Posted: May 21, 2018 6:59 am
Xerographica wrote:All the people who voted for Peterson's video must have benefited from it. But voting doesn't reveal how much benefit they derived from it. Therefore, my theory is that voting is a really idiotic way to determine influence. Is this theory idiotic? It might be. But what's truly and most definitely idiotic is not wanting the evidence that can help determine whether a theory is idiotic.
You're just assuming that people who have the money to donate to determine what you consider the appropriate rankings have some sort of merit of practical utility to decision-making that people without money do not have. This assumption is also your conclusion, which is that spending is never frivolous, which is a bad assumption when making frivolous decisions, and so that's what's idiotic about your proposal. My expectation is that no one will spend a dime to indulge your fantasies, and that is why Jordan Peterson's housekeeper is making out better than you ever will with this kind of raucous idiocy.
Another assumption of yours is that it's important to somebody (besides you) how skeptics are ranked, but that's already been mentioned. If it is not as important as you suggest, then the ranking of skeptics afforded by donation won't help anyone much to decide whether voting or spending is the right way to rank anything you've mentioned so far. Consider toothpaste. I'm about as eager to rank brands of toothpaste as I am brands of skeptics. You, on the other hand, might suggest I should try to determine whether ranking skeptics is more valuable than ranking toothpaste. Yeppers.
Xerographica wrote:In no case in human history has the potential harm been so much smaller than the potential benefit.
It's too late, Xerographica. Your proposals are so idiotic that people are actually being discouraged from trying to rank skeptics just to test your idiotic theories, and conclude that you are simply trolling a skeptic forum.