Robin Hanson is blogging

Sort of, check out Overcomingbias.com, an on-line forum with posts on how to enhance our orientation toward truth-seeking.  Contributors include Robin and also Nick Bostrom, my favorite young philosopher.

This is a noble endeavor.  Virtually everyone thinks that the thought processes of others are laden with fallacies and bias.  Yet most of us — once you get past the obligatory lip service to self-doubt — believe that our epistemic procedures are relatively immune from such problems.  That can’t be right.

That said, I do not go as far as Robin in my desire to preach truth-seeking.  With all due respect to the truth, I find something Quixotic in such a quest.  I view Robin as believing in a kind of Archimedean point, from which we could be objective truth-seekers if only we had the will.  My view is closer to that of Pascal.  Yes we should seek self-improvement, but we are weak and in the dark no matter what.  An excessive attachment to "truth-seeking," might even divert us from the pragmatic, skeptical pluralism — laden with a healthy dose of ego to get the work done — most likely to lead society closer to truth.