[benchaney]

Well, if you only quote the part of his post that is so vague that it is completely meaningless, sure. It doesn’t imply that (or anything really).

Do you have a plausible interpretation of his comments that is not consistent with my characterization?

[rosser]

Quoting myself from elsewhere in this thread:

> It is less plausible to me that a caution towards "healthy" skepticism is advocating some kind of utter credulity, than that it is doing exactly what it calls for: cautioning towards skepticism.

[benchaney]

Quoting someone who already explained why this interpretation is untenable:

> The OP specifically was condemning ignorant reactionaries. Responding with "but skepticism is good" is a defense of ignorant reactionaries. Otherwise, it's the responder's responsibility to enlist further clarification instead of what can only be interpreted as dismissal + "/s" snark. I mean, we all can agree with "healthy skepticism is good." So was their post just an in-passing reminder unrelated to this thread? I charitably interpreted their post to be a response to the comment they replied to rather than an independent platitude.

[rosser]

I find it just as plausible a read of the thread that the root's take-away was "trust the government," as you seem to find "skepticism is good" to be "a defense of ignorant reactionaries."

If there's anything in the world that warrants some extra skepticism, it's the well-meaning-ness of government and its penchant for unintended consequences...

[benchaney]

> I find it just as plausible a read of the thread that the root's take-away was "trust the government," as you seem to find "skepticism is good" to be "a defense of ignorant reactionaries."

Would you care to explain why?

> If there's anything in the world that warrants some extra skepticism, it's the well-meaning-ness of government and its penchant for unintended consequences...

I agree in general, but the root comment made a specific argument about why certain skeptics are not compelling. I don’t see how these hand wavy proclamations about how skepticism is good is in any way relevant to that.

[rosser]

> Would you care to explain why?

For one thing, the ur-comment never even allows for the possibility of non-"armchair expert" criticism of this approach. "Experts who make this their livelihood recommend this course of action." So? Experts have never been wrong, or made egregiously compromised choices, based on the facts and resources they had available?

More to the point, other "experts" were dissatisfied enough with the implications of this course of action that they asked the US Fish and Wildlife Service not to do the thing. [0]

There appears to have been on the order of zero planning for how to prevent the birds from ingesting the rat poison, or what to do if any birds who do eat the stuff then fly to the mainland, to name just a couple of the staggeringly obvious problems with this plan that, as far as I can tell, weren't even considered.

[0] https://www.latimes.com/style/pets/la-me-farallon-islands-ra...

[benchaney]

> For one thing, the ur-comment never even allows for the possibility of non-"armchair expert" criticism of this approach. "Experts who make this their livelihood recommend this course of action." So? Experts have never been wrong, or made egregiously compromised choices, based on the facts and resources they had available?

I don't see how you could read the comment to suggest that. It is quite clearly criticizing the nature of the reaction using language such as "silly quips" and "very little rational discussion" instead of criticizing the fact that the reaction is happening at all. Anyone critical of the plan had ample opportunity to post a substantive complaint instead of a handwavy dismissal of the idea of root comment.