Search Ideas

Fallibilism is the view that there is no criterion to say with certainty what’s true and what’s false. As a result, we inevitably make mistakes and all of our knowledge is tentative in nature. Nothing is obvious but depends on what one understands about reality. It also means that no knowledge is beyond revision, even if it claims to be. This means that we can't be certain about anything, because we don't have a criterion of truth. Knowledge grows by addressing problems in our knowledge. We solve problems by guessing solutions and testing them. This also means we should always be careful not to destroy or even slow down the things and ideas that correct errors and thereby create knowledge. Some of those ideas are freedom, privacy, and free markets. We are also never the passive recipients of our knowledge; we are the creators.

This view is mainly influenced by Popper, and errors are my own.

My Conjecture

Conjecture: addiction is the result of the entrenchment of a conflict between two or more preferences in a mind.

Picture a smoker who wants to give up smoking but also really enjoys smoking. Those preferences conflict.

If the conflict is entrenched, then both preferences get to live on indefinitely. The entrenchment will not let the smoker give up smoking. He will become a chain smoker.

Solutions for the conflict may need to be found creatively, case by case. It depends on the nature of the particular entrenchment and the preferences involved. A more overarching answer for how to cure addiction might involve Randian ideas around introspection and getting one’s reason and emotions in the proper order.

Say the thought of adopting some idea with no criticisms bothers you. Then you can always try to be the first to suggest criticisms, which will then give you a rational reason not to adopt the idea.

How did you conclude that the criticisms aren’t good in the first place? You need counter-criticisms to arrive at that conclusion in the first place.

How did you conclude that the criticisms aren’t good in the first place?

What counts as ‘addressing’ a criticism? If I write ‘nuh-uh’ as a counter-criticism, does that neutralize the original?

For filtered parents, I could put an asterisk behind the count. On hover, explain that the total number of pending criticisms may be greater on the unfiltered view.

I could get rid of the count everywhere, even on unfiltered views. That would have the added benefit that users wouldn’t prefer one problematic idea over another just because it has fewer pending criticisms.

I could get rid of the count everywhere, even on unfiltered views.

The displayed criticism count for a filtered parent can differ from the number of displayed criticisms.

For any filtered parent, the criticism badge could be shown without a count.

For any filtered parent, the criticism badge could be shown without any count.

Done as of 27123bd.

Bug: as you cycle through a parent’s versions on ideas#show, the children are suddenly not being filtered anymore, and the highlighted idea suddenly has siblings.

Bug when cycling through ‘filtered’ revisions: on page render, no matter how many children/criticisms a parent of the highlighted idea has, only the highlighted idea is shown – that’s fine so far – but the displayed criticism count may be higher if there are criticisms that are not being shown. So there’s a mismatch.

Bugs when cycling through ‘filtered’ revisions:

1. On page render, no matter how many children/criticisms a parent of the highlighted idea has, only the highlighted idea is shown – that’s fine so far – but the displayed criticism count may be higher if there are criticisms that are not being shown. So there’s a mismatch.
2. As you cycle through the parent’s versions, the children are suddenly not being filtered anymore, and the highlighted idea suddenly has siblings. Now the criticism count on the parent does always match the number of shown criticisms, but it seems arbitrary to suddenly not filter the children anymore.

That it and of itself isn’t a bug if the different revisions leading to the highlighted idea have different numbers of criticisms.

The issue also isn’t that there are other revisions that don’t lead to the highlighted idea.

The real issue is twofold:

1. On page render, no matter how many children/criticisms a parent of the highlighted idea has, only the highlighted idea shown – that’s fine so far – but the displayed criticism count may be higher if there are criticisms that are not being shown. So there’s a mismatch.
2. As you cycle through the parent’s versions, the children are suddenly not being filtered anymore, and the highlighted idea suddenly has siblings. Now the criticism count on the parent does always match the number of shown criticisms, but it seems arbitrary to suddenly not filter the children anymore.

The red ‘Criticized’ label shows how many pending criticisms an idea has. For example ‘Criticized (5)’ means the idea has five pending criticisms.

But if there are lots of comments, including non-criticisms and addressed criticisms, it’s hard to identify pending criticisms.

There should be an easy way to filter comments of a given idea down to only pending criticisms.

Well, he did say “partly”, so that leaves room for personal responsibility.

Why is similarity a bad thing in and of itself? It can be reminiscent of discussions as long as it’s less narrow.

‘Cluster’

‘Context’

‘Piece’

‘Post’

‘Note’