'There's No Good Way To Kill a Bad Idea' (qz.com) 281
The world is filled with bad, baseless, factually inaccurate ideas that refuse to die. From an article: Philosopher Russell Blackford, a lecturer at the University of Newcastle in Australia, tweeted about this phenomenon earlier this month: "The momentum behind bad ideas can be enormous -- they can plunge on, gathering force, long after receiving devastating criticism." If you've ever found yourself unable to halt someone else's idiotic plans once they were already in motion, you're not alone. Whether you're a politician trying to make congress see sense or simply a manager trying to halt an atrocious team-building plan, there's simply no foolproof way to kill a terrible idea. Blackford blames the momentum behind bad ideas on cascade effects. Yes, individuals are prone to making poor decisions for emotional or biased reasons (known as "cognitive heuristics") and this irrationality is part of the problem. But there's also a broader sociological issue, in that others' opinions carry a huge amount of weight in influencing our views. A cultural consensus -- even without proper evidence -- can form pretty quickly. If one person convinces a second, says Blackford, then a third person will be far more likely to agree with the majority view. This effect exponentially increases with each person who agrees with the others. "We soon have a sociological effect whereby everyone knows that, say, a certain movie is very good or very bad, even though everyone might have 'known' the exact opposite if only a few early voices had been different," says Blackford.
thereÃ(TM)s simply no foolproof way to kill a (Score:5, Insightful)
Like, for example, unicode?
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Indeed.
Re:thereÃ(TM)s simply no foolproof way to kil (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know about you, but to me, 174 Petawatts [wikipedia.org] of untapped energy seems like it should be able to power the planet. Sure, one has to determine how one stores-up energy to use when the planet's rotation obscures the sun, but given that fossil-fuel-based power required all sorts of intermediate steps to get where we are today anyway, this does not seem like an impossible task.
There are more ways of storing potential energy than chemical batteries.
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Spoken out of admitted ignorance. Solar creates a lot of pollution in the creation of the panels (some of the chemicals used are very toxic) and energy storage is not trivial. If you want to get technical, fossil fuels are solar energy too, just chemically stored at a very high energy density compared to chemical batteries, and we use fossil fuel because it works at any time as needed.
It has been said before, but the problems with solar energy are significant:
Random, cloudy days that cut your generation p
Re:thereÃ(TM)s simply no foolproof way to kil (Score:5, Informative)
There is also the fact that it takes more energy to make a solar panel than the panel will get back in its lifetime.
That is incredibly false. Going on basic logical analysis alone, if what you say were the case, they would never have a positive monetary return on investment unless you were manufacturing them in a location with rock-bottom energy prices (say Iceland) and using them in places with sky-high energy prices (Hawaii?). Years of installations in a huge variety of situations shows that they DO have a positive monetary return over their life.
If you want actual data you can search EROEI ("Energy Returned on Energy Invested")
Perfect example of bad idea that can't be killed! (Score:5, Informative)
it takes more energy to make a solar panel than the panel will get back in its lifetime.
This is the perfect example of a bad idea that just can't be killed. It may, possibly, have been true back in the '80s. It is not true now, and hasn't been true for a long time. Modern solar panels produce much more energy than the total energy used to manufacture them.
Look up "energy payback time".
Re:thereÃ(TM)s simply no foolproof way to kil (Score:5, Interesting)
And in fact, it *does* power the planet. It's only our narrow focus on things that are literally "accounted for" in our economy that makes it appear otherwise. If we had to replace all the things that sunlight does for us with our non-renewable energy sources they wouldn't even come close, but that all happens off the books so it's invisible.
Now I worked for environmental organizations in the years of transition from crying indian [youtube.com] environmentalism to "sustainability" based environmentalism, and I always had a problem with the new framing: non-sustainability is by definition a self-correcting problem.
So if we survive as a society, that society will eventually be powered by (and limited by) solar energy. The problem isn't non-sustainability per se, but the predictable costs of running unprepared into the limits of the processes we depend on.
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"environmentalists" is not a monolithic block with identical views. Everyone who who self-applies the label or finds the label applied to them has at least some unique perspective, and while certainly there are people, even lots of people that agree with each other, there are undoubtedly various camps that people may or may not belong to.
I could see some valuing the dam, both due to historical drought issues and and in terms of offsetting power production that might otherwise be considered for a nuclear ap
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Wouldn't that make us all dizzy?
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Or the moon. [bfy.tw]
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1.21 Gigawatts should be enough for anybody!
Re:thereÃ(TM)s simply no foolproof way to kil (Score:4, Insightful)
Affordable compared to what? What's the cost difference between building a massive solar plant that stores energy in the form of some kind of superheated substrate to emit that heat back to generate power, plus the maintenance of that facility, compared to the cost to build and fuel a power plant that burns fossil fuel?
No one is expecting fossil fuel plants to just be switched off, what most expect is to build new plants of new types to replace old plants as they're increasingly nonviable.
Re:thereÃ(TM)s simply no foolproof way to kil (Score:4, Informative)
No one is expecting fossil fuel plants to just be switched off, what most expect is to build new plants of new types to replace old plants as they're increasingly nonviable.
I think you're very mistaken there, many people expect exactly that.
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Oil was not an affordable energy source when it was new. It has a very expensive infrastructure that has been built up over time. Coal was cheaper but it also came with very expensive side effects. Cheap as they are, people still complain about the high costs because they're still paying for them, we still have people who die every year because they could not afford the heating oil or coal for their house in the winter, and the power companies keep building new coal or oil based plants to meet the demad.
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There you go. Either use some transliteration system or learn a proper language.
Me neither. If you want pictures (for people who can't read, perhaps) there's png.
Ovid didn't need unicode, and neither did Shakespeare.
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They didn't need computers either. So obviously you should stop using yours.
Like... (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes there is... (Score:2)
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Nope. We have great examples after great examples of people doing what "sounds good", which ends up fucking up everyone else. See Venezuela and Bernie's pride in that country's socialism (before it collapsed) ..
“These days, the American dream is more apt to be realized in South America, in places such as Ecuador, Venezuela and Argentina, where incomes are actually more equal today than they are in the land of Horatio Alger.”
Socialism is a proven failure, time and again.Yet it "sounds good" and that is enough to keep in propped up on college campuses and dens of Liberals everywhere.
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...We have great examples after great examples of people doing what "sounds good"...
Obviously, no one came up with something that was better. Thanks for making my point so eloquently.
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Cue the 'but-fire-departments-are-socialism' people.
The REAL questions is: HOW MUCH socialism is enough?
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Socialism is "for the collective, at the expense of individual liberty". Where there is liberty, socialism cannot take root.
However, you are 100% correct, but that is because "All Governments" are not defending liberty and are actively suppressing liberty. It is just a matter of degree at this point.
Definition of socialism (Score:5, Informative)
Socialism is "for the collective, at the expense of individual liberty".
No.
Socialism is worker ownership of the means of production.
Most people today seem to have long since lost track of what socialism is actually defined as, but if you're going to be pedantic, be pedantic and correct.
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So, if the workers own stock, then we have socialism?
Great, that pretty much means that we've had socialism running as intended since the first IRA/401K.
Or did you think your IRA/401K was just a big pile of dollar bills stuck in a closet somewhere?
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Um, fascism is where business takes over the government. Communism if where government takes over all of business.
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Historically ignorant.
Corporatism is when business takes over government.
Fascism and communism are both examples of governments, ostensibly based in marxist philosophy, taking over all of business. They are 'hating cousins'.
Economic terminology [Re:Definition of socialism] (Score:2)
That's the definition of socialism, yes.
AND there is no greater "ownership" for a worker than owning your own business.
Whether "owning your own business" is "worker ownership of the means of production" depends on what your business does: whether it produces things, or just sells things other people produced (if it just sells things, it's not "means of production"). It also depends on whether you employ other people to produce things-- in that case you,, as the business owner, are a capitalist, unless the people you employ are co-owners (in which case your business is a collective).
...The greatest form of "socialism" (using your definition)
N
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That's not fascism. You don't seem to understand these words - no wonder you are so confused and angry...
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Socialism always leads to collapse of the economy, as people figure out how to game the system. Because it hasn't collapsed everywhere yet, actually goes exactly to the article's premise.
Functioning society doesn't require socialism at all. It requires social contracts of approved behavior, and enforcement of those rules. The problem is, we have a bunch of people who think that rules don't apply to them because the rules are "oppressive". Well duh, rules are oppressive to people who don't want to be bound
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How does the enforcement of social contracts of approved behavior not qualify as socialistic (your definition above - "for the collective, at the expense of individual liberty")?
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If you have a governance system whereby individual liberty is the crowning jewel, it leads to social constructs that function for everyone equally. We don't have this anymore. People can riot and prevent others from speaking freely, and that is now "acceptable" and not squashed by police. Your right to riot ends when the it violates my peaceful rights to speak freely (and destruction of property).
Enforcement of social constructs should be very limited, and by a governance that is equally limited (as part of
Unfalsifiable statement (Score:4, Insightful)
Socialism always leads to collapse of the economy, as people figure out how to game the system. Because it hasn't collapsed everywhere yet, actually goes exactly to the article's premise.
That's an assertion that has been made un-falsifiable by weasel-wording. You could say the same thing about anything. Democracy. Speaking French. Taxing liquor sales.
"Democracy always leads to collapse of the economy, as people figure out how to game the system. Because it hasn't collapsed everywhere yet, actually goes exactly to the article's premise." What, some democracies haven't collapsed? That just proves my point!
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Socialism always leads to collapse of the economy, as people figure out how to game the system.
That might just be an example of a bad idea that there's no good way to kill. :)
Modern humans have been around for somewhere around 200,000 years and human civilization has been around for a few thousand years depending how you count. But can you point to any "economy" at all that has existed unchanged from anywhere near that long?
Will the economy of, say, Denmark collapse eventually? Maybe. Or maybe Denmark's economy will survive until we all link up our separate consciousnesses into a single collective c
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Coming up was a better idea is required, but is not sufficient. People tend to get invested in the ideas that they've accepted, and refuse to change even for something better. The next generation will usually adapt unless they've been massively propagandized against it.
Let's incentivize this puppy (Score:3)
Don't think so (Score:3)
Y = 1/(X-1) doesn't look like an exponential to me.
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Y = 1/(X-1) doesn't look like an exponential to me.
If each person who is convinced goes on to convince N others, this is exponential growth.
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That's not how I interpret it. From TFA:
The third person is outnumbered 2:1, the fourth 3:1 and so on.
If it was a chain reaction of individuals going off evangelising the "victim" wouldn't even be aware that there was a majority view.
Still exponential [Re:Don't think so ] (Score:2)
Well, if the probability of a new person being converted is proportional to the number of people already converted, that is also an exponential process:
dN/dT = k N.
Escalation of commitment (Score:5, Interesting)
This concept is also know as "escalation of commitment", where you feel you're welded to an idea and backing down will cause you to look bad. It's especially common in groupthink scenarios.
The Challenger disaster is one that comes to mind almost immediately. Plenty of people thought the launch was a bad idea, but groupthink set in and the launch proceeded.
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From what I recall, it wasn't group think, it was Management Think/Political Think.
The "group" caved to pressure imposed from the top as opposed to the group pressuring for the action.
Re:Peers (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe in that scenario. I wasn't there so I can't comment further.
But I have been in situations where my peers put on a lot of pressure.
You either fall in line with the group or you are an 'idiot'. Management does take its cues from underlings - it just sucks when you are not the underling they listen to.
The challenger case was an example of several different sorts of broken thinking:
1) Concerns engineers had over the design were not passed along to the contractor.
2) Evidence of O-ring erosion was not passed to NASA upper management.
3) The contractor identified O-ring erosion as a major problem and put into work a redesign. Shuttles were not grounded because this was considered an "acceptable flight risk."
4) We really need to get this launch going, we can't afford more delays. "I am appalled, appalled by your recommendation [to scrub the launch]. My God, Thiokol, when do you want me to launch, next April?"
5) Management ignored the express objections of engineering. They thought if the primary O-ring failed, the secondary O-ring would be sufficient, despite that being mere theory. It was a "criticality 1 component," and NASA regs forbid the reliance on a backup for a Criticality 1 component.
6) For unknown reasons, the contractor's management reversed itself the night before and recommended launch despite the temps and ice. NASA did not ask why. A chief engineer at the contracting company told his wife that night that the Space Shuttle Challenger would blow up.
The Shuttle disaster is the perfect example of reasonable, well-supported arguments being unable to penetrate the group-think of bad decisions, because other factors (launch delays, etc) were allowed to override a known flight risk.
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6) For unknown reasons, the contractor's management reversed itself the night before and recommended launch despite the temps and ice.
Umm, you listed the reason in step 4: "I am appalled, appalled by your recommendation [to scrub the launch]. My God, Thiokol, when do you want me to launch, next April?"
That was heavy pressure from NASA management on the conference call to scrub the launch. Thiokol management immediately reconvened and then changed their recommendation. Also, at the time, Thiokol's contract was coming up for renegotiation and competition with other firms.
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I'm not sure about the Challenger disaster, but I think a major component is buy in. When enough people have invested themselves emotionally on the bad idea, there is no amount of showing why it is a bad idea that will sway them to reconsider. It is similar to voters, once they have emotionally invested themselves, there is not much one can say to dissuade them.
There was a recent article on (I think) NYT or Wash Post about championship wrestling and the current political climate. We all know championship wr
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People watch fictional dramas all the time. How is wrestling any different? It's all entertainment.
There's No Good Way To Kill a Bad Idea (Score:2)
Certainly not w/o the Secret Service getting really upset.
Re:There's No Good Way To Kill a Bad Idea (Score:4, Insightful)
BTW, it looks like the Internet Archive now has most of the "Shattered" book online if you're feeling ghoulish.
https://archive.org/details/ShatteredInsideHillaryClintonsDoomedCampaign
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Why can't we ever go from a bad idea to a good idea? Why does it seem like when faced with a bad idea, we'll implement a worse one?
I suppose when a bad idea results in a disaster, it's highly visible. Everyone can see the awfulness. But a good idea is a little more boring, and nothing breaks in a spectacular way.
Good ideas (Score:2)
I guess that the flip side of this is that there's also no good way to kill a good idea, too.
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Also (Score:2)
You can't reason someone out of an idea they didn't reason themselves into.
As always, Yogi Berra has it covered (Score:2)
âoeA lie will go round the world while truth is pulling its boots on.â
C. H. Spurgeon
Two Big Factors (Score:5, Interesting)
The unkillable idea owes its invulnerability in large part to two phenomena: the sunk cost fallacy, and the Abilene paradox [wikipedia.org].
In short, once a group of people have agreed (even very reluctantly) on a course of action and expended resources in pursuit of the goal, nobody wants to openly admit it was a bad idea to begin with, and everyone will fight to defend it.
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In short, once a group of people have agreed (even very reluctantly) on a course of action and expended resources in pursuit of the goal, nobody wants to openly admit it was a bad idea to begin with, and everyone will fight to defend it.
Sound very much like Trump, the Brexit, etc. The funny thing is that for most people explaining and even demonstrating this effect to them will have absolutely no positive effect.
good, bad (Score:2)
good and bad are matters of opinion. a majority of such opinion might become part of a subculture or country. Only a person biased against an idea that stands the test of time will say it's "bad and hard to kill"
It works both ways. (Score:2)
All ideas can be killed, or smothered (Score:4, Funny)
there's simply no foolproof way to kill a terrible idea
Sure there is. In business just ask for a fully costed proposal. (This also works for killing perfectly sound ideas, too.). if the proposer ever gets that finished, just tell them it's "interesting" and then shred it.
Outside of the company, in real life, you can associate the idea with something that invokes moral outrage: when someone blurts out a mind-numbingly stupid idea, just whisper in their ear "I wouldn't suggest that, you know the person who came up with it was a child-molester" (or Nazi, or whatever group is currently demonised).
If we're talking about FAKE NEWS, there really is no reason to try to kill it, so long as you are able to insulate yourself from the effects of other people's stupidity: buying gold, taking a contrarian investment, simply ignoring it or just get into the game and come up with something even more fake or exaggerated - it can be great fun if you don't take it seriously.
if you have an evil streak, you could even encourage the FAKE NEWS promoter that it is a really good idea and that they should invest in it - big time. Maybe even telling them that you know a guy and if they just give you a cash payment, you'll pass it on ...
The Red Forman method (Score:2)
Red Forman had it right.
When someone creates or perpetuates a bad idea, you slap them upside the head and yell "Dumbass!"
Lather, rinse, and repeat as necessary until the stain of ignorance fades to an acceptable level.
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The stupid peoples' solution [Re:The Red Forma...] (Score:2)
Red Forman had it right. When someone creates or perpetuates a bad idea, you slap them upside the head and yell "Dumbass!"
The problem is that stupid people, and people with dumb ideas, really love that approach and will adopt it enthusiastically.
They have discovered that they can't convince people with logic and facts (because logic and facts don't support their stupid ideas in any way.). But slapping people and shouting "dumbass"? That is something that they can do! Repeatedly!
In general, you can safely assume that anybody who tries to shoot down an idea by "slapping people upside the head and yelling 'Dumbass'!" is stupid,
Dunning-Kruger effect for groups (Score:3)
People are generally stupid. In groups, they become even more stupid, because they do not evaluate the ideas of others on merit, but on what they think the insight-level of the person is. As they screw up that evaluation as well, this whole effect has zero surprise value. Add to that that most people prefer to live in a bubble where they surround themselves with others with the same (usually bad) ideas, and you understand where the utterly moronic decisions some groups have made come from. It also becomes clear how to manipulate these groups and people that have no real skills beyond that manipulation can acquire immense power, which they then are unable to wield competently.
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Funny how you use the stupid thing as evidence and completely miss the extremely stupid thing (Trump). But I guess you are just one more example of the effect at work.
Sounds like an interesting idea for an article. (Score:2)
Or you are an idiot and it is you who are wrong (Score:3)
The caveat here is that just because you don't like an idea as a politician (or individual) doesn't mean that is a bad idea, it is entirely possible that you are an idiot and it is you who are wrong. There is an entire section of the population who are like this. They have a set of beliefs that they FEEL are right, regardless of facts or statistics, and they believe that they hold the moral high ground, so they must be right and anyone who disagrees is not only wrong but evil. They live in their little echo chambers where all their friends parrot back to them the same beliefs, and they shout down the opposition wherever it pops up. If they don't get their way, they violently riot (i.e. if someone is going to speak who they disagree with, or if an informed jury of citizens decides in a way they don't like). I will let you figure out who I am talking about, but it shouldn't be difficult if you are paying attention.
One good way (Score:2)
There is a way that often works: You join in and improve the idea until it becomes absurd and dies by itself. Then you blame the original inventor for the failure.
2nd amendment (Score:2)
/end dog whistle
The "Aliens" solution is a close as they come... (Score:3)
"Take off and nuke them from orbit, it's the only way to be sure..."
SD
John F. Kennedy was not a homosexual (Score:5, Insightful)
I use this example when talking to people about anti-vaxxers. You can't just say vaccines don't cause autism. You are much better off talking about how bad the diseases are that can be cured by vaccines. Alternatively, you could talk about the research on the efficacy of vaccines in preventing diseases, or even just discuss the history of vaccines and Jonas Salk. What you can't do, is tell somebody "not X." All they hear is "X." Then I tell my friend who I am explaining this to, "Did you know that JFK was not a homosexual?" And whoever I'm talking to, no matter their political bent, instantly starts thinking, "wait... was he?"
By stating the opposite of a thing, you reinforce the original thing -- even if they weren't thinking about it in the first place! Imagine how much stronger that reinforcement is, if they already had that notion.
I forget where I first learned this trick. Probably on this godforsaken forum. But it always causes people to realize they have been arguing with others the wrong way. If you know somebody is wrong, you can deflect to something you know is right. You can ask them to elaborate on exactly how they know the thing they say they know. You can try to find common ground. You can state facts that support a counterargument, and let them connect the dots. But if you just say the opposite of their argument, you will not succeed.
It's a hard lesson to remember and use in real life, because human nature is to say "nu-uh." But if you can do a little verbal jujitsu, you are much more likely to succeed in getting people to see your point of view.
(I just noticed this whole post is sort of meta, since I'm disagreeing with the premise of the article without actually saying so.)
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There are two types of people: Anti-Vaxxers not interested in science and those more interested in science. The latter know that you can't entirely rule out the possibility that vaccines cause autism: all you can say with absolute certainty is that there is no evidence that vaccines cause autism and no know
A big part of the problem is... (Score:3, Insightful)
religious brainwashing early in life. Innocent children are taught that they should be unquestioningly accepting of wacky ideas just because their elders seem to believe them. Their natural scepticism is denounced as heresy.
The whole idea that anything should just be accepted as a matter of faith is a threat to democracy. Sunday school is clearly a form of child abuse. (even when it's done on Saturday)
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>Innocent children are taught that they should be unquestioningly accepting of wacky ideas just because their elders seem to believe them. Their natural scepticism is denounced as heresy.
It's not just religion - that's how you raise your kids, mostly. Because there's way too much stuff to let them question you about every little thing if you want to finish raising them before you die of old age.
And you may not have noticed this, but if you let a kid question you once... it rapidly escalates until they q
Replacement rather than refutation (Score:2)
Yes there is... (Score:2)
There are ways to kill bad ideas, but it just is no longer socially acceptable to kill the originator in a novel and particularly gruesome manner. My favorite was always hanging, drawing and quartering.
It is often the application of the idea (Score:3)
Real reason (Score:2)
There are two different kinds of "bad ideas". Some have been tried and failed, others we have not found a good way to test yet.
The reasons that failed bad ideas are still believed is poor education. We don't teach people about science, so they don't understand how to test ideas or waht an idea failure looks like. Nor do we teach them how tell the difference between good information sources and bad information sources, so they trust Jenny McCarthy, Donald Trump, Glenn Beck, and Rod Blagojevitch.
We don't s
Against stupidity (Score:5, Insightful)
... the gods themselves contend in vain, Schiller said.
But maybe not. I just finished Hanah Arendt's famous Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, about the abduction and trial of the former SS officer who was in charge of "evacuating" Jews to the death camps. Eichmann claimed -- probably truthfully -- to be horrified and distressed when he saw what was happening in the extermination camps. But his horror was greatly mollified at the a conference in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee in which many important and respectable people discussed the Final Solution frankly and unabashedly, as if it were no big deal.
Arendt also points out something interesting about Denmark, a country which was under total military domination by the Third Reich but in which society from the King down resisted the expulsion of Jews. Not only were the Germans unable to expel even stateless Jews from Denmark, confirmed SS officers posted to Denmark would suddenly become unreliable on the Jewish Question.
This suggests to me that when you feel like you're powerless against stupid or even evil ideas, there is always something you can do that can be very powerful: you can set an example.
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My signature fits.
Don't worry. The AIs are coming! (Score:2)
It will shortly be possible to build a kind of philosopher-king AI which can evaluate the credibility of various models of what's going on in the world, and thus the credibility of various assertions about the world or about what is a good plan.
It could be given heuristics about evaluating the interests and allegiances of utterers of assertions, and factor those out. Disinterested parties are more likely to be more objective in their description of a situation and their prescription for fixing "bad" situati
Maybe, Just Maybe... (Score:4, Interesting)
...ideas you think are bad aren't really bad?
If you can't kill a "bad idea", that suggest that there are people who believe it to be a "good idea".
This whole exercise presumes that he is the one in possession of the Truth and that all others are idiots.
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It doesn't. Not at all.
Re:Maybe, Just Maybe... (Score:5, Insightful)
It depends on what that idea is.
If you're painting a wall, and a bunch of people want pale yellow and you want pale blue, then you're correct. There are lots of situations in this world where being exactly right, whatever that 'right' may be, is less important than simply coming to a consensus and moving forward.
However, if a bunch of people think vaccines cause autism or are otherwise far more dangerous than the illnesses that they prevent, that is unequivocally wrong. There isn't even a question. They are wrong. Period. And yet, these wrong people will dig in their heels and not change their mind no matter how much evidence you put in front of them.
The movie example is good as an illustration of the social pattern the author is trying to convey. However, the message gets lost if you focus too closely on the example itself. People have different opinions about movies, but no one truly gives a shit what anyone's given opinion is cause... well... it's just a movie. But if you extend the example to more serious problems, such as whether it's a good idea to build a ginormous wall spanning half the continent, then yes, whether the idea is 'good' or not becomes a heck of a lot more important.
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Solipsist much? The whole point of scientific research is a steady approach-by-halves to the Truth. The truth, as it is best known at any given time, is derived from an objective consensus dependent on the current sum of human observation. Then there is subjective truth, which isn't based upon much in the way of facts at all, instead based in emotional need buttressed by delusional "reasoning" and manufactured "facts".
Do you find the "facts" presented by David Icke terribly compelling? Why the fuck shou
Re:Maybe, Just Maybe... (Score:4, Insightful)
Agile is a manifesto, nothing but good ideas, nothing to argue with really.
Agile as practiced is an excuse. Terrible idea to give management an excuse to just 'fake it'.
Re:TLDR version (Score:4, Insightful)
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The Springfield Monorail?
Well if your goal is generating heat not light (Score:2)
that's the way to do it.
Just do something, anything! Shake it!
Actually doesn't most of the finance-based economy just hum along based on random "churn" and promises?
Have you ever stopped to think that probably 90% of the businesses you see at any given moment on the web and walking down the street are unprofitable from the get-go and destined to fail. Just slowly, while creating a few jobs here and there in the process. What does support all of this anyway? Raw, fallacious faith? Well if the placebo effect
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Replacing a perfectly good system for starting programs with something that does that and 97 other things (none of them properly).
Cheese.
Replacing something that can efficiently display anything worth reading with something that takes up 17 times as much disk space and memory. Because Klingon and emojis.
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*cough* Global Warming Denialism *cough*
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And then there are those even _more_ stupid, that confuse a scientifically proven, hard fact with an "idea".
Not working sadly (Score:3)
There IS a WAY to KILL a bad idea. It's called SCIENCE.
Hasn't worked so far. The religion of Scientism has greatly outpaced actual Science, with real scientists being silenced and the right to question conclusions or hypothesis thrown right out the window.
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I would like people like you to stop calling people "denialists".. They are not in denial, they just state that there is not enough evidence to prove it...
but these denialists want to shutdown the means to gather data, i.e. earth climate satellites.
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Having "misgivings" afterwards, while still having reaped all the benefits from participating, is easy. Following order is easy too. An actual moral person will carefully think about decisions before and accept the consequences. But after thy have made one negative decision, they are usually out because there are tons of people willing to go the easy road despite "misgivings".
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I think this is a _good_ idea! Since I will never used that Poettering-spawned abomination, I am all for making those that do use it suffer more. Stupidity should always come at a high price, even if many people will be willing to pay that price.
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Is there a UTF-128? I thought that even UTF-32 only *used* 24 bits.
But I take your point. I'm no fan of systemd either. Just this week I had do re-install the OS because the root partition filled up. I'm contemplating abandoning root partitions because the system is getting unreasonably large...and I can't predict what it's going to do next.
OTOH, perhaps the data being in a separate partition is why I was able to recover it without loss? Parts of the system partition looked to have been corrupted (thou
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Eh? You can have (or not have) separate partitions for /, /boot, /root and even /toot with or without systemd, though no doubt he's working on it.
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Neither the summary, nor the original article mentioned Ghostbusters (2016).
The article specifically mentions: The cascade effect can help explain why great movies such as The Wizard of Oz or Heathers can flop at the box office, while terrible movies such as Hangover III rake in millions.
Ghostbusters might be an interesting example because it got a huge amount of bad buzz, even though almost none of the people who "hated it" had seen anything from it before it's release. On release, it wasn't terrible, but
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No, it gives a lower bound that at least 3.1% have the balls to tell the truth about what they believe.
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That's optimistic. I'd add "divided by the number of members".