[glenstein]

Right. I think it has to be boiled down to a simple parable to be sufficiently clear, but it is really attacking a belief that is quite common.

I like this essay on Overconfident Pessimism[0] because I think it gets at the same thing, especially in the context of confident dismissals of important future technological changes:

>There may also be a psychological double standard for "positive" and "negative" predictions. Skepticism about confident positive predictions — say, that AI will be invented soon — feels like the virtuous doubt of standard scientific training. But oddly enough, making confident negative predictions — say, that AI will not be invented soon — also feels like virtuous doubt, merely because the first prediction was phrased positively and the second was phrase negatively.

[0]. https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/gvdYK8sEFqHqHLRqN/overconfid...