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Comment by ksdale | Hacker News Reader

I love William Gibson but it rubs me the wrong way a bit that he (or the author) so casually attributes the apocalypse to flying (among other things) and then, without irony goes on to say that he’s been visiting London for several decades.... I’m assuming by plane, from Vancouver.

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Acknowledging a truth does not make you duty-bound to address the problem. Indeed, even though I know that a traffic accident is one of the most likely ways that my children will die, and even though I adore my children, I still drive them around almost every day.

But it does make someone a hypocrite and maybe not someone you want to spend time listening to. In your example, it would be more relevant if you were a public figure who talked about the dangers of car driving wrt kids...

That really doesn't leave many people worth listening to.

Hypocrites aren’t wrong; they’re just hypocrites. We need to detach our ego from this debate if we ever want to find a solution, and just so that of others.

Though I agree in general, I think acknowledging it kind of smugly changes the calculus a bit.

Why?

If someone says, “Here is a wrong thing,” that’s just an acknowledgement that the thing is wrong, but there is no hypocrisy.

If they say “Here is a wrong thing and anyone who does it sucks,” then it is the definition of hypocrisy if they do it themselves.

The smugness is an implicit moral judgment, and the moral judgment has to create a duty to act, or else it’s not a moral judgment (maybe? I’m not a philosopher...)

If anything, it's the other way around. We can call out someone for being a hypocrite or smug, if we so desire, but it shouldn't change the calculus.

I'm sure you can list dozens of things you do personally, which you know are damaging to the world, but you continue to do them. It's not hypocritical to acknowledge our own bad habits. If you're alive, you're actively harming the world.

Whether it’s hypocritical depends on the judgment attached to the acknowledgement. I agree that it’s not necessarily hypocritical, but I find most articles that mention the apocalypse have something of a judgmental angle to them.

> If you're alive, you're actively harming the world.

Not universally true. There are plenty of people who are improving the world. I know of several who live rather selfless lives and could well be described as environmental warriors.

Such lack of 'consistency' may be judged pertinent when it comes to evaluate the messenger (I bet that nearly all of us may not benefit from it!), however it isn't when it comes to evaluate his assertion.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque

I think there’s a distinction to be made between a tu quoque fallacy and something like an economists “revealed preferences,” the way people act gives you information about How they feel about the truth of an assertion.

In the article he says if the jackpot is happening, it’s been happening for the last hundred years, and I agree with that, but I don’t think it’s happening (in the sense that I assign a very, very low probability to 80% of humans dying). I do think climate change is a very serious problem and have adjusted my behavior accordingly, but if I thought 80% of humans were going to die, I would adjust my behavior a lot more, and if William Gibson doesn’t adjust his behavior a lot more, then I think it’s plausible to assign a higher probably to him being a fool or him not actually believing the jackpot will happen. The latter seems more likely.

And I understand that from a logical perspective, what I believe about William Gibson has no bearing on whether the jackpot will happen, but it seems like the best way to judge the likelihood of something like that is to evaluate the statements and actions of lots of smart people.

Adjusting your behavior implies more than 'effectively believing'. It also implies that you feel concerned by the threat (some, even believing there is a real threat, just cannot change their habits, or don't care because they are old/lonely/egoistic/...).

It also implies that you think that adjusting your behavior will have a non-neglectable impact (one may doubt so, and even doubt that it may create an example for others to follow...).

Smart people are able to learn and to solve problems, and it helps when it comes to predicting the future, but does being smart always 'sufficiently helps' when it comes to predicting? Is there a single case of society able to alleviate some catastrophic total slow-moving failure, thanks to a consensus among smart people? There are, for sure, numerous cases of such failures not only neglected but often dynamized by the elites (the 'Collapse' book authored by J. Diamond seems pertinent).

We may also try to define who is smart (chose a topic, write a list of 'smart people' names, show it to friends in order to verify if they agree with you, or want to eject some names and add others you don't want in). If everyone can only add names the resulting list will contain 'smart people' rarely agreeing (and act the same way), controversy is the rule and consensus the exception. It may mean that most of us judge that 'smart people' are people they agree with. Nothing new here...

Moreover various assertions now considered false were consensual among the very tip of 'smart people' (the few ones considered smart by most) for a fair amount of centuries.

In my opinion in our huge societies everything moves too quickly, and there are too many interactions, for even the smartest to really understand, bar to predict anything. Given this perspective hoping that an unique and central government will solve anything seems grotesque, those chiefs will simply resume the "let's feign to understand, and avoid attempting any potentially decisive action" game already running and the resulting centralization (=> bureaucracy) will only create new challenges.

I think it's a good antidote. A lot of people tend to lie to themselves to keep a virtuous self image. And it happens externally too - convenient lies are common in societies.

"Slaves don't feel pain like we do"

Do you feel he's less of an authority on the phenomenon of he's actively enacting it? Partial, maybe.

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