I got the poison, I got the remedy
It
would be a good thing if, whenever somebody repeatedly claims that they
are 100% sure that something is true, the others would immediately
propose him a bet in which if that something turns out to be false,
that person loses something that is really valuable to him. For
example, his head. If the person really thinks that he is 100% certain in his belief, he should have no trouble accepting such a bet, yes?
More generally, I once thought of a simple system to cut through all crap and noise like a machete cuts through the jungle. This system is so simple that many other people must also have thought of before me: whenever somebody makes a claim or a verifiable prediction about the future, it should be perfectly normal and even expected that that person will explicitly put a deposit on his prediction so that if this prediction turns out to be false, that deposit would be paid to some suitable party that the predictor has chosen and specified in advance from his opponents. There is no betting involved, so the predictor doesn't get anything if he "wins" by being correct, other than the good feeling that comes from being sure of being right and the other people perceiving this extra credibility.
I don't know about you, but I would certainly take claims and predictions much more seriously if they came with an explicit guarantee that if they turn out to be false, the person who erroneously made them would suffer a significant monetary loss, and his opponents would enjoy a significant corresponding gain. In such a system, talk wouldn't be cheap, and when real money talks, bullshit wouldn't walk very far. There could be some public registry freely open to browsing that keeps track of what each person has claimed and placed a deposit on.
Of course, people would still be totally free to claim and predict whatever they want. But other people would soon learn to give a proper zero weight to all claims that are not backed by such explicit deposits. Pretty soon, the first standard question to all astonishing claims and ideas would be "And how much are you willing to bet on that?" Every meek and evasive response that ultimatately boils down to "zero dollars" would essentially be an admission of defeat the same way as playing the Hitler card.
One downside that I could see in this system would be that people would learn to use rhetoric more skillfully without making any explicit and verifiable claims. On the other hand, when other people noticed this, they would start demanding that people should make explicit and verifiable claims that are falsifiable, in the spirit of the general disclaimer "What evidence would it take to prove your beliefs wrong?" that Steve Dutch uses on top of his essays.
More generally, I once thought of a simple system to cut through all crap and noise like a machete cuts through the jungle. This system is so simple that many other people must also have thought of before me: whenever somebody makes a claim or a verifiable prediction about the future, it should be perfectly normal and even expected that that person will explicitly put a deposit on his prediction so that if this prediction turns out to be false, that deposit would be paid to some suitable party that the predictor has chosen and specified in advance from his opponents. There is no betting involved, so the predictor doesn't get anything if he "wins" by being correct, other than the good feeling that comes from being sure of being right and the other people perceiving this extra credibility.
I don't know about you, but I would certainly take claims and predictions much more seriously if they came with an explicit guarantee that if they turn out to be false, the person who erroneously made them would suffer a significant monetary loss, and his opponents would enjoy a significant corresponding gain. In such a system, talk wouldn't be cheap, and when real money talks, bullshit wouldn't walk very far. There could be some public registry freely open to browsing that keeps track of what each person has claimed and placed a deposit on.
Of course, people would still be totally free to claim and predict whatever they want. But other people would soon learn to give a proper zero weight to all claims that are not backed by such explicit deposits. Pretty soon, the first standard question to all astonishing claims and ideas would be "And how much are you willing to bet on that?" Every meek and evasive response that ultimatately boils down to "zero dollars" would essentially be an admission of defeat the same way as playing the Hitler card.
One downside that I could see in this system would be that people would learn to use rhetoric more skillfully without making any explicit and verifiable claims. On the other hand, when other people noticed this, they would start demanding that people should make explicit and verifiable claims that are falsifiable, in the spirit of the general disclaimer "What evidence would it take to prove your beliefs wrong?" that Steve Dutch uses on top of his essays.
I agree. In my ideal world we would all be allowed to bet against all the various 'experts' who make predictions and claims in the media.
There are two prediction errors I notice people make a lot:
1. If there are two possible outcomes for an event, 50/50 odds will be assumed.
2. If there are multiple outcomes for an event, the total odds assigned will add up to be greater than 100%.
Posted by C. Van Carter | 5:35 PM