21 sats \ 2 replies \ @elvismercury 4 May \ on: The Lucretius Problem: How History Blinds Us mostly_harmless
It's not a logical fallacy unless they are making claims like "it can't get worse than the worst it's ever been." The past is a good guide to the future, most of the time. But it's worth actually considering what the methodology does and does not guarantee, that's for sure.
Fair point -- it's often something that may lead into logical fallacies, but isn't one by itself.
The past is a good guide to the future, most of the time.
I'm now picturing the fine print in every financial services ad saying that past performance is not a guarantee of future success, right after spending most of the ad trying to convince me that, in fact, it is.
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Yeah, it's a fine line indeed.
The other nitpicky hill that I'll die on is "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." Absence of evidence absolutely and irrefutably IS evidence of absence. It is not, however, proof of absence.
96% of human kind seems incapable of appreciating nuance -- they run from one shitty take to the equivalent shitty take at the other end of the spectrum. This is why I am chronically miserable.
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