You put a little more effort here so I’ll respond directly. Just because human beings don’t fully understand reality doesn’t necessarily have any bearing on whether or not reality exists.
You claim that tomorrow the universe could change state and astrology would suddenly work. I disagree with that claim, because there’s at least a few thousand, if not a few billion years of evidence that would indicate that physics, chemistry, biology, etc have been functioning according to the same fundamental laws for a long time.
I don’t think there is any argument that would convince me that such laws could simply change randomly, having been so consistent for so long. And you seem to generally agree with me based on what you say after your introductory paragraph.
But then in your final paragraph you get back into this arbitrarian mindset. If you actually believed the laws of physics weren’t absolute, then you would surely be in constant suspense that you might die at any moment. Whether gravity were to stop working, or inertia, or the strong nuclear force, the consequences would be immediate and dire. If a single law of physics were to stop working for an instant, the entire universe as we know it would cease to exist, or at least be thrown into absolute chaos. Which is perhaps the strongest argument for their validity, because we can observe 15 billion years of history where that doesn’t seem to have occurred.
With regard to this story, I mentioned more about misinformation on the internet in my other comment. Basically, people telling lies on the internet caused a lot of people to refuse the covid vaccine and die from covid. That’s the most obvious example, but there are many more insidious example that are harder to definitively quantify.
Finally, and perhaps most emphatically, I’m going to have to disagree with your take on homeless people. I would argue that homeless people are almost the prototypical example of a marginalized group or community. There are many people who are LGBTQ and/or part of racial minority groups that are rich, successful, prominent, well respected members of mainstream society. The same cannot be said about homeless people.
As for how the consequences of internet misinformation relate to this specific story, I can’t really say. I just think it’s impossible to know what the ultimate effects of misinformation will be, and thus it’s best to avoid whenever possible.
You put a little more effort here so I’ll respond directly. Just because human beings don’t fully understand reality doesn’t necessarily have any bearing on whether or not reality exists.
You claim that tomorrow the universe could change state and astrology would suddenly work. I disagree with that claim, because there’s at least a few thousand, if not a few billion years of evidence that would indicate that physics, chemistry, biology, etc have been functioning according to the same fundamental laws for a long time.
I don’t think there is any argument that would convince me that such laws could simply change randomly, having been so consistent for so long. And you seem to generally agree with me based on what you say after your introductory paragraph.
But then in your final paragraph you get back into this arbitrarian mindset. If you actually believed the laws of physics weren’t absolute, then you would surely be in constant suspense that you might die at any moment. Whether gravity were to stop working, or inertia, or the strong nuclear force, the consequences would be immediate and dire. If a single law of physics were to stop working for an instant, the entire universe as we know it would cease to exist, or at least be thrown into absolute chaos. Which is perhaps the strongest argument for their validity, because we can observe 15 billion years of history where that doesn’t seem to have occurred.
With regard to this story, I mentioned more about misinformation on the internet in my other comment. Basically, people telling lies on the internet caused a lot of people to refuse the covid vaccine and die from covid. That’s the most obvious example, but there are many more insidious example that are harder to definitively quantify.
Finally, and perhaps most emphatically, I’m going to have to disagree with your take on homeless people. I would argue that homeless people are almost the prototypical example of a marginalized group or community. There are many people who are LGBTQ and/or part of racial minority groups that are rich, successful, prominent, well respected members of mainstream society. The same cannot be said about homeless people.
As for how the consequences of internet misinformation relate to this specific story, I can’t really say. I just think it’s impossible to know what the ultimate effects of misinformation will be, and thus it’s best to avoid whenever possible.