Comment by cryzinger
5 hours ago
More relevant than ever:
> The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than that needed to produce it.
5 hours ago
More relevant than ever:
> The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than that needed to produce it.
The P≠NP conjecture in CS says checking a solution is easier than finding one. Verifying a Sudoku is fast; solving it from scratch is hard. But Brandolini's Law says the opposite: refuting bullshit costs way more than producing it.
Not actually contradictory. Verification is cheap when there's a spec to check against. 'Valid Sudoku?' is mechanical. But 'good paper?' has no spec. That's judgment, not verification.
producing BS can be equated to generating statements without caring for their truth value. Generating them is easy. Refuting them requires one to find a proof or a contradiction which is a lot of work, and is equal to "solving" the statement. As an analogy, refuting BS is like solving satisfiability, whereas generating BS is like generating propositions.
Wow the 3 comments from OC to here are all bangers, they combine into a really nice argument against these toys