After publishing Trapped Priors, I posted a link to it on HackerNews, where I received a thought-provoking comment (from user: bulatb) that perfectly encapsulates the hardest part of pursuing truth: it’s inefficient, often lonely, and rarely rewarded. Here’s the comment, followed by my reflections.
The hardest part of this is fighting Goodhart's law. You have to really be the skeptic that you say you are, not just declare yourself a skeptic and take the day off. You have to care about the truth of your positions, not how good it feels to hold them. Not how rational you feel for being such a skeptic.
Which is expensive. It's inefficient at producing confidence from information, and efficiency is fitness. Why do the work when you could just...not? But feel as sure as if you had?
There's also rarely a reward for caring. Few people choose truth over tribe. If all you get for challenging a core belief among your group is punishment, less opportunity and more cold shoulders, without even changing their minds, why even try?