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Comment by xhkkffbf | Hacker News Reader

But why does it matter if you're on the fringe or not? Galileo was on the fringe, but he ended up wrong. Hitler was very popular and not a fringe person after he assumed power. Yet, he was pretty wrong.

Somehow I bet Kate Blackwood is certain that she's not on the fringe. She probably also thinks she's on the side of righteous change and history, something that already suggests she's not in the center of popular thought.

I'm sure she also feels that people who disagree with her are on the fringe.

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Unfortunately, dismissing ideas based on who supports them is pretty common and used by people who are unwilling or unable to discuss the ideas directly. This is mostly used incompetently, but occasionally used maliciously.

I think I see this most commonly in politics, where if <obviously bad> person supports an idea, then that idea must be also bad.

> This is mostly used incompetently, but occasionally used maliciously.

It can also just be a good heuristic. If a person or group/org with a reputation for dishonesty tells you an "idea", it's reasonable to throw shade.

> I think I see this most commonly in politics, where if <obviously bad> person supports an idea, then that idea must be also bad.

The conclusion is not always this direct, but it is completely reasonable to question ~why~ the obviously bad person holds that idea. What do they gain from pushing the agenda? Some people are so intellectually dishonest that everything they say is suspect.

Reminds me of the classic https://clickhole.com/heartbreaking-the-worst-person-you-kno...

Is anyone arguing "all fringe ideas must be false" or, conversely, "widely accepted ideas are true?" That's basically just argumentum ad populum, and I don't think that's the argument of the paper. Rather, it's that those with fringe ideas tend to be over-confident in their beliefs.

IME, a scientific/empirical mindset tends to lead one to a state of epistemological modesty, in which few things are unassailably true, and beliefs are provisional until disproven. One crucial feature of that mindset is the notion of falsifiability. Knowing if/how ideas may be falsified helps one avoid leaping down conspiracy rabbit holes. <- (A likely unfalsifiable statement!)

I mean, your comment is a good example of why everyone ISNT Galileo. The moment you read the article, the first thing that stands out is the similiarity with dunning-kreuger, not a defense of the tortured soiltary genius, whose time has not come.

Remember back when libertarians had bumper stickers that said things like "married gay couple should be able to defend their weed with machine guns"?

Back in ye olden days if you said that someone was a conspiracy theorist it was a boolean that meant that they believed that literal conspiring was happening and now "conspiracy theorist" this whole diverse spectrum that people who believe various things are not exactly as portrayed exist on.

Oh how the goalposts of fringe have shifted over time.

Never mind how it shifts simply based on who you're asking. I'm sure there's beliefs that are fringe among the Cornell faculty who did this research that are wholly uncontroversial over in the maintenance department.

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