Bentham's Bulldog

I hope that over the next 10-20 years the more social media native Gen-Z/Gen-Alpha kids start learning how to mix hard science with good general public communication skills. But also I think the scientific community has to lean into the fact that communicating the truth is harder than communicating falsehoods.

I think there's this somewhat justifiably lazy narrative that if you have the truth on your side you're job will be easier, and so we excessively blame scientists for not adapting faster to this new landscape. The idea that if you can't communicate the truth well, you must be doing something really wrong, rather than failing to do something right. The linked blog post really changed my perspective in this area. It made this argument that basically if the average person, even the average earth science major tried to have a debate with a flat-earther. The flat-earther would destroy that person in a debate. Counter-intuitively it's not that flat-earthers are uninformed, many of them have a perversely in-depth knowledge of physics and earth science. Much deeper than the average person would consider having on a topic like the shape of the earth.

Edit, Found it: https://benthams.substack.com/p/conspiracy-theorists-arent-ignorant

This is offtopic (and not affiliated in any way), but I recently read this blog post [https://benthams.substack.com/p/what-to-do-if-you-love-meat-but-hate] which gave me an interesting point of view about this, much in line with what you are saying, but most importantly, an actionable (and easy if you have some spare money) thing to do.

I have since started donating to the mentioned organization, because I can't really bring myself to stop eating meat for several reasons (although I do avoid octopus just as you do), but at least this way I believe I might make a small difference.

Also, I recommend not reading the linked post about factory farm hell if you'd like to avoid having horrific descriptions planted in your head for weeks.

The article seems to have been well-received: https://benthams.substack.com/p/you-all-helped-hundreds-of-millions

I think this is a tough call in general. Current morality would be considered "ridiculously unacceptable" by 1800s standards, but I see it as a good thing that we've moved away from 1800s morality. I'm glad people were willing to challenge the 1800s status quo. At the same time, my sense is that the environmentalists who are ruining art in museums are probably challenging the status quo in a way that's unproductive.

To some degree, I suspect the rationalist / EA crowd has decided that weird contrarians tend to be the people who have the greatest impact in the long run, so it's OK to filter for those people.