I know that if I'd dedicated my retirement to doing a thing, then I'd kill myself right as the thing was finally seeming to be gotten done

Also even if it was about "the simplest", it's NOT THE SIMPLEST EXPLANATION.
"Boeing killed a guy" - Boeing has already killed several guys (albeit by accident).
"Guy killed himself" - The guy had never before killed himself (as evidenced by him being alive until then)

Thank. You.

Also note that it's not an inviolable law. It doesn't actually prove any particular position. It's just a principle to guide your thinking and nothing more.

Say your car breaks down. The idea that it's a mechanical failure is more Occam-friendly than the idea that your car was sabotaged which then caused the mechanical failure which caused your car to break down.

Note that as we add in that additional assumption, we reduce the likelihood of the second idea being true compared to the first idea. That's just a function of adding assumptions. You could add an assumption that a person who had been threatening you was the person who sabotaged your car and it becomes less likely again, all things being equal.

All that this illustrates is that the more specific something is, the less generally applicable it is. Astonishing, right?

One of my favourite ways to really stump these dorks is by asking them which assertion is true according to Occam's razor (itself false due to my point above and putting it in these terms is a low-key flex because a person who knows what they're talking about would object to the framing of the assertion but that forever seems to be lost on these fools):

• That God created the universe

• The sum total of all of astrophysics, with every single claim therein, is how the universe was created

Obviously the simplest argument is always inherently the truest and most accurate argument every time, right?

You can drag the conversation down into the weeds by defending the first argument since it still makes fewer claims even when you add in extra points like the fact that god has always existed and is all powerful etc.; there's basically no way of arguing that the explanation that astrophysics provides us for how the universe was created is simpler than the argument that God did it.

Of course this type of person is most likely to be an atheist edgelord, or at least a reformed edgelord, so this sort of argument is very likely to rile them up. And of course you can cut through this argument by stating that the number of assumptions that astrophysics makes is fewer but, again, that requires the other person to know what they're talking about.

My least favorite thing about these :smuglord: types is their constant misuse of language. I honestly don't really mind busting out the ol logical falicies and shit but for the love of god use it correctly.

I am open and honestly interested in finding out more. I'm reading about Occam for the first time.

Would you like to say a little more about what assumptions are in this context? Sources on Occam that explain the idea sufficiently well would also be good.

Thanks in advance!

North Korea has a secret army of femme fatales across the globe to seduce people and then poison them with neurotoxin they wear on a hairpin because they claimed that Kim didn't shoot an 18 in a round of golf - obvious

Corporations who have repeatedly been shown to be willing to sacrifice human lives for profit killed somebody for profit - well now you might as well be wearing a tinfoil hat

Have done maintenance work on Boeing aircraft before. This tracks.

Seriously thentwo options are:

1. This person who clearly had the motive means and opportunity to report illegal things at Boeing knowing it would risk his employment got the chance to do that but instead killed himself halfway through doing that without any indication of why.

2. The giant corporation killed somebody who threatened their profits.

Yeah, we have documentaries about how tobacco and big oil do shit like this. Steven Donziger had his whole fight with a private court putting him in house arrest for years. It's kinda weird that Boeing would do it, but not beyond the pale. Big business just loves to assassinate is Occam's razor.

No the rational and simple answer is to believe that a multi-billion dollar company that doesn't give a shit about safety standards would ever deign to do a thing that has happened so often before. The rational and simple answer is that a man who has dedicated his retirement to this very thing would kill himself with a gun in a truck in a watched parking lot on the third day of depositions.

The thing about Occam's razor is that what seems to be the simplest explanation depends entirely on how you subjectively frame the issue in question. If you think of it as "a guy killed himself" vs "a powerful and widespread conspiracy of Boeing and the cops conspired to kill him, make it look like a suicide, and covered up all evidence" then the suicide option seems "simpler"

But if you frame it correctly as "a whistleblower who was about to testify against a billion dollar company decided that right then would be a great time to suddenly and without warning commit suicide" vs "he got got" the latter is clearly simpler.

Simplicity is not really an objective measure of anything.

Yeah "Boeing whistleblower killed in retaliation" is a pretty simple reality, shit happens to whistleblowers all the time and it's not irrational to assume that as a null hypothesis until proven wrong. It's like assuming that the IOF is lying when they say something.

He was on WTYP and associates with Liam? Why am I not surprised lol. Can't stand that guy.