alt Hacker NewsConsider a community filled with 100 people; 95 of them who don't take their eccentric beliefs as gospel truths and 5 who do. Those 5 will inevitably become the public face of the community when they make the news. However there is very little that the 95 could have done to stop them.
Replies
joegibbs • today at 12:03 AM
Doesn't it say something if 5% of a group are wacko lunatics if, for instance, a random sample of the rest of the population has only 0.5% wackos?
astrange • yesterday at 10:41 PM
The entire point of rationalism is to take your own beliefs seriously and follow them as if you were a robot.
(Except that they don't claim them to be "their own beliefs" but instead call them "priors".)
> However there is very little that the 95 could have done to stop them.
How about the 95% stop having gatherings where they all proclaim that their beliefs are true even if they don't seriously believe them?
How is the 5% supposed to know that the 95% is actually larping belief? And how is an outsider who observes the 95% espousing their whacky beliefs supposed to know who is a member of the 95% and who is a member of the 5% (and if those percentages are accurate).
You can observe the same dynamic in any church. Everyone in the congregation will have different levels of belief, but when it comes to sharing a testimony you'll be hard pressed to distinguish between who the true believers are and who's just "faking it until you make it".