Susan, I may have missed this--I thought that Counterweight, the UK organization you mention earlier, has gone out of business and transferred its resources to the Institute for Liberal Values. I did note that with some regret a few months ago because I found it a very useful organization that Helen Pluckrose started and its model for supporting viewpoint diversity in workplaces was helpful. I hope the Institute for Liberal Values takes up the mantle. Can you clarify if I've overlooked what's going on with Counterweight?
I think it was very successful for a time, but maybe they couldn't make a go of it long-term. Helen Pluckrose was the impetus and the guiding force behind it. I attended their Counterweight conference last year (virtually), at low cost, and found it compelling--they had speakers from both UK, the US, and Canada. But somehow I picked up even a year ago that they were struggling to keep afloat. I haven't looked into the Institute for Liberal Values that much but good to know they're sponsoring similar projects and work. I think. the rise of these alternative organizations supporting free speech outside the really established ones like FIRE (or possibly FAIR) is encouraging but sustainability may be a problem.
Yes, a local chapter of Children's Health Defense sounds like the perfect venue you're seeking for "open dialogue":
"Events like this one, with a single perspective given from individuals with medical licenses, can have a confirmation bias effect and a 'veneer of legitimacy,' said Richard Carpiano, professor of public policy at the University of California, Riverside... [O]rganizations like this also use terms that misidentify the true agenda of their message. For example, 'health freedom' is used instead of 'anti-vaccine' and even the name 'Children’s Health Defense' contradicts the group’s promotion of putting children at risk of disease."
"We found that 99% of doctors and pediatricians believe that #Covid_19 vaccines are safe and effective. Sadly, socially media amplifies the 1% of cranks rather than the consensus of experts."
"Researchers have estimated that vaccine hesitancy may have resulted in more than 300 000 unnecessary covid-19 deaths in the United States alone, and that misinformation on social media could be a substantial contributor to reluctance to take up vaccination."
"But time and time again, a review of the evidence contradicts Kennedy’s views. He misrepresents major conclusions from papers and gets other details wrong. He conveniently ignores the scientific literature — often vast, and of higher quality — that runs counter to his beliefs. He misleads on vaccine law and misunderstands key governmental programs, consistently viewing them through a lens of conspiracy and corruption."
On the other hand, this substack contains quite a few articles and paper references which discuss the reason why the "cranks" are getting so much traction these days: https://substack.com/@vinayprasadmdmph
They, unfortunately, do not have the market cornered on misinformation. "Cranks" is not an argument, it is an ad hominem, by the way.
I finished your book recommendation the other day: "Open Minded: Searching for Truth about the Unconscious Mind". Good book. A couple of their examples are a arguable, but by and large I find their arguments persuasive.
Of course "cranks" isn't an argument, but I think Van Bavel's point is a sound one. Non-experts promoting bullshit have an outsized presence compared to the voice of expert consensus when it comes to the topic of vaccines.
Thanks for sharing Prasad's Substack. (I was just listening today to the EconTalk podcast interview with Roland Fryer and I see that Prasad was last week's guest: https://www.econtalk.org/)
What aspects of Open Minded do you take issue with?
I'm mentioning this new initiative, The Clarity Foundation, https://clarityfoundation.com, founded by Jay van Bavel and others, as an example of identifying expert consensus on vaccine misinformation, but they're moving on to other such fraught and contentious topics as elections/election fraud, climate change, and A.I. and its implications. I am hopeful about such initiatives as this one, that seek to dispel myths and conspiracy theories. Experts will disagree, but surely there's some merit in efforts to create expert consensus and communicate it in a way that the broader public understands.
Politics is about consensus; science is about ideas that provide reproducable predictions and results. The two do not always go hand in hand. Look at scientific consensus in the time of Copernicus. Or physics in the late nineteenth century. Or medicine throughout virtually all of human history. "Consensus" is usually controlled by exclusion of legitimate critical opinions as well as those of crackpots. You might find this article interesting:
Scientific (or social scientific) consensus are always subject to revision, and I'm well aware of the historical examples you mention. The reproducibility and replication problems in a field like psychology have been a scandal for a decade or more, and credible people in that field know it and are looking for methods of overcoming the myriad problems, many of them ideological or perverse incentive-driven----Lee Jussim, Cory Clark, Chris Ferguson, others. I know the "neuromyths" that Michelle Miller has written about in educational psychology and how deeply entrenched some of them are. I know the same issue obtains in medical/health science fields as well. My question would be--are efforts at expert consensus always politically motivated? I'd think or hope not==the Clarity Foundation, as I understand it, is a nonprofit and its methods are to develop consensus on these topics with the appropriate caveats--and that's the problem with communicating scientific findings to a broader public, with enough nuance or qualifications, for better understanding and countering misinformation.
Would the Open Science Framework or the Adversarial Collaboration Initiative be good examples of achieving expert consensus (or countering current ones that have become calcified, and need to be overturned)? I think there's some promise there, in both of them. The Center for Open Science has been around for ten years now and has developed their own theory of change (and obviously, methods), for overcoming replication and reproducibility problems.
So I think there are better ways of achieving "consensus" that actually include the legitimate critical opinions that you mention. Until, of course, that consensus is no longer sustainable.
>>> "Consensus" is usually controlled by exclusion of legitimate critical opinions as well as those of crackpots. <<<
Usually? I think not. It's probably the exact opposite: exclusion of legitimate critical opinions is the exception. We novices are ignorant of the very existence of most science.
Well, I guess we'll have to disagree on that one. And I am not unfamiliar with the way science works, having spent most of my career supporting activities in some of it's domains in various capacities.
I think you're probably just generalizing from salient examples from *some* domains -- which, indeed, are readily available. (Politicized topics in social psychology, for instance, are an obvious area where it may well be reasonable to worry that legitimate alternative perspectives are inadequately involved in research domains. And too much psychology, imho, lacks rigorous contact with evolutionary biology -- another source of a different kind of exclusion. But that would contrast with lots of other areas of psychology that are remote from such potentially distorting dynamics.)
"Howe’s model explicitly states that it is almost always the new values of the previous Awakening that instigate the Crisis and then replace the old regime at its climax—which would imply victory by today’s version of the New Left. Indeed, he predicts the victorious millennials will be a generation of “confident technocrats,” materialists with a youthful zeal for progress and grand ambitions to remake the world. He just assumes this is a good thing. In the new High after the Crisis, they will reinforce or re-found a sweeping, U.S.-led liberal-international order. And their communitarianism will merge with bright techno-optimism to produce things like “wall-to-wall AI algorithms designed to ensure that no one feels disconnected or alone.” Meantime, “continuous guidance from peer feedback” will constantly “nudge” everyone’s opinions into a “constructive median.” Media and entertainment’s “main function will be to remind people of what their friends (and the experts) already recommend.” New technological and organizational wonders will be embraced, from “behavior-optimizing psychotropics to algorithmic crowd control; from global government planning boards to mammoth engines of global climate control.”
This sounds nothing less than dystopian to me. In fact, it sounds an awful lot like an extension of our present dystopia rather than a refreshing new beginning.
This strikes at a deeper problem with Howe’s model. Despite an entire chapter castigating the “linear” view of history and advocating cyclical thinking, he remains trapped within an inadvertently Hegelian progressive worldview. Crises may keep recurring, propelled by a sort of dialectic of opposites, but in every case, America emerges stronger and more advanced, spiraling ever upward toward a future of greater complexity, centralization, and techno-rationalism. It never seems to occur to Howe that the American regime (and the whole Western world) could be structurally failing precisely because it has been captured by run-away progressive managerial technocracy—and that eliminating all remaining opposition to this regime will only accelerate its self-induced insanity and dysfunction."
Lyons' comment about the "Hegelian progression" and all that made me start thinking again about something I once read in Polybius. I just spent an hour looking for it and found it. It's in Book VI of the first volume, sections 3-9. Here's the link to Gutenberg.org where you can grab a copy:
This was well understood when Polybius was alive (born around 200, died 118 B.C). I find it fits subsequent history perfectly well too - certainly better than the Hegelian/Marxist progressive laws of destiny does.
There is an interesting update on this by F. Fukuyama in his two-volume set "The Origins of Political Order" and "Political Order and Political Decay". I don't ever recall him using the word "cycle" in these volumes, and the name "Hegel" does appear once or twice, but his ideas are anything but Hegelian and probably he dislikes the term "cycle" because it tends to imply "periods", "periodicity" and "pendulums swinging" and nonsense like that. The forces at work are big, complex, subject to many random factors, but still follow distinct patterns for good reasons at different times.
I had somehow not associated the movement known as DYOR (Do Your Own Research) with cryptocurrency groups that you've mentioned here, but that's because I don't know that much about cryptocurrrency (other than on the most general level), and also, probably because of my own skepticism about it. I should learn more.
I do have two questions here:
1. Are you finding the venues for Open Dialogue that you've mentioned--cryptocurrency meetups and Libertarian meetings--really able to open the Overton Window about what viewpoints can be discussed? or do they have their own ideology (anti-establishmentarianism?) that keeps what's acceptable to them within certain limits? If someone came to one of their meetings with a thoroughly "mainstream narrative' POV, respect for expert consensus or just experts in government, public health, universities, foundations, think tanks, would that person be respected and listened to?
2. I'm wondering if these alternative venues and alternative sources of information that you've mentioned, that promote Open Dialogue, can create their own "Certainty Trap" (Ilana Redstone's apt concept)? The certainty being that only non-mainstream sources of information or expertise should be trusted?
I'm grappling with these questions because I know there are major trust problems with the "mainstream narratives" and traditional sources of information and expertise. I totally believe in open dialogue (and inquiry) and viewpoint diversity (core HxA values) but am not sure I can arrive at a place where viewpoint diversity encompasses dismissal of experts and "mainstream narratives" altogether. Something I'm pondering much of late . . . . .
I'm not sure about DYOR-- that is not something I've heard anyone say explicitly. CryptoMondays tends to focus on speakers who are excited about the new possibilities surrounding crypto and Web3-- people starting businesses and such-- much like the dot com era. But occasionally they will have a speaker who will focus on the possibilities for decentralization and setting up alternative systems. The Bitcoin group I attend here mostly discusses the logistics of buying and storing Bitcoin, how it works, why it is a good investment, and current legislation around it.
Like I said, every group is going to have a certain ideological bent, but the reason I like the ones that I mentioned is that they offer opportunity for in-depth conversation (not always easy to find) and because the attendees converse like adults. If you wanted to express respect for expert consensus you might not feel like that is a popular sentiment, but, at least in the groups I have been in, nobody is going to respond in a disrespectful way.
The problem with bringing up topics in general society right now is that mentioning any relevant topic-- for example, smart cities, or issues on the border-- will immediately attract over-the-top, personal attacks (particularly online). I see this already with people trying to discuss possible remedies to climate change.
The three groups I mentioned are ones where I have found that the HxA principles are most at play. I have heard from friends who have been members of other in-person type groups-- i.e., the Sierra Club-- that they have been dismayed by the ideological takeover that has occurred there. But I am sure there are other groups where constructive dialogue is taking place that I am unaware of.
I agree that every group will have its own ideology, or maybe attitude or bent, about how to go about acquiring information or facts or building knowledge to make good decisions. I think my caveat about anything DYOR-related is best expressed in this NY Times article from last year, by philosopher Ballantyne and psychologist Dunning, on the sharp limits of "Do Your Own Research" in complex domains. Even with their concerns, though, these two don't dismiss it altogether, but urge caution about its limits as opposed to relying on expert consensus when it's available.
Unfortunately there are certain domains where "doing your own research" is practically a requirement. As one example-- propositions on a voting ballot. They are always going to be phrased in the most positive way possible, but to find out what they really mean requires researching funding sources, alternative viewpoints, etc. I call this "unfortunate" because it shouldn't have to be that difficult for the average voter to figure out what a proposition is really about, and sometimes after doing research, I still can't figure it out.
I'd have to ruminate on this idea further, but it may be that the ideological takeover of the "mainstream" has become so extreme, and correspondingly people's ability to practice civil dialogue has disintegrated so severely, that the only places left that you are going to find civil dialogue is in those entities that are in opposition to the mainstream.
I'm sure there's much ideological takeover of the mainstream though I wonder if it's as extreme as often assumed or stated. I see these big generalizations about that phenomenon all the time. That's why I don't want to dismiss out of hand the "mainstream sources" or experts when there's consensus available, even though I think that skepticism, calibrated appropriately, is always important. Same with trust.
I was thinking of even the vaunted New York Times--about as elite and "mainstream" as we know of, and its ability to shape opinion, and to miss or distort important news and developments, while also excelling at certain types of reporting. The contradiction here for me in "the paper of record" is the crazy blowup over their dismissal of a superb science reporter, Don McNeil, over his use of a certain epithet in an innocent way. That reflects something about that media organization. Then, on the other hand, they have a superb reporter Michael Powell, who's written excellent stories about some of the very free speech controversies on campuses that we've discussed before, and he's done extremely well there, in reporting on issues of intellectual and academic freedom. I don't think even the NY Times is totally in thrall to ultraprogressive ideology, all the time, though there's of course a prevailing perspective, of that I'm sure.
I think there's a chance at civil dialogue or debate even in "mainstream" venues but it's become more difficult. The alternative or "non-mainstream" places may become silos in themselves and not open to competing information . . . and that starts mirroring the tendencies of the "mainstream" sources that do too much of that bubble-formation already.
Like I commented in that post, I am a "brokennist" but one who leans toward repairing the current system as opposed to starting a whole new one, which I am not convinced is possible. I do support efforts to offer alternatives when feasible (i.e., Substack as a place for alternative voices, using a credit union as opposed to a big bank, starting a garden, etc.).
Hi Susan: On this debate between "brokennists" and "status quoists," I was struck by how skewed this piece was toward the reasonableness of the "brokenist" perspective. That is, well before the author came out as a brokenist, it was clear that was where she was coming from because of the way she explained the alternative. For her, I would be a status quoist, but I certainly don't identify that way. For me, this piece is a terrific example of what happens when people present themselves as honest analysts and brokers when either, 1) they don't understand those who disagree with them, or 2) they're arguing their position in bad faith.
I didn't get the impression she was arguing in bad faith, but perhaps she was skewed towards the perspective she has adopted (I would have to re-read). It is always difficult to make generalizations, but I felt that her perspective shed some light on a kind of divide that is taking place, albeit one that is a bit messier/ less clear in reality.
Also, whatever you think of RFK, Jr., the debate I linked to (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOLe4C5-q_k&t=4483s) is a similar conversation, as it is between two people who are no longer voting at all and one person who believes that we have to try to repair the system that we are all inevitably embedded in.
The Libertarians, of course, are just another political party. I mentioned them because they advocate for free speech and hold speaker events that are open to non-Libertarians. Other political parties might as well; I just don't know.
I like to read/hear both sides of an argument. It's always interesting to see the change over time on one side or both as more information comes to light. I particularly recommend listening to source speakers, reading source documents. It is very rare to have a speaker fairly summed up by someone on the opposite side ideologically/politically. Or an article/piece of research summarized by a group or person on the side of wanting it "not to be true". Also, important with science to find people who are actually specialists in the field to interpret information instead of experts outside the discipline. By reading/listening widely you tend to become more aware of the different experts/sources which is great.
Thanks, Amy. I totally agree here about listening and reading and taking in more rather than less and processing carefully, and realizing one's limits. I've arrived at something I call "calibration of trust" which I suppose could be complementary to "calibration of skepticism" when attempting to understand something new or outside my area of knowledge or expertise. It's like making a leap after reviewing the evidence available--it's probabilistic reasoning. Acting or. making a decision in the face of uncertainty in a complex domain. One thing I do know--I want the best experts I can find or read whenever possible even though I know they have biases and blind spots as well. It's a matter for me of making considered judgements about them taking those limitations into account.
Even with these anti-expert and anti-elite times, I find it difficult to accept the opinions of random groups of citizens who are offering their views on complicated and fraught topics, on health care, vaccines, climate change or other controversies . And I say this even while I'm heartened by grassroots groups addressing polarization (Bridge USA and Braver Angels).
I recently learned about a book by a public choice economist, Garett Jones, that I want to read: 10 Percent Less Democracy. It's about calibrating trust in experts somewhat more, and in ordinary voters and citizens somewhat less. It has much to do with government effectiveness and economics, but the core idea, apparently, is recovering some trust in experts where they can promote the common good.
To that I would just add two comments. Sometimes these groups bring in expert speakers. But also, I'm sure we all have attended book groups or other types of events where we have discussed issues, even serious ones, with "non-experts."
Susan, I may have missed this--I thought that Counterweight, the UK organization you mention earlier, has gone out of business and transferred its resources to the Institute for Liberal Values. I did note that with some regret a few months ago because I found it a very useful organization that Helen Pluckrose started and its model for supporting viewpoint diversity in workplaces was helpful. I hope the Institute for Liberal Values takes up the mantle. Can you clarify if I've overlooked what's going on with Counterweight?
Oops, I did not know that. I just inserted a correction. That's too bad-- I had the impression it had been a successful organization.
I think it was very successful for a time, but maybe they couldn't make a go of it long-term. Helen Pluckrose was the impetus and the guiding force behind it. I attended their Counterweight conference last year (virtually), at low cost, and found it compelling--they had speakers from both UK, the US, and Canada. But somehow I picked up even a year ago that they were struggling to keep afloat. I haven't looked into the Institute for Liberal Values that much but good to know they're sponsoring similar projects and work. I think. the rise of these alternative organizations supporting free speech outside the really established ones like FIRE (or possibly FAIR) is encouraging but sustainability may be a problem.
Yes, a local chapter of Children's Health Defense sounds like the perfect venue you're seeking for "open dialogue":
"Events like this one, with a single perspective given from individuals with medical licenses, can have a confirmation bias effect and a 'veneer of legitimacy,' said Richard Carpiano, professor of public policy at the University of California, Riverside... [O]rganizations like this also use terms that misidentify the true agenda of their message. For example, 'health freedom' is used instead of 'anti-vaccine' and even the name 'Children’s Health Defense' contradicts the group’s promotion of putting children at risk of disease."
https://archive.ph/yV44C#selection-953.0-953.253
"We found that 99% of doctors and pediatricians believe that #Covid_19 vaccines are safe and effective. Sadly, socially media amplifies the 1% of cranks rather than the consensus of experts."
https://twitter.com/jayvanbavel/status/1697708703212876276
"Researchers have estimated that vaccine hesitancy may have resulted in more than 300 000 unnecessary covid-19 deaths in the United States alone, and that misinformation on social media could be a substantial contributor to reluctance to take up vaccination."
https://twitter.com/Sander_vdLinden/status/1698382911932661776
"But time and time again, a review of the evidence contradicts Kennedy’s views. He misrepresents major conclusions from papers and gets other details wrong. He conveniently ignores the scientific literature — often vast, and of higher quality — that runs counter to his beliefs. He misleads on vaccine law and misunderstands key governmental programs, consistently viewing them through a lens of conspiracy and corruption."
https://www.factcheck.org/2023/08/scicheck-factchecking-robert-f-kennedy-jr/
More documentation of health and anti-vax misinformation spewed by Children's Health Defense:
https://www.factcheck.org/tag/childrens-health-defense/
RFK Jr. Claims ‘Vaccine Research’ Likely Responsible for HIV and the Spanish Flu
https://archive.ph/gYOKl#selection-1479.0-1479.80
On the other hand, this substack contains quite a few articles and paper references which discuss the reason why the "cranks" are getting so much traction these days: https://substack.com/@vinayprasadmdmph
They, unfortunately, do not have the market cornered on misinformation. "Cranks" is not an argument, it is an ad hominem, by the way.
I finished your book recommendation the other day: "Open Minded: Searching for Truth about the Unconscious Mind". Good book. A couple of their examples are a arguable, but by and large I find their arguments persuasive.
Hi Jeff,
Of course "cranks" isn't an argument, but I think Van Bavel's point is a sound one. Non-experts promoting bullshit have an outsized presence compared to the voice of expert consensus when it comes to the topic of vaccines.
Thanks for sharing Prasad's Substack. (I was just listening today to the EconTalk podcast interview with Roland Fryer and I see that Prasad was last week's guest: https://www.econtalk.org/)
What aspects of Open Minded do you take issue with?
Jeff,
I'm mentioning this new initiative, The Clarity Foundation, https://clarityfoundation.com, founded by Jay van Bavel and others, as an example of identifying expert consensus on vaccine misinformation, but they're moving on to other such fraught and contentious topics as elections/election fraud, climate change, and A.I. and its implications. I am hopeful about such initiatives as this one, that seek to dispel myths and conspiracy theories. Experts will disagree, but surely there's some merit in efforts to create expert consensus and communicate it in a way that the broader public understands.
Politics is about consensus; science is about ideas that provide reproducable predictions and results. The two do not always go hand in hand. Look at scientific consensus in the time of Copernicus. Or physics in the late nineteenth century. Or medicine throughout virtually all of human history. "Consensus" is usually controlled by exclusion of legitimate critical opinions as well as those of crackpots. You might find this article interesting:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6557026/
In searching for that link I was amused to notice a close approximation to my own sentence in this article:
https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/michael-crichton-explains-why-there-is-no-such-thing-as-consensus-science/
Jeff,
Scientific (or social scientific) consensus are always subject to revision, and I'm well aware of the historical examples you mention. The reproducibility and replication problems in a field like psychology have been a scandal for a decade or more, and credible people in that field know it and are looking for methods of overcoming the myriad problems, many of them ideological or perverse incentive-driven----Lee Jussim, Cory Clark, Chris Ferguson, others. I know the "neuromyths" that Michelle Miller has written about in educational psychology and how deeply entrenched some of them are. I know the same issue obtains in medical/health science fields as well. My question would be--are efforts at expert consensus always politically motivated? I'd think or hope not==the Clarity Foundation, as I understand it, is a nonprofit and its methods are to develop consensus on these topics with the appropriate caveats--and that's the problem with communicating scientific findings to a broader public, with enough nuance or qualifications, for better understanding and countering misinformation.
Would the Open Science Framework or the Adversarial Collaboration Initiative be good examples of achieving expert consensus (or countering current ones that have become calcified, and need to be overturned)? I think there's some promise there, in both of them. The Center for Open Science has been around for ten years now and has developed their own theory of change (and obviously, methods), for overcoming replication and reproducibility problems.
So I think there are better ways of achieving "consensus" that actually include the legitimate critical opinions that you mention. Until, of course, that consensus is no longer sustainable.
Thanks for sending the articles--I appreciate it.
>>> "Consensus" is usually controlled by exclusion of legitimate critical opinions as well as those of crackpots. <<<
Usually? I think not. It's probably the exact opposite: exclusion of legitimate critical opinions is the exception. We novices are ignorant of the very existence of most science.
Well, I guess we'll have to disagree on that one. And I am not unfamiliar with the way science works, having spent most of my career supporting activities in some of it's domains in various capacities.
I think you're probably just generalizing from salient examples from *some* domains -- which, indeed, are readily available. (Politicized topics in social psychology, for instance, are an obvious area where it may well be reasonable to worry that legitimate alternative perspectives are inadequately involved in research domains. And too much psychology, imho, lacks rigorous contact with evolutionary biology -- another source of a different kind of exclusion. But that would contrast with lots of other areas of psychology that are remote from such potentially distorting dynamics.)
New piece that is relevant to a discussion of "expert consensus." I share the skepticism of N.S. Lyons here: https://theupheaval.substack.com/p/creative-destruction:
"Howe’s model explicitly states that it is almost always the new values of the previous Awakening that instigate the Crisis and then replace the old regime at its climax—which would imply victory by today’s version of the New Left. Indeed, he predicts the victorious millennials will be a generation of “confident technocrats,” materialists with a youthful zeal for progress and grand ambitions to remake the world. He just assumes this is a good thing. In the new High after the Crisis, they will reinforce or re-found a sweeping, U.S.-led liberal-international order. And their communitarianism will merge with bright techno-optimism to produce things like “wall-to-wall AI algorithms designed to ensure that no one feels disconnected or alone.” Meantime, “continuous guidance from peer feedback” will constantly “nudge” everyone’s opinions into a “constructive median.” Media and entertainment’s “main function will be to remind people of what their friends (and the experts) already recommend.” New technological and organizational wonders will be embraced, from “behavior-optimizing psychotropics to algorithmic crowd control; from global government planning boards to mammoth engines of global climate control.”
This sounds nothing less than dystopian to me. In fact, it sounds an awful lot like an extension of our present dystopia rather than a refreshing new beginning.
This strikes at a deeper problem with Howe’s model. Despite an entire chapter castigating the “linear” view of history and advocating cyclical thinking, he remains trapped within an inadvertently Hegelian progressive worldview. Crises may keep recurring, propelled by a sort of dialectic of opposites, but in every case, America emerges stronger and more advanced, spiraling ever upward toward a future of greater complexity, centralization, and techno-rationalism. It never seems to occur to Howe that the American regime (and the whole Western world) could be structurally failing precisely because it has been captured by run-away progressive managerial technocracy—and that eliminating all remaining opposition to this regime will only accelerate its self-induced insanity and dysfunction."
Lyons' comment about the "Hegelian progression" and all that made me start thinking again about something I once read in Polybius. I just spent an hour looking for it and found it. It's in Book VI of the first volume, sections 3-9. Here's the link to Gutenberg.org where you can grab a copy:
https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/44125
This was well understood when Polybius was alive (born around 200, died 118 B.C). I find it fits subsequent history perfectly well too - certainly better than the Hegelian/Marxist progressive laws of destiny does.
There is an interesting update on this by F. Fukuyama in his two-volume set "The Origins of Political Order" and "Political Order and Political Decay". I don't ever recall him using the word "cycle" in these volumes, and the name "Hegel" does appear once or twice, but his ideas are anything but Hegelian and probably he dislikes the term "cycle" because it tends to imply "periods", "periodicity" and "pendulums swinging" and nonsense like that. The forces at work are big, complex, subject to many random factors, but still follow distinct patterns for good reasons at different times.
Thanks for searching it out!
Susan,
I had somehow not associated the movement known as DYOR (Do Your Own Research) with cryptocurrency groups that you've mentioned here, but that's because I don't know that much about cryptocurrrency (other than on the most general level), and also, probably because of my own skepticism about it. I should learn more.
I do have two questions here:
1. Are you finding the venues for Open Dialogue that you've mentioned--cryptocurrency meetups and Libertarian meetings--really able to open the Overton Window about what viewpoints can be discussed? or do they have their own ideology (anti-establishmentarianism?) that keeps what's acceptable to them within certain limits? If someone came to one of their meetings with a thoroughly "mainstream narrative' POV, respect for expert consensus or just experts in government, public health, universities, foundations, think tanks, would that person be respected and listened to?
2. I'm wondering if these alternative venues and alternative sources of information that you've mentioned, that promote Open Dialogue, can create their own "Certainty Trap" (Ilana Redstone's apt concept)? The certainty being that only non-mainstream sources of information or expertise should be trusted?
I'm grappling with these questions because I know there are major trust problems with the "mainstream narratives" and traditional sources of information and expertise. I totally believe in open dialogue (and inquiry) and viewpoint diversity (core HxA values) but am not sure I can arrive at a place where viewpoint diversity encompasses dismissal of experts and "mainstream narratives" altogether. Something I'm pondering much of late . . . . .
I'm not sure about DYOR-- that is not something I've heard anyone say explicitly. CryptoMondays tends to focus on speakers who are excited about the new possibilities surrounding crypto and Web3-- people starting businesses and such-- much like the dot com era. But occasionally they will have a speaker who will focus on the possibilities for decentralization and setting up alternative systems. The Bitcoin group I attend here mostly discusses the logistics of buying and storing Bitcoin, how it works, why it is a good investment, and current legislation around it.
Like I said, every group is going to have a certain ideological bent, but the reason I like the ones that I mentioned is that they offer opportunity for in-depth conversation (not always easy to find) and because the attendees converse like adults. If you wanted to express respect for expert consensus you might not feel like that is a popular sentiment, but, at least in the groups I have been in, nobody is going to respond in a disrespectful way.
The problem with bringing up topics in general society right now is that mentioning any relevant topic-- for example, smart cities, or issues on the border-- will immediately attract over-the-top, personal attacks (particularly online). I see this already with people trying to discuss possible remedies to climate change.
The three groups I mentioned are ones where I have found that the HxA principles are most at play. I have heard from friends who have been members of other in-person type groups-- i.e., the Sierra Club-- that they have been dismayed by the ideological takeover that has occurred there. But I am sure there are other groups where constructive dialogue is taking place that I am unaware of.
I agree that every group will have its own ideology, or maybe attitude or bent, about how to go about acquiring information or facts or building knowledge to make good decisions. I think my caveat about anything DYOR-related is best expressed in this NY Times article from last year, by philosopher Ballantyne and psychologist Dunning, on the sharp limits of "Do Your Own Research" in complex domains. Even with their concerns, though, these two don't dismiss it altogether, but urge caution about its limits as opposed to relying on expert consensus when it's available.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/03/opinion/dyor-do-your-own-research.html
Unfortunately there are certain domains where "doing your own research" is practically a requirement. As one example-- propositions on a voting ballot. They are always going to be phrased in the most positive way possible, but to find out what they really mean requires researching funding sources, alternative viewpoints, etc. I call this "unfortunate" because it shouldn't have to be that difficult for the average voter to figure out what a proposition is really about, and sometimes after doing research, I still can't figure it out.
I'd have to ruminate on this idea further, but it may be that the ideological takeover of the "mainstream" has become so extreme, and correspondingly people's ability to practice civil dialogue has disintegrated so severely, that the only places left that you are going to find civil dialogue is in those entities that are in opposition to the mainstream.
I'm sure there's much ideological takeover of the mainstream though I wonder if it's as extreme as often assumed or stated. I see these big generalizations about that phenomenon all the time. That's why I don't want to dismiss out of hand the "mainstream sources" or experts when there's consensus available, even though I think that skepticism, calibrated appropriately, is always important. Same with trust.
I was thinking of even the vaunted New York Times--about as elite and "mainstream" as we know of, and its ability to shape opinion, and to miss or distort important news and developments, while also excelling at certain types of reporting. The contradiction here for me in "the paper of record" is the crazy blowup over their dismissal of a superb science reporter, Don McNeil, over his use of a certain epithet in an innocent way. That reflects something about that media organization. Then, on the other hand, they have a superb reporter Michael Powell, who's written excellent stories about some of the very free speech controversies on campuses that we've discussed before, and he's done extremely well there, in reporting on issues of intellectual and academic freedom. I don't think even the NY Times is totally in thrall to ultraprogressive ideology, all the time, though there's of course a prevailing perspective, of that I'm sure.
I think there's a chance at civil dialogue or debate even in "mainstream" venues but it's become more difficult. The alternative or "non-mainstream" places may become silos in themselves and not open to competing information . . . and that starts mirroring the tendencies of the "mainstream" sources that do too much of that bubble-formation already.
We may be having something of the "brokennist" vs. "status quoist" debate that I posted about before: https://hxlibraries.substack.com/p/the-battle-of-the-heterodox/comments
Like I commented in that post, I am a "brokennist" but one who leans toward repairing the current system as opposed to starting a whole new one, which I am not convinced is possible. I do support efforts to offer alternatives when feasible (i.e., Substack as a place for alternative voices, using a credit union as opposed to a big bank, starting a garden, etc.).
Hi Susan: On this debate between "brokennists" and "status quoists," I was struck by how skewed this piece was toward the reasonableness of the "brokenist" perspective. That is, well before the author came out as a brokenist, it was clear that was where she was coming from because of the way she explained the alternative. For her, I would be a status quoist, but I certainly don't identify that way. For me, this piece is a terrific example of what happens when people present themselves as honest analysts and brokers when either, 1) they don't understand those who disagree with them, or 2) they're arguing their position in bad faith.
I didn't get the impression she was arguing in bad faith, but perhaps she was skewed towards the perspective she has adopted (I would have to re-read). It is always difficult to make generalizations, but I felt that her perspective shed some light on a kind of divide that is taking place, albeit one that is a bit messier/ less clear in reality.
Also, whatever you think of RFK, Jr., the debate I linked to (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOLe4C5-q_k&t=4483s) is a similar conversation, as it is between two people who are no longer voting at all and one person who believes that we have to try to repair the system that we are all inevitably embedded in.
I couldn't identify any credentials of any of these people to warrant spending any time caring about any of their opinions.
After I've thought about it further, I'm not sure how "oppositional" these groups are. Bitcoin, for example, is accepted at a wide variety of places now: https://bitpay.com/directory/#:~:text=Notable%20companies%20include%20Newegg.com,Bitcoin%20is%20easy%20with%20BitPay.
The Libertarians, of course, are just another political party. I mentioned them because they advocate for free speech and hold speaker events that are open to non-Libertarians. Other political parties might as well; I just don't know.
I like to read/hear both sides of an argument. It's always interesting to see the change over time on one side or both as more information comes to light. I particularly recommend listening to source speakers, reading source documents. It is very rare to have a speaker fairly summed up by someone on the opposite side ideologically/politically. Or an article/piece of research summarized by a group or person on the side of wanting it "not to be true". Also, important with science to find people who are actually specialists in the field to interpret information instead of experts outside the discipline. By reading/listening widely you tend to become more aware of the different experts/sources which is great.
Thanks, Amy. I totally agree here about listening and reading and taking in more rather than less and processing carefully, and realizing one's limits. I've arrived at something I call "calibration of trust" which I suppose could be complementary to "calibration of skepticism" when attempting to understand something new or outside my area of knowledge or expertise. It's like making a leap after reviewing the evidence available--it's probabilistic reasoning. Acting or. making a decision in the face of uncertainty in a complex domain. One thing I do know--I want the best experts I can find or read whenever possible even though I know they have biases and blind spots as well. It's a matter for me of making considered judgements about them taking those limitations into account.
Even with these anti-expert and anti-elite times, I find it difficult to accept the opinions of random groups of citizens who are offering their views on complicated and fraught topics, on health care, vaccines, climate change or other controversies . And I say this even while I'm heartened by grassroots groups addressing polarization (Bridge USA and Braver Angels).
I recently learned about a book by a public choice economist, Garett Jones, that I want to read: 10 Percent Less Democracy. It's about calibrating trust in experts somewhat more, and in ordinary voters and citizens somewhat less. It has much to do with government effectiveness and economics, but the core idea, apparently, is recovering some trust in experts where they can promote the common good.
To that I would just add two comments. Sometimes these groups bring in expert speakers. But also, I'm sure we all have attended book groups or other types of events where we have discussed issues, even serious ones, with "non-experts."
"Epistemic vice predicts acceptance of Covid-19 misinformation"
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/episteme/article/epistemic-vice-predicts-acceptance-of-covid19-misinformation/7C5E1DEB5F3DC781BE45728D6D6DC13E