Huh, very interesting. Quote from the twitter thread linked in a sibling comment:
> When preferences for beliefs are widespread, this constraint gives rise to rationalization markets in which agents compete to produce justifications of widely desired beliefs in exchange for money and social rewards such as attention and status.
As an example: when people would really like to believe in an afterlife due to fear of death but cannot find evidence for such an afterlife themselves, people and organisations will pop up to cater to this belief in various ways and the most "believable" offer will win out in the long term. This seems obviously true, though I had never considered it in these terms before. I wonder what the other obvious occurrences are (climate change beliefs and Ukrainian war propaganda seem like obvious examples) and/or if there are any direct applications of this principle other than becoming a better propagandist.
I think it's not so much the absence of evidence but the desire for more evidence that creates a vulnerability to false rationalizations.
We have lots of evidence about what's going on in Ukraine, or the reality of climate change, but for various reasons people feel a deep hunger for more information on these issues. That hunger drives a the demand side of the market which in turn motivates a supply.
Economically speaking, it's the marginal utility of a new justification for a belief that's important. In competitive idea driven landscapes like politics, VC, war, or crypto white papers there'll likely be an immense economic incentive for new justifications almost regardless of the existing supply.
> When preferences for beliefs are widespread, this constraint gives rise to rationalization markets in which agents compete to produce justifications of widely desired beliefs in exchange for money and social rewards such as attention and status.
As an example: when people would really like to believe in an afterlife due to fear of death but cannot find evidence for such an afterlife themselves, people and organisations will pop up to cater to this belief in various ways and the most "believable" offer will win out in the long term. This seems obviously true, though I had never considered it in these terms before. I wonder what the other obvious occurrences are (climate change beliefs and Ukrainian war propaganda seem like obvious examples) and/or if there are any direct applications of this principle other than becoming a better propagandist.