Special to L. Neil Smith’s The Libertarian Enterprise

Yesterday on the net there was a kerfuffle with one of the snowflakes trying to ban Baen authors from conventions.

In it, one of them insisted that Larry is an evil man (and Ringo too) and when confronted by real life people saying that “No, I met them, they’re nice people” she said that’s how you know they are bad men. She then unrolled a litany of “life experiences” that proves that anyone acting nice is a monster.

Um….

I fully believe some of her friends were monsters. There is a type of “feminist” male who uses ideology to mask their evil. It’s the same type who would have been overly pious when the marker for “good” was being religious. (And which led to the stereotype of good, religious people being evil.) I found this stereotype in the sixties as “pacifist” and “anti-war” males, and it finally came into focus with me with Heinlein saying that any man with enough testosterone to sire a child would down the white flag and hoist the jolly roger at the first opportunity, because these guys were often public “good” (for values of what was considered “good”) and private evil. A good example of this is Clinton in his treatment of women.

So, some of her friends are monsters. Are all of them? Well, when you assume if men act nice they’re monsters and if they act like monsters they’re monsters… where’s the falsification of your hypothesis? And do you want to live in the world you created?

It goes with other things too: if all white people have “white privilege” to the point that you call concentration camp survivors privileged, but at the same time you point to people of color who succeed and say “but they’d books at home, so they had white privilege”… how do you falsify the idea of white privilege?

If people disagreeing with your taste in books makes them Nazis and white supremacists, even if they’re libertarian and not white… where’s your falsification?

If everyone on your side are “good people” even though you’ve uncovered a few of them as monsters, where’s the falsification?

It applies to our own side too, alas.

If you know everyone is out to get conservatives, and you wave away the fact tons of conservatives are still up on Amazon, even as others get taken down as Amazon being careful not to hit everyone… where’s the falsification?

If you think all gays are child molesters and when someone points out gay people who’d rather self-castrate than molest a child and you say “they must just be hiding it?” where’s the falsification?

When you, right or left, think anyone who deviates from your points and—for good and sufficient reason—disagrees with say 20% of your beliefs is an enemy and functionally on the other side… where’s the falsification?

Look, guys, for years, I’ve had reason to suspect things like shenanigans with my books, but I say nothing, because, you know, can’t prove it one way or another. I’ll say most of my books get dropped on the floor, but so do most books ever, so I can’t SAY it’s political. I can suspect it’s political, but I can’t SAY anything. Because I can neither prove nor falsify.

It’s like the “big conspiracy” theory of history. How do you falsify it? It might be true (though aspects of it are highly unlikely) but if you can’t falsify it how can you believe it?

On mom’s side we have an invidious legacy of incipient paranoia. I’ve seen relatives go down it. If you think everyone hates you and you can’t do anything, it eats you up inside, isolates you, seals you inside your crazy believes and will make you a bonafide loony, instead of a charming eccentric.

The other side is fully there, drinking their own ink. After the Soviet union fell, their big theoretical effort was designed to creating unfalsifiable beliefs like that we live in a patriarchy, or that women are always oppressed, or that there’s “invisible” racism, or that … well, whatever the cause du jour is. They’re all unfalsifiable, because they have handwavium to explain away contrary evidence.

Which means their side is becoming more and more insulated from reality, and therefore dangerous and destructive when they get their hands on… anything.

We’re not there yet. Most means of communication are on the other side’s hands, and we’re exposed more to their point of view than ours.

But ours is starting to be AVAILABLE and that’s already winding up the more… ah… fragile members of our side.

Mind how you go. This is a very premature warning. Except for a few … fragile people, we’re nowhere there yet. BUT the worm is turning. The times are changing. Let’s not look into the abyss and become what we beheld.

If a belief is unfalsifiable, try not to hug it to your bosom and pet it and call it George. Chances are it’s not real. (Unless it’s a religion, and then carry on.) Chances are there are contrary examples. And at any rate, you’ll be saner by remaining open to the opportunity of falsification.

Reality is that which bites you in the *ss while you’re sealed in your bubble. Don’t seal the bubble.

 

Reprinted from According to Hoyt for June 9, 2018