement, he was convinced to run for a county office once more in our very large county. Very unexpectedly he lost and by a wide margin. There were enough strange happenings around this election that he asked for and got a recount. Some CIA and intelligence analysts retired from high roleds in those agencies who live in the county had already done an exhaustive dig into the previous election where it became clear that there were irregularities and errors galore in the reported numbers. Intentionally or just an underfunded elections administration office with the head person being not up for the job? Not completely clear, maybe a mix, but nonetheless, it was basically like making a deposit to your bank of $1000 and the bank telling you to be satisfied with them getting $900 in your account. The errors and irregularities were never fully resolved or explained satisfactorily in a word. And these findings from people whose job it was for 30 years to analyze these kinds of things. Fast forward, we are now 5 months into trying to finish this recount. It is clear so far that yes, there were miscounts, the county cannot reconcile its own numbers between ballots counted, machines, reported outcomes on Secy of State website etc. to this day. The county officials involved have been personally contemptuous, rude and made personal insults to those trying to carry out the process that is their legal right (and based on factual evidence) and put every obstacle possible in the way. No need to go on, my point is that when I read about 'election deniers' and 'baseless allegations' about election results, I am offended. Based on our experience, it could take a very long time for the 'truth' (whatever that is) to emerge because you are going against massive resistence from the status quo. And it takes a lot of fortitude (and finances I might add) to endure the personally insulting and offensive behavior from those resisting. I am OK with whatever the results would be, but in my view we have personally based, factual evidence that we are being perfectly reasonable to question just how well our county elections are being carried out. So, again, who gets to decide what is reason responsive? I would NEVER have believed elections were as messy as they are here. And is it such a stretch to think if here, it could conceivably be many other places as well? It has taken a lot of internal wrestling to let myself believe the reality as we have found it to be. So, because something is hard to believe, or you don't want to believe it, can't believe it's possible, does not mean it isn't. You don't know what you don't know. That is why I am very skeptical and resistant frankly to the idea that 'someone' (ie some institution or group--ever heard of groupthink?) gets to decide what can be given a platform and what can't. I'm not saying I don't realize the point you are making, there is no doubt it is a tangled issue. But I come down to erring on the side of very wide latitude here. It is a very slippery slope and so very much depends on it.
The "more is better" knowledge philosophy that the science of the last century or so is built upon is not reason responsive. Should today's scientists therefore sit down and be quiet?
If the problems we face could be solved by "realistic", "reasonable" and "normal" ideas generally accepted as being "reason responsive" we'd likely already have the solutions we seek. The most promising area for investigation is often those ideas currently considered to be crackpot notions.
It seems if reason responsiveness is a constraint on public communication than the faith based community is excluded from the conversation, because their rationality is tethered to their religous truths, even if those rules are irrational or harmful to others. So, that seems to create further division in society, and the insane are also going to have a tough time with social media as well. What about a rationality filter backed by content moderators, Safe Twitter, and an unfiltered, Unsafe Twitter, for all the crazies to have room to speak their semi-coherent truths. I like the argument I'm just interested in how you implement it.
It's easy to point a finger at religious faith, but we should be aware that backward looking faith based philosophies which lack a rational foundation permeate the science community also.
QUESTION: Where is the proof that human beings can successfully manage unlimited knowledge and power delivered at an unlimited rate?
If the science community was operating with reason responsiveness they would be asking that question, and when they discovered that there is no such proof, but rather strong evidence to the contrary, they would be slowing down, and not trying to proceed as quickly as budgets will allow.
EVIDENCE: Here in America about half the population voted for Donald Dumpster TWICE, and may do so yet again. That is who the science community is trying to give ever more power at what seems to be an ever accelerating pace.
The science community's relationship with data is reason based. The science community's relationship with science is not. These two things are routinely confused.
I too would not quality to speak under the "reason responsiveness" doctrine, because I keep trying over and over to engage ANYBODY in the science community in this discussion, despite any evidence that doing so will ever accomplish anything at all.
Well, thank you Vinod Goel. Many of us who are dismissed as "woke" have been saying that freedom is not absolute if you want to live in a non-violent society. You provided a clear argument made from reason!
This struggle around free speech and where it begins and ends is one of the great questions of the times. And I hear what you are saying and agree with some of it. But the perennial question of who decides what or who is 'reason responsive'? And in this age of the ability to censor on a massive scale means the usual 'gentlemanly' (no gender offense intended) process of scientific inquiry has the real potential of being very distorted, in my view there is no question that it already has been to a great degree. Your fellow Substack journalists Michael Shellenberger, Matt Taibbi and others have revealed the extent to which this is happening. And a recent thoughtful essay in Discourse by Andrey Mir on the changing concept of 'truth' is very alarming. As one given to self doubt (reason responsiveness?) I have been watching with increasing dismay over the past several years this censorship impulse grow and take root in institutions who wield much more power over the average person than has been the case in a long time. RE: elections. I have been married for 15 years to someone who has been an elected official for 35 years, the last 20 at the state level. The stories he has told me from his experience in this arena and the generalizations he made about it to the national scene took me years to believe to any degree and I was still dubious. I suppose reason responsiveness is better late than never. But after a brief retirement, he was convinced to run for a county office once more in our very large county. Very unexpectedly he lost and by a wide margin. There were enough strange happenings around this election that he asked for and got a recount. Some CIA and intelligence analysts retired from high roleds in those agencies who live in the county had already done an exhaustive dig into the previous election where it became clear that there were irregularities and errors galore in the reported numbers. Intentionally or just an underfunded elections administration office with the head person being not up for the job? Not completely clear, maybe a mix, but nonetheless, it was basically like making a deposit to your bank of $1000 and the bank telling you to be satisfied with them getting $900 in your account. The errors and irregularities were never fully resolved or explained satisfactorily in a word. And these findings from people whose job it was for 30 years to analyze these kinds of things. Fast forward, we are now 5 months into trying to finish this recount. It is clear so far that yes, there were miscounts, the county cannot reconcile its own numbers between ballots counted, machines, reported outcomes on Secy of State website etc. to this day. The county officials involved have been personally contemptuous, rude and made personal insults to those trying to carry out the process that is their legal right (and based on factual evidence) and put every obstacle possible in the way. No need to go on, my point is that when I read about 'election deniers' and 'baseless allegations' about election results, I am offended. Based on our experience, it could take a very long time for the 'truth' (whatever that is) to emerge because you are going against massive resistence from the status quo. And it takes a lot of fortitude (and finances I might add) to endure the personally insulting and offensive behavior from those resisting. I am OK with whatever the results would be, but in my view we have personally based, factual evidence that we are being perfectly reasonable to question just how well our county elections are being carried out. So, again, who gets to decide what is reason responsive? I would NEVER have believed elections were as messy as they are here. And is it such a stretch to think if here, it could conceivably be many other places as well? It has taken a lot of internal wrestling to let myself believe the reality as we have found it to be. So, because something is hard to believe, or you don't want to believe it, can't believe it's possible, does not mean it isn't. You don't know what you don't know. That is why I am very skeptical and resistant frankly to the idea that 'someone' (ie some institution or group--ever heard of groupthink?) gets to decide what can be given a platform and what can't. I'm not saying I don't realize the point you are making, there is no doubt it is a tangled issue. But I come down to erring on the side of very wide latitude here. It is a very slippery slope and so very much depends on it.
The "more is better" knowledge philosophy that the science of the last century or so is built upon is not reason responsive. Should today's scientists therefore sit down and be quiet?
If the problems we face could be solved by "realistic", "reasonable" and "normal" ideas generally accepted as being "reason responsive" we'd likely already have the solutions we seek. The most promising area for investigation is often those ideas currently considered to be crackpot notions.
It seems if reason responsiveness is a constraint on public communication than the faith based community is excluded from the conversation, because their rationality is tethered to their religous truths, even if those rules are irrational or harmful to others. So, that seems to create further division in society, and the insane are also going to have a tough time with social media as well. What about a rationality filter backed by content moderators, Safe Twitter, and an unfiltered, Unsafe Twitter, for all the crazies to have room to speak their semi-coherent truths. I like the argument I'm just interested in how you implement it.
It's easy to point a finger at religious faith, but we should be aware that backward looking faith based philosophies which lack a rational foundation permeate the science community also.
QUESTION: Where is the proof that human beings can successfully manage unlimited knowledge and power delivered at an unlimited rate?
If the science community was operating with reason responsiveness they would be asking that question, and when they discovered that there is no such proof, but rather strong evidence to the contrary, they would be slowing down, and not trying to proceed as quickly as budgets will allow.
EVIDENCE: Here in America about half the population voted for Donald Dumpster TWICE, and may do so yet again. That is who the science community is trying to give ever more power at what seems to be an ever accelerating pace.
The science community's relationship with data is reason based. The science community's relationship with science is not. These two things are routinely confused.
I too would not quality to speak under the "reason responsiveness" doctrine, because I keep trying over and over to engage ANYBODY in the science community in this discussion, despite any evidence that doing so will ever accomplish anything at all.