I would add that the landscape of good and bad ideas is always defined by a function that evaluates ideas as good or bad. It is important because otherwise it might be thought that the landscape of ideas is a piece of the objective truth which it isn't.
This is a really key point, Phil. One can imagine "true" ideas being actually bad/not productive in some way - maybe because they influence people to act in a harmful manner - or "false" ideas still being useful - perhaps because they spur a useful line of thinking. For example, average IQ differences between races - there is significant room for debate on the extent and causes of them and the nature of the claim is easy to misunderstand or overrate. I certainly think it's good to know the truth in almost all cases but given the size of the differences (small and these are average differences across massive groups) and how easily it can justify racist thinking, I'm not totally sure whether this is something that is good for us to know or investigate further (at least at this point in time). Another example might be newtonian physics - while not exactly false, they are only true at certain scales, but certainly the ideas of newtonian physics have been immensely useful. There are probably better examples but this is what comes to mind.
I would add that the landscape of good and bad ideas is always defined by a function that evaluates ideas as good or bad. It is important because otherwise it might be thought that the landscape of ideas is a piece of the objective truth which it isn't.
This is a really key point, Phil. One can imagine "true" ideas being actually bad/not productive in some way - maybe because they influence people to act in a harmful manner - or "false" ideas still being useful - perhaps because they spur a useful line of thinking. For example, average IQ differences between races - there is significant room for debate on the extent and causes of them and the nature of the claim is easy to misunderstand or overrate. I certainly think it's good to know the truth in almost all cases but given the size of the differences (small and these are average differences across massive groups) and how easily it can justify racist thinking, I'm not totally sure whether this is something that is good for us to know or investigate further (at least at this point in time). Another example might be newtonian physics - while not exactly false, they are only true at certain scales, but certainly the ideas of newtonian physics have been immensely useful. There are probably better examples but this is what comes to mind.