The FTC is going to monitor blogs to make sure when they review or praise products, they disclose if they were paid to say that.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/FTC-plans-to-monitor-blogs-apf-4106175840.html?x=0

"If you walk into a department store, you know the (sales) clerk is a clerk," said Rich Cleland, assistant director in the FTC's division of advertising practices. "Online, if you think that somebody is providing you with independent advice and ... they have an economic motive for what they're saying, that's information a consumer should know."

Why should a consumer know that? What does it matter?

If an advertisement or product review functions by persuasion, then it's irrelevant. How persuasive an argument is or isn't does not depend on whether the author was paid.

The FTC has a different model of how consumers shop in mind. In this model, people vouch for products and consumers judge whether to trust them based on their integrity and authority. Reason and persuasion are irrelevant.

I don't think the FTC should monitor whether sources of information are reputable, because I don't think it matters. I have one caveat. If a company pays a blogger to write demonstrably false factual claims about its product, then that's fraud.

I think the FTC sees it this way: when a blogger claims to have integrity (which all product reviews implicitly claim unless they state otherwise), but actually was paid to say stuff and hasn't disclosed this, then that's fraud. It's a demonstrably false factual claim about the author of the product review.

It's a shame how many ideas are judged by their source rather than their content.

http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/anarchist_archives/godwin/pj8/pj8_10.html

Whilst this sheet is in the press for the third impression, I receive the intelligence of the death of Burke, who was principally in the author's mind, while he penned the preceding sentences. In all that is most exalted in talents, I regard him as the inferior of no man that ever adorned the face of earth; and, in the long record of human genius, I can find for him very few equals. In sublety of discrimination, in magnitude of conception, in sagacity and profoundness of judgement, he was never surpassed. But his characteristic exceilencies were vividness and justness of painting, and that boundless wealth of imagination that adorned the most ungrateful subjects, and heightened the most interesting. Of this wealth he was too lavish; and, though it is impossible for the man of taste not to derive gratification from almost every one of his images and metaphors while it passes before him, yet their exuberance subtracts, in no considerable degree, from that irresistibleness and rapidity of general effect, which is the highest excellence of composition. No impartial man can recall Burke to his mind, without confessing the granduer and integrity of his feelings of morality, and being convinced that he was eminently both the patriot and the philanthropist. His excellencies however were somewhat tinctured with a vein of dark and saturnine temper; so that the same man strangely united a degree of the rude character of his native island, with an urbanity and a susceptibility of the kinder affections, that have rarely been paralleled. But his principal defect consisted in this; that the false estimate as to the things entitled to our deference and admiration, which could alone tender aristocracy with whom he lived, unjust to his worth, in some degree infected his own mind. He therefore sought wealth and plunged in expense, instead of cultivating the simplicity of independence; and he entangled himself with a petty combination of political men, instead of reserving his illustrious talents unwarped, for the advancement of intellect, and the service of mankind. He unfortunately has left us a memorable example, of the power of a corrupt system of government, to undermine and divert from their genuine purposes, the noblest faculties that have yet been exhibited to the observation of the world.

My favorite part is

In all that is most exalted in talents, I regard [Edmund Burke] as the inferior of no man that ever adorned the face of earth; and, in the long record of human genius, I can find for him very few equals. In sublety of discrimination, in magnitude of conception, in sagacity and profoundness of judgement, he was never surpassed.

I think Godwin's criticism of Burke is incorrect. Burke, like Godwin, knew that there is knowledge in the status quo (in traditions), and that it should only be changed gradually/piecemeal to avoid both violence and destruction of knowledge. For this reason, both of them considered the French Revolution a bad idea. To my mind, they were basically in agreement. But somehow they did not see it.

Godwin would of course also have approved of Burke's take on America, India, and Irish Catholics. (Perhaps Godwin might think Burke was too timid in his advocacy for Catholics, but I don't think that).

The comments about political entanglements do make sense. Burke had those. But for good reason. He wanted to work within and with the system to reform the system. By taking on flawed allies (which are the only kind available), Burke was able to make important, good things happen like peace with America and recognizing American independence. That changed history for the better. Godwin held himself aloof, which I respect, but I don't think Godwin's way is a moral imperative, and I don't think Burke should be criticized for having some practicality. (Note: There were significant limits to Burke's practicality. For example, his impeachment of Warren Hastings became sufficiently politically impractical that Fox wanted him to stop, but he wouldn't. And he had his party turn down running the Government over some ideals.)

Burke turned down a seat in the house of lords. Someone commented that taking it would honor the house more than Burke. If he was corrupted by the Government and aristocracy, and adopted their values, it must only have been in quite a limited way, or he would have taken that seat. Burke could also have had a well paid and powerful position working for the King, if he'd wanted. I think Burke did hard work for his entire political career, and made sacrifices for the cause, and he did it because he cared about reform, and he wasn't very interested in any rewards. He was not corrupt.

I registered fallibleideas.com. I may put some new essays there; in any case it's good to have the option. I also have ElliotTemple.com btw. And I have a new web host which isn't so slow, but I haven't moved everything over yet.

Runner up idea was guessandcriticize.com. Feel free to take it. conjecturesandrefutations.com is also available.

Hypocrisy is a heavily criticized fault.

But should it be? Why do the personal attributes of the speaker matter to what he's saying? The truth of a statement is independent of its speaker.

Consider what avoiding hypocrisy means for a man. It means never to advocate for ideas that are better than himself. It means never to reach beyond himself -- or at least never to admit doing so. The hypocrite is the man who imagines a better world, and says people should be like that, before he has fully attained it himself. All good men must be either frequent hypocrites, or frequently silent.

http://www.efm.bris.ac.uk/het/godwin/pj6.htm

public education has always expended its energies in the support of prejudice; it teaches its pupils, not the fortitude that shall bring every proposition to the test of examination, but the art of vindicating such tenets as may chance to be established. We study Aristotle, or Thomas Aquinas, or Bellarmine, or chief justice Coke, not that we may detect their errors, but that our minds may be fully impregnated with their absurdities. This feature runs through every species of public establishment; and, even in the petty institution of Sunday schools, the chief lessons that are taught are a superstitious veneration for the church of England, and to bow to every man in a handsome coat.

One Tree Hill is a TV show which has 2 main plotlines repeated over and over. Many other shows are similar.

1) person makes mistake. they knew it was wrong, but did it anyway due to emotional weakness. then they try to get their friends/girlfriend/boyfriend to forgive them, but those people are mean to them about it for a while. then they all forgive each other.

2) person has a problem. this makes him feel bad and avoid his friends and family. then after some time he finally asks them for help. they say they are "there for him" and they hug and then the problem is suddenly trivial to solve.

There are no genuine disagreements or ignorance. Everyone always knows what's right and it's just a matter of doing it. And there are no genuine problems that require problem solving skill and creativity. People know how to solve all problems, it's just a matter of having friends and family help out.

In other words, life doesn't require knowledge or thinking. Life just requires keeping control over your emotions and trusting your friends.

One Tree Hill's motto could be: the cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems, is not beer, but feelings.

Here is a question for people who think Bayes' theorem holds answers for epistemology. Suppose we have a coin. We estimate the prior probabilities of heads and tails at 50% each. We flip the coin 5,000 times. They all come up tails. Now we want to update our estimates of the probabilities of heads and tails. If we flip it again, what should we estimate the chance of another tails is?

This is a very generous question. Choosing prior probabilities is itself a serious issue, but we grant that. 5,000 data points, all with precise, unambiguous results, is not common in daily life. Plus the data can be summed up nicely and has a strong, easy to analyze pattern. And coin flipping is especially suited to a Bayesian approach. It's just as generous as a problem about picking different colored marbles out of a bag. And I don't ask for an explanation, only for a new probability estimate, which is again what Bayes is all about.

But I don't think Bayesians can answer this (or any harder question). If one tries, here is what you say to them next: "Would you agree that some parts of what you just said are not implied by Bayes' theorem, but are extra things you've added?" When they agree they've stepped a little beyond the bounds of the formula itself, then you can ask them about how much of their procedure for answering the question is Bayes' formula. And ask about where this extra part is coming from, and where to find a rigorous statement of how it works, and so on.

Now, here is a scenario for inductivists. I have a Rails application with a memory leak. I want to find the leak and fix it. How do I do it? You have a theory of knowledge, which is supposed to (along with deduction) explain how knowledge is created, right? So tell me how to create knowledge of my memory leak. Tell me how to solve a real problem.

I can repeat the test code which causes the leak thousands of times if you want. And I can run code that doesn't cause the leak thousands of times. You can have all the repeated observations you want. But I don't see how that will help. Tell me, Mr. Inductivist, how will repeating these observations help anything? Should I get different Rails applications, perhaps thousands of them, and see if they leak memory? I can do that, but is it really going to figure out where the bug in my program is?

Here is how I actually find memory leaks. I make guesses about where the problem might be, and then I think of ways to test whether I'm right or wrong. For example I guess it's in a certain section of code, then I delete that section and run the application and see if the leak goes away or not. Just like Popper said: guesses and criticism, trial and error.

I also run some programs to get statistics. What statistics? The ones I guess might be useful, such as a list of the most numerous objects in memory. How do I get from this list to figuring out which code is to blame? Sometimes I don't. Other times I think "Oh, lots of widgets, well I think I know where we create a lot of widgets" and I come up with a guess about which code is probably making them. None of this follows the inductivist model where you make repeated observations (of what? Just run the same exact thing over and over? If not, then how do you decide what to observe?) and then infer the answer from the observations (so i observe the leak every day for 3 years, and write down what happened each time, and then somehow I infer from this what the problem is? That "somehow" is very vague. That's where induction falls flat.)

One of the general patterns this post illustrates is that bad philosophy can be dealt with by asking it to be effective. Asking to see it in action. Even just in simple, realistic examples.

See also: Popper on Bayesians

Richard Feynman scored only 125 on an IQ test in high school.