The vibe of skepticism

 

I recently discovered this YouTube content-creator, Emerson Green. He is something as unusual as an atheist who isn´t a materialist. Rather, he seems to be a kind of ontological pluralist. Several of his videos feature long interviews with non-naturalist moral realist philosopher Michael Huemer. His book "Ethical Intuitionism" made a brief guest appearence on this blog years ago. 

In the clip above, Green explains why he left the Skeptical community. His criticism speaks for itself, but I can´t help making a brief summary here. While I disagree with Green´s radical leftism (he supported Sanders in 2016 and seems to be a kind of leftist conspiracy theorist), he does make several good points and pertinent observations. 

The most obvious is (unsurprisingly) that the Skeptics aren´t particularly skeptical to begin with. They are pseudo-skeptics, uncritically beholden to a dogmatic atheist-materialist worldview. Nay, more: they aren´t simply atheists or materialists, they are enamored with the *aesthetics* of "Science", "Rationality" and "Skepticism". Things like parapsychology, conspiracy theory or UFOs simply *must* be wrong, since they have the wrong "vibe", and no further investigation into the matter is needed. The Skeptic (TM) *knows* that X is wrong...since the Establishment he is so fascinated by and wants to emulate says so. Everyone else is simply psychologically irrational, and that´s that. 

The "skeptical" attitude of these people is often of a lazy armchair variety, with no actual research being done. Even established scientists can come under attack, if they take the "wrong" side. Green points to the case of ´Oumuamua, which the Skeptics insisted simply *couldn´t* be an alien craft of some kind, despite Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb having published research to that effect. Them vibes are all wrong, dude!  

Green wonders why the Skeptics aren´t skeptical of the establishment, of power structures in society, and so on. Isn´t it strange that they never, even by chance, criticize the official narratives? Most Skeptics according to Green are "socially liberal but fiscally conservative", which I assume would make them centrist Democrats or liberal Republicans. Very often, the Skeptics spend considerable time debunking topics Green considers downright silly, such as Bigfoot, but they never seem to probe more important topics pertaining to politics or the economy. 

Green discusses conspiracy theory at some length, and plays an interesting clip featuring "honest Skeptic" Michael Shermer (not to be confused with Michael Huemer) and UFO researcher Nick Pope. Both point out the fallacy of the common anti-conspiracist argument "all conspiracies are exposed" or "it would take too many people". And while Green doesn´t explicitly endorse 9/11 Truthers, he holds that their motives are more complex (and in a sense more understandable) than Skeptics give them credit for. In Skeptical books, Truthers are usually depicted as irrational "anomaly-hunters" who simply can´t accept that a few discrepancies might exist in the official version. But according to Green, many Truthers have a left-wing background of well-founded skepticism towards the military and the political establishment. The US vice president at the time of 9/11, Dick Cheney, had a longstanding interest in pushing through something like the Patriot Act, there were forces which for geopolitical reasons wanted to start more foreign wars, and so on. So is 9/11 Trutherism really completely irrational? 

All things considered, Emerson Green seems to be an interesting maverick. I might continue watching this channel in the near future. 

Of course, it´s also important to be skeptical of left-wing establishments and Russian disinfo operations! :P