A different Barnes & Barnes did that "Fish Heads" song I love so much.

This was a good interview with some interesting insights. My favourite part starts at 1:35:37:

95:40 yeah sort of classic motivated reasoning
95:42 now one of the topics you get into
95:44 that's almost like particularly within
95:46 the academy uh but also other sort of
95:49 professional classes that's kind of you
95:51 know uh verboten uh is that you're not
95:53 supposed to talk about conspiracy
95:55 theories yeah uh but you get into it in
95:57 the book could you describe how you
95:58 approach that topic

96:00 yeah good
96:02 so
96:02 there actually there have been some
96:04 philosophers in the last couple decades
96:07 who have worked on conspiracy theories
96:09 they're not very really well known
96:12 um but and it's sort of a small subfield
96:16 but there have been philosophers working
96:18 on it and at least a few of them have
96:20 said some interesting things
96:22 so in the book what i try to do is first
96:25 define what a conspiracy theory is
96:28 and this other philosophers have have
96:31 worked on this as well and the
96:33 definition that uh that i have settled
96:35 on along with some of them is that a
96:38 conspiracy theory is a theory
96:41 that explains some event
96:43 in terms of a conspiracy a group of
96:46 actors acting in secret
96:48 and
96:49 it's an alternative to
96:51 the received story right so there's some
96:55 official account
96:56 that's either put forward by the people
96:58 in authority
97:00 or it's widely believed and it seems to
97:03 be part of the definition of a
97:05 conspiracy theory that it's always an
97:06 alternative
97:08 to some received account
97:10 from there
97:13 the conversation between it's between
97:16 three characters
97:17 one of them believes some so-called
97:20 conspiracy theories
97:22 another one of the characters thinks
97:24 that that's completely crazy and
97:26 irrational
97:28 and in the process what comes out is
97:30 that
97:32 um
97:33 you know
97:34 you might be able to be have a certain
97:36 intellectual vice at two different
97:38 extremes
97:40 you can be paranoid
97:42 where you think that people are
97:44 conspiring against you even when they're
97:46 not
97:47 but at the other extreme you can also be
97:49 naive
97:50 right where you you don't believe that
97:53 people are conspiring often enough
97:56 and one thing to keep in mind in that
97:57 regard is so everybody recognizes that
98:00 there have been conspiracies right
98:02 because they sometimes get exposed
98:05 well someone who
98:07 doesn't think you should ever believe a
98:09 conspiracy theory
98:11 they must think that no one who commits
98:13 a conspiracy ever gets away with it
98:17 because
98:18 if you think that there have been
98:20 conspiracies that people got away with
98:23 well any theory that alleged such a
98:26 conspiracy would be a conspiracy theory 98:28 right um so the book sort of tries to
98:32 argue that
98:33 there's probably a balance
98:36 a balanced position in between the two
98:39 extremes of being paranoid and being
98:41 naive
98:43 and we should try to avoid both of those
98:46 and people who say you should never ever
98:48 entertain a conspiracy theory
98:51 you could argue that they're they
98:53 they're being naive um perhaps
98:55 especially in light of the history of
98:57 conspiracies that we know have happened
98:59 why would you think that none had ever
99:01 happened that had not been detected
99:03 right i mean

99:05 i literally just tweeted this out today
99:06 and robert and i have discussed it a
99:08 couple of times in the past is the same
99:10 people right now telling you to
99:12 trust the science
99:14 uh are telling you to place your faith
99:17 in pharmaceutical companies that were as
99:19 recently as within the last year or two
99:21 sentenced to pay billions for knowingly
99:24 hiding the fact that their products
99:25 cause cancer and are telling you to
99:27 trust the government that as recently as
99:29 the last two months have revealed
99:32 historical atrocities that they've
99:33 committed against their own citizens and
99:35 you're supposed to say shut up and trust
99:37 these two institutions right now and so
99:39 to question them makes you a heretic
99:41 conspiracy theorist my my criteria for
99:44 identifying a conspiracy theory
99:47 a bona fide legit one haven't read your
99:49 book yet gordon and i hope it's on
99:50 audible because i don't read so good
99:52 anymore um is that the conspiracy theory
99:54 has to be disprovable by me oh sorry it
99:56 has to be fundamentally
99:59 uncontradictable by nature and so it's
100:02 one thing to have a conspiracy theory an
100:04 alternative theory in my mind wouldn't
100:05 be a conspiracy theory the conspiracy
100:07 theory would be one that you could never
100:09 disprove because by its very nature it
100:11 is not disprovable so the the presence
100:14 of evidence confirms it the absence of
100:16 evidence confirms it that would be my
100:17 definition everything else is just legit
100:20 questioning

100:21 yeah i like that that makes a lot of
100:23 sense um well and in the philosophy of
100:25 science uh there's an idea that goes
100:27 back to the philosopher karl popper that
100:30 any good theory should be falsifiable
100:33 that's popper's criterion and that just
100:35 means
100:36 it should be refutable it should be
100:39 possible in principle to refute it with
100:41 evidence it sounds like that's your
100:42 criterion
100:44 for conspiracy theories um
100:47 yeah