Terry Bisson - File 770 file770.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from file770.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Last night, it occurred to me that despite how disjointed it feels, the
New York Times piece does have a central thesis: namely, that rationalism is a “gateway drug” to dangerous beliefs. And that thesis is 100% correct insofar as
once you teach people that they can think for themselves about issues of consequence, some of them might think bad things. It’s just that many of us judge the benefit worth the risk!
Happy Valentine’s Day everyone!
Back in June,
New York Times technology reporter Cade Metz, who I’d previously known from his reporting on quantum computing, told me that he was writing a story about Scott Alexander, Slate Star Codex, and the rationalist community. Given my position as someone who
Men of Steel
Even if Big Tech is only just starting to realise it
Feb 1
Share
Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray s case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward reversing cause and effect. I call these the wet streets cause rain stories. Paper s full of them.
In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.