At the risk of losing karma, let me see if I can spin some of anon’s points in to gold… err… silver? Maybe bronze? I think this a bronze-worthy observation. I hope. :)
Consider the distinction between two disciplines. The first being Science Communication. Which is exactly what it sounds like, communicating the results of science to a general audience: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_communication
The second is the Science of Science Communication, which is about how to make Science Communication more effective because there’s all of these ways that it can go wrong that are not obvious (like the tendency of highly numerate people to be not only unpersuaded by evidence presented to them that contradicts their world view, but also to be come more polarized to their world view despite the contradictory evidence.) https://www.pnas.org/content/114/36/9587 and https://www.vox.com/2014/4/6/5556462/brain-dead-how-politics-makes-us-stupid
Perhaps there is a lesson to be taken here, that assuming good faith on the part of the authors, it may be beneficial to us to take steps to avoid being misunderstood in such common ways so frequently? Perhaps we’re bad at communicating rationality to a general audience?
So I’m thinking something along the lines of a “rationale of rationality communication” to bring a sensitivity to the state of mind of those who are likely to mischaracterize aspiring rationalists, to help prevent actual mischaracterization.
It may be worth taking something like what Ben wrote and adding some examples and making something like “An Aspiring Rationalist FAQ” to dispel these? At least if they came up again we could say “look, LessWrong has a list of ways that rationality is commonly misunderstood” and it would hopefully reduce the mischaracterizations and make the dialogue on these points more productive?
P.S. One exchange that comes to mind — I don’t think we’re like Dawkins, but I think Neil’s point from 2006 here is always worth meditating on regarding having a sensitivity to the state of mind of one’s audience. https://youtu.be/-_2xGIwQfik
Perhaps we’re bad at communicating rationality to a general audience?
Our community has generally not tried to communicate rationality to a general audience.
Julia Galef’s book “The Scout Mindset” would be a book about communicating rationality to a general audience. I don’t think that someone who reads it without prejudice would come up with the above article.
When it comes to the rationality community it’s also worth noting that we generally hold positions that are very complex. A normal person is not going to understand how physicists think about physics by reading a FAQ and the won’t understand how rationalist think about thinking by reading a FAQ. The positions are just to complex to get by reading a FAQ.
In the cases where rationalists are communicating rationalist thought to outsiders, I agree that it’s important to get better at presenting those thoughts in ways that help outsiders understand and not leave some instinctive bad taste in their mouth.
This seems to rest on being able to understand outsiders’ perspectives better and trying to explain rationalist ideas starting from their end. IMO, we are short on field builders who can do that intent listening and interpretation work.
TBH, I also worry that this framing is a red herring. There are cases where
outsiders do really get some core parts of rationalist mindsets,
try to point out thinking traps there to rationalists in vague/provocative-sounding ways that don’t connect for rationalists.
rationalists jump to confident conclusions about what the outsiders meant, but fail to step outside of their own paradigms to interpret the key aspects those outsiders are trying to convey.
At the risk of losing karma, let me see if I can spin some of anon’s points in to gold… err… silver? Maybe bronze? I think this a bronze-worthy observation. I hope. :)
Consider the distinction between two disciplines. The first being Science Communication. Which is exactly what it sounds like, communicating the results of science to a general audience: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_communication
The second is the Science of Science Communication, which is about how to make Science Communication more effective because there’s all of these ways that it can go wrong that are not obvious (like the tendency of highly numerate people to be not only unpersuaded by evidence presented to them that contradicts their world view, but also to be come more polarized to their world view despite the contradictory evidence.) https://www.pnas.org/content/114/36/9587 and https://www.vox.com/2014/4/6/5556462/brain-dead-how-politics-makes-us-stupid
Perhaps there is a lesson to be taken here, that assuming good faith on the part of the authors, it may be beneficial to us to take steps to avoid being misunderstood in such common ways so frequently? Perhaps we’re bad at communicating rationality to a general audience?
So I’m thinking something along the lines of a “rationale of rationality communication” to bring a sensitivity to the state of mind of those who are likely to mischaracterize aspiring rationalists, to help prevent actual mischaracterization.
It may be worth taking something like what Ben wrote and adding some examples and making something like “An Aspiring Rationalist FAQ” to dispel these? At least if they came up again we could say “look, LessWrong has a list of ways that rationality is commonly misunderstood” and it would hopefully reduce the mischaracterizations and make the dialogue on these points more productive?
P.S. One exchange that comes to mind — I don’t think we’re like Dawkins, but I think Neil’s point from 2006 here is always worth meditating on regarding having a sensitivity to the state of mind of one’s audience. https://youtu.be/-_2xGIwQfik
(Edits for clarity)
Our community has generally not tried to communicate rationality to a general audience.
Julia Galef’s book “The Scout Mindset” would be a book about communicating rationality to a general audience. I don’t think that someone who reads it without prejudice would come up with the above article.
When it comes to the rationality community it’s also worth noting that we generally hold positions that are very complex. A normal person is not going to understand how physicists think about physics by reading a FAQ and the won’t understand how rationalist think about thinking by reading a FAQ. The positions are just to complex to get by reading a FAQ.
In the cases where rationalists are communicating rationalist thought to outsiders, I agree that it’s important to get better at presenting those thoughts in ways that help outsiders understand and not leave some instinctive bad taste in their mouth.
This seems to rest on being able to understand outsiders’ perspectives better and trying to explain rationalist ideas starting from their end. IMO, we are short on field builders who can do that intent listening and interpretation work.
TBH, I also worry that this framing is a red herring. There are cases where
outsiders do really get some core parts of rationalist mindsets,
try to point out thinking traps there to rationalists in vague/provocative-sounding ways that don’t connect for rationalists.
rationalists jump to confident conclusions about what the outsiders meant, but fail to step outside of their own paradigms to interpret the key aspects those outsiders are trying to convey.