Adapted from the Fallible Ideas Discord Chat (link at the end of this page)
Cleaned up the formatting and edited to remove off topic stuff
Mediocrites the Average
So how did you guys end up following the FI stuff?
JustinCEO
i was involved in youth rights years ago and from that discovered TCS
Mediocrites the Average
I would think it’s a rare sort of person to even find it.
G Neto
i found elliot at DD’s tweets
Mediocrites the Average
@JustinCEO Ah, OK. So you’re probably interested in the moral aspects of FI more than anything.
JustinCEO
well the epistemology connects to the morality a lot
Mediocrites the Average
@G Neto DD’s great. FoR really dropped a fuck on my epistemology.
G Neto
i didnt have any epistemology at the time i read FoR. i was interested in it but i couldnt understand the mainstream stuff
JustinCEO
using force instead of persuasion is immoral in part because you are thwarting the knowledge-creating process
JustinCEO
hard to think and engage in critical discussion when people are hitting you with sticks!
Mediocrites the Average
@JustinCEO wrt the link between morality and epistemology, I think the primary aim for some people is to get a better understanding of morality, and learning about epistemology just kinda helps with that. It’s like required reading. Whereas for others their primary goal is to work on their epistemology. I’m more interested in the epistemology side of things than morality, personally.
JustinCEO
people think, well, kids are dumber, i know better. but then it should be easy to persuade the kids. if you know way more and are in the right, what’s the issue? and if you can’t persuade them, why are you so sure you are right?
G Neto
i like godwin’s arguments that goes like that
JustinCEO
ya
JustinCEO
not my original argument 😇
JustinCEO
Mediocrites lots of people wanna go straight towards discussing what u might call higher level topics like politics
JustinCEO
but it’s hard to sort that stuff out without knowing epistemology stuff
JustinCEO
like you can’t even talk about what system of govt to have really well without talking about error correction, minimizing harm from bad rulers/policies, and thus engaging with popper, and so you’re in epistemology land
Mediocrites the Average
I think kids can often pick up irrational discussion-killing tactics from media and adults in their life. It makes debating stuff with them difficult sometimes. I’ll admit I have very few interactions with kids, and am pretty awkward around them.
Mediocrites the Average
I’ve seen little girls, for instance, fold their arms and parrot some sassy thing they’ve heard someone say in a song or on a TV show.
JustinCEO
they get socially rewarded for that kinda thing
JustinCEO
most people are hard to have a discussion with and kids are a subset of people so okay sure. but you know, with most people folks don’t think “okay this discussion to resolve the disagreement is going nowhere, time to settle it by literally using my size and strength to carry them around and make them do what i want.”
Mediocrites the Average
They’re learning not to try to sort things out
JustinCEO
and they’ve had like thousands and thousands of interactions with irrational adults (mostly their parents) before that sort of thing starts to manifest
Mediocrites the Average
Right. Like, like the mom will chuckle and say something like “she doesn’t fall far from the tree. her mother’s a bitch too. lolol”
Mediocrites the Average
Disgusting.
Mediocrites the Average
Since you know a lot about how to interact with kids, maybe I could get your opinion on something. My mother-in-law was a teacher. She asked me to bring in my dinosaur bone replicas to show to her class. I refused, because I’m anti-compulsory schooling. I didn’t want to be part of that. Do you think that was the right move, morally speaking?
G Neto
like you can’t even talk about what system of govt to have really well without talking about error correction
about this subject. What do you guys think of suporting UKIP in UK? about the problems of coalitions.
Mediocrites the Average
imo, it’s like being asked by kidnappers to come entertain their captives.
JustinCEO
Mediocrites that seems like kind of a tricky question to me. i can offer some thoughts but keep in mind curi or someone else might say something different
JustinCEO
so this isn’t like a CANONICAL FI answer
JustinCEO
this is just J’s off the cuff comments
Mediocrites the Average
@JustinCEO I got ya.
Mediocrites the Average
What I didn’t want to have happen is for those kids in her class to reflect (many years later) on public schooling fondly, recalling that awesome day they brought in a guy with really cool dinosaur bones.
JustinCEO
i think one needs to be very careful about interacting with or sanctioning school stuff in general. another thing is, is the class genuinely interested, or is it just the teacher? if you somehow knew there were kids in the class that were interested, that’d be different. but since it was the teacher asking u u can’t really know that. even if she claimed that kids were interested, that’s unreliable, cuz even if she ASKED the kids, they’re not gonna be like “oh fuck dinos, that’s a shit idea, hate dinos” to their teacher, even if that’s how they feel
JustinCEO
there’s also the issue of sanctioning the very condescending and awful student-teacher dynamic in class
Mediocrites the Average
yeah. I didn’t want to implicitly sanction the institution by helping
JustinCEO
like where kids would have to raise their hands to ask questions, agree to arbitrary restrictions (like maybe you’d be okay with the kids touching the bones, but the teacher just arbitrarily wouldn’t, and teacher is boss, so that’s BS. stuff like that)
Mediocrites the Average
I guess I just assumed kids would love dinos. That didn’t even occur to me. Good point.
JustinCEO
well that’s a stereotypical kid interest and you are personally interested in them even as an adult so it’s understandable you’d think so 😃
JustinCEO
but yeah
JustinCEO
but like if you wanna do a presentation on dinos just do a youtube and you avoid lots of these issues and almost certainly get a bigger audience if its any good ;p
Mediocrites the Average
I figured in a class of 30-40 kids, there is probably going to be a few dino-fans. But even so, there might be many kids that would be bored by the presentation, and I wouldn’t want to add to their suffering.
JustinCEO
yeah
JustinCEO
like best case is some kids are mildly interested, 1-2 super interested, some are less bored than usual, and you have to put up with dealing with teachery crap
JustinCEO
that is my guess
JustinCEO
#NotCanonicalFIAnswer
Mediocrites the Average
When I told my mother-in-law about my reasons for not helping, she kinda rolled her eyes. The reaction I got cemented my opinion that the decision was correct. I think she’s evil.
JustinCEO
ya lol
JustinCEO
not “wow that’s a perspective i don’t usually here, how interesting”
Mediocrites the Average
Right. I imagined her giving the same reaction to kids that expressed no interest in her curriculum for that day.
curi
my first thot @ school thing was i wouldn’t want to risk the dino being damaged. and yeah refusing to go sounds legit.
Mediocrites the Average
@curi glad I made the right choice. my other consideration was that since public schooling isn’t going away anytime soon, and the kids’ day is going to be rekt no matter what, I could at least make it better for some of them. But like Justin said, I don’t know what the kids want. There might have been some little girls in the class that had no interest in dinosaurs and would actually prefer learning about math or w/e. So I might end up doing more harm than good.