Feigned blindness?

re: "No gambling dens in city: police chief" (BP, November 2, 2022) 

Dear editor,

Could anything be more reassuring? We hear direct from MPB commissioner Pol Lt Gen Thiti Saengsawang that "definitively there are no gambling clubs operating currently in Bangkok," echoing National police chief Pol Gen Damrongsak Kittiprapas, who "insisted there are no gambling dens in the capital." The courage it takes to expose such critical thinking skills in public can only impress.

Perhaps, however, a high school student whose critical thinking skills have not been stunted by bad education could explain to the national police chief the difference between there being no evidence of X and there being no X. The fact that, for example, zero evidence for corruption by Xi Jinping is to be found does not mean that Xi Jinping is not massively corrupt. If true as alleged by themselves that the Royal Thai Police are perfectly ignorant of any gambling dens in Bangkok, it does not follow that such dens are not in fact common in Bangkok, merely that for some reason the RTP does not know that. 

Lest anyone be troubled for any reason by my choice of Xi Jinping as the useful example, replace him with any preferred figure equally revered; exactly the same truth will hold: the perfect absence of evidence of corruption or other abuses cannot logically entail that there is no such ugliness hiding under the suave, ruthlessly managed public façade, no matter how immaculately dressed in rich robes, vestments, or other gaudy uniform.

 Felix Qui 

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The above letter to the editor is the text as submitted by Felix Qui to the Bangkok Post.

The text as edited was published in PostBag on November 5, 2022, under the title "Feigned blindness?" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2430474/world-cup-follies