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For a tiebreaker, consider this Wiktionary definition of justificationism (links removed):
An approach that regards the justification of a claim as primary, while the claim itself is secondary…
Since this quote doesn’t mention finality, it sounds more in line with BoI.
The article says:
[Justificationism] is the idea that beliefs can be fully justified, proven true by some final authority beyond question.
This definition breaks with BoI. The glossary from ch. 1 says:
[Justificationism is t]he misconception that knowledge can be genuine or reliable only if it is justified by some source or criterion.
Note that this second quote says nothing about finality “beyond question”.
Dirk writes:
Foundationalism, or justificationism, is the idea that beliefs can be fully justified, proven true by some final authority beyond question.
I’m not sure foundationalism and justificationism are quite the same thing.
From BoI ch. 1 glossary:
[Justificationism is t]he misconception that knowledge can be genuine or reliable only if it is justified by some source or criterion.
Whereas foundationalism describes a prerequisite for knowledge to grow (properly). As in, needing a secure foundation or else the whole edifice falls apart.
I could see foundationalism being a flavor of justificationism, but not the same thing.
As written, a limitation is placed on users, not on Veritula. I want to set expectations and protect my time by preventing an obligation to have extended discussions over moderation decisions. I remain free to make exceptions.
Predatory businesses can’t limit customers’ creativity without the consent of the customer, so these issues are inextricably bound.
Limitations of Veritula
Veritula can help you discover a bit of truth.
It’s not guaranteed to do so. It doesn’t give you a formula for truth-seeking. There’s no guarantee that an idea with no pending criticisms won’t get a new criticism tomorrow. All ideas are tentative in nature. That’s not a limitation of Veritula per se but of epistemology generally (Karl Popper).
There are currently no safeguards against bad actors. For example, people can keep submitting arbitrary criticisms in rapid succession just to ‘save’ their pet ideas. There could be safeguards such as rate-limiting criticisms, but that encourages brigading, making sock-puppets, etc. That said, I think these problems are soluble.
Opposing viewpoints should be defined clearly and openly. Not doing so hinders truth-seeking and rationality (Ayn Rand).
Personal attacks poison rational discussions because they turn an open, objective, impartial truth-seeking process into a defensive mess. It shifts the topic of the discussion from the ideas themselves to the participants in a bad way. People are actually open to harsh criticism as long as their interlocutor shows concern for how it lands (Chris Voss). I may use ‘AI’ at some point to analyze the tone of an idea upon submission.
Veritula works best for conscientious people with an open mind – people who aren’t interested in defending their ideas but in correcting errors. That’s one of the reasons discussions shouldn’t get personal. Veritula can work to resolve conflicts between adversaries, but I think that’s much harder. Any situation where people argue to be right rather than to find truth is challenging. In those cases, it’s best if an independent third party uses Veritula on their behalf to adjudicate the conflict objectively.
Veritula works best for explicit ideas. If you have an inexplicit criticism of an idea, say, make a reasonable effort to make the criticism explicit first, then add it to Veritula. If you can’t, add a placeholder for the inexplicit criticism – something like ‘I have an inexplicit criticism of this idea’. (The distinction between explicit vs inexplicit ideas goes back to David Deutsch. ‘Inexplicit’ means ‘not expressed in words or symbols’.)
It is not the business of the government to prevent people from severely limiting their own creativity.
Explanatory knowledge consists of statements. Statements are at least in part explicit. Therefore inexplicit explanatory knowledge is not possible.
Entirely explicit explanatory knowledge is not possible either, as all knowledge refers to other knowledge implicitly.
Getting customers addicted making it "so they cannot exercise their free will" denies human creativity, and opens the door for all sorts of draconic laws where people are "protected from themselves".
Popper counters this criticism with two thought experiments (107-108).
First, if all our machines and tools were destroyed, and so were our subjective knowledge of how to use them, but libraries were not, then we could re-learn to use them by reading books.
Second, if all libraries were also destroyed, we couldn’t re-learn from books. Civilization wouldn’t re-emerge for millennia.
Therefore, Popper argues, world 3 is important and real.
Popper says there are three worlds (OK 107):
I suggest…that there are physical worlds and a world of states of consciousness, and that these two interact. And I believe that there is a third world…
Among the inmates of my ‘third world’ are, more especially, theoretical systems; but inmates just as important are problems and problem situations. And I will argue that the most important inmates of this world are critical arguments, and what may be called—in analogy to a physical state or to a state of conscious- ness—the state of a discussion or the state of a critical argument; and, of course, the contents of journals, books, and libraries.
Key source on this topic: Karl Popper, Objective Knowledge: An Evolutionary Approach.
My specific edition is from 1994, Oxford University Press, New York. I’ll simply call it OK in this discussion.
Drugs are currently illegal. Although drug-related deaths have gone down recently, in the US, they were at an all-time high.
Drugs being illegal does not seem to deter drug use enough to warrant taking away drug users’ legal recourse, proper testing, and other such benefits of (legal) drug use.
There's something to be said for a degree of complexity and novelty to a name. It lends air of thoughtfulness, and could spark curiosity in potential new users.
See also: "Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell", the highly successful educational YT channel. I know people who are big fans, and yet can't pronounce the name correctly.
'Veritula' is not a difficult name as compared to other highly successful explanatory enterprises, like 'Veritasium.'
Easier than ‘Veritula’, though. At least it’s a known word.
As of 8e0a6e1, comments on each idea are shown in the following order: criticisms first, regular comments last. Within each category, uncontroversial comments are shown first. Lastly, comments are sorted by creation date (ascending).
Could simply sort comments by pending criticism first, creation date second. (Variation of #4274.)
This has been implemented, sans page at /:username/bounties, which seems unnecessary.
Done, mostly as of 346fb25, then polished in 6dbf721, 5381525, 9f0f936, and 91e6f27.