Clojurians Log v2

I feel every good skeptic should engage dramatically with what they are skeptical off. I find AI wary is actually a good description of someone that isn't so much applying a skeptical take to investigate the truth of things, and not take impressions or claims at face value, but instead is worried at first glance and doesn't have an initially good feeling about something.

That doesn't make sense. There are far more ways to be wrong than right so engaging dramatically with every possibility is untenable. Why should anyone engage dramatically with magic, bigfoot, crystals, monads, UFOs, fairies, telepathy, conspiracies, etc?

Yeah, it is pretty easy to take a position. But I find it more meaningful to also try to be empathetic and humane toward others.

truthfully I have no dog in this fight but @smith.adriane I do wonder how you went from "I feel every good skeptic should engage dramatically with what they are skeptical of" to "There are far more ways to be wrong than right so engaging dramatically with every possibility is untenable." Where in the former statement is there any implication of "dramatic engagement" with everything? Seems clear to me the scope of the original assertion was extremely limited.

with what they are skeptical of

The implicit context is for me the topic of this channel itself, but of course these things are as open to interpretation as anything else

In my view, skepticism as it is popularly understood in the confines of this slack channel, should at some point cease enumerating how many things it puts under the microscope, and starts considering what kinds of things are subjected to the same investigation. I suppose that's a "normative" claim though that doesn't really advance the discussion.

Oh, I think I see. Is it that you are taking the name of this channel very much to heart? But the channel is described as "A place to discuss concerns and skepticisms...". It might not be so rigid?

@smith.adriane I wasn't implying that you have too, but if it was something you cared to investigate, that you'd need too. I do associate skepticism here with truth seeking grounded in some data/experiment based evidence. I thought AI wary was a nice complement for when you are suspicious not of the lack of evidence of the claim, but instead you are suspicious of the risks of something, and maybe are more cynical than skeptical?

I think many clojurians would start from a default position of general skepticism. After all you have to be willing to swim against the tide on holy scriptures such as 'types' and 'objects' in many cases. Rich even had a go at my personal bugbear semantic versioning at one stage (possibly in Are We There Yet?). So when you combine that general propensity to skepticism with the acute skepticism of this channel I can understand how that could come across as cynicism. But I also can't shake the feeling that that says more about the observer than the critic.

Right, but I mean, there has to be a distinction between being "wary", like smelling something is fishy here, people making incredible claims, or something doesn't seem right for some reason, etc. And having dug into it, to confirm the baselessness of the claims or their validity.

Hmmm I was trying to elicit a discussion about being empathetic and instead it seems the focus is on the word “wary”? Oh well.

@lee My bad, I really didn't catch the empathetic angle.