I feel pretty unhappy that many of the posts on LW and the likes that are geared towards seemingly sounding “universal” in their prescriptions for how to arrive at accurate beliefs, how to change your beliefs, how to recognize your biases, double-cruxing, so on, all assume this hard to define baseline emotional stability/technical intelligence that just isn’t spelled out anywhere and if it isn’t achieved, is used as a reason to discard certain individuals as those able to benefit from the posts.
There do actually exist individuals, not a novel mind-blowing statement I’m trying to make here, for whom every day to regulate their emotions to a level to which society does not deem unacceptable, as well as manage extremely difficult to regulate physical anxiety and fatigue symptoms, and very aberrant free-wheeling thought patterns, wish to do more technical thinking and feel safe to ask questions.
Now 1) where do these kind of individuals post “technically basic” questions, and 2) how do they learn to be of the personality type as to take criticism gently when their very emotional signals, all their life, have been considered “amplified/absurd”? Where do these individuals post without coming across “disorganized”?
I don’t think the majority of authors here would claim universality, though many try to generalize observations to “most” or “aggregate” behaviors or values. https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/typical-mind-fallacy is well-known and often mentioned.
That said, I suspect you are nowhere near alone in your reactions, and I support and wish you well in your desire to become more rational and considered in your reactions to things. I don’t know any good answers to your two questions—you’re likely to get some sympathy, but also some hostility and not necessarily much useful advice here.
I’ll predict that, to the extent you can ask ABOUT emotional reactions and reactions in the context of rationality, and to the extent that you can draft and edit things to minimize the disorganization, you can get some useful discussions here. If you’re asking about other topics, especially fairly advanced or technical ones, before you’re able to organize thoughts and handle a mix of responses which include some jerks and insensitive directness, you’re probably not going to enjoy it.
Thanks for your reply.
I am curious “you’re likely to get some sympathy, but also some hostility and not necessarily much useful advice here.”
How are you defining hostile here and what may you think the hostility towards me would be in response to? Why would people be doing this if they aren’t themselves emotionally shaken deeply to tears by something I write or say? Just for the fun of it?
I am wondering how thought organization is defined, and if there is a good template to assess if it has been achieved in a writing sample . Right now it just seems like an intuitive sense people have and use to put down others when they think others haven’t achieved it.
Hostility may be too strong a word. It would appear mostly in the form of downvotes and helpful-sounding-but-not-really-actionable comments, for a post on a rationality-related topic that comes across as too fuzzy or incoherent. I don’t think you’ll find the kind of hostility you might on Reddit or Twitter, just a lack of embracing your ideas. It won’t be personal attacks, people here are very good at suppressing their initial emotional reactions, even if it’s a topic that triggers them.
Unfortunately, it’s not something that can be templated—I’d advise reading a lot of posts, and starting with comments and shortform posts, to get a sense of the common styles and the kinds of reactions they get.
Response to first paragraph: Under the regime of “rationality is winning” (which is possibly being used as a motte) there is no room for being skeptical about rationality if rationality is simply what you would most prefer.
Response to second and third paragraph: such a person will come across as “disorganized” if they actually are so, but hopefully their interlocutor will be charitable after recognizing the goodness of the intent of that person.
EDIT: I prefer Dagon’s comments above. Mine wasn’t particularly helpful.
Under the regime of “rationality is winning” there is no room for being skeptical about rationality if rationality is simply what you would most prefer.
Rationality is patterns of systematically desirable/correct/winning/relevant cognition. It is (in part) about (or for) winning, the way a spoon is about eating, it’s not winning itself. There is lots of room for being skeptical about spoons being useful for eating. If a pattern of reasoning doesn’t offer systematic correctness/winning/etc., it’s not part of rationality, that’s how skepticism of rationality works.
Rationality is not what you would most prefer, the way a spoon is not the most eatworthy object, what you would prefer is captured by goals. Rationality is not just about achieving goals, patterns of reasoning conductive to achieving goals, it’s also about correct/relevant understanding of facts, that are not tethered to any goals (epistemic rationality).
That’s true, but I intentionally wrote “if rationality is simply what you would most prefer” i.e. if it really is the case that it is the most preferred means to the end. In your spoon example, it really may be the case that a spoon is the means you would most prefer to eat something with. A quibble, but yes.
I agree there is also a normative epistemic aspect to rationality, which could either complicate or be subsumed by the slogan “rationality is winning”.
You were replying to someone new here, with statements that are very easy to read in very confused ways. So I attempted to reformulate them clearly, with a secondary objective of possibly catching something that you were also conflating in your own mind.
There is actually something directly relevant to flaritza’s question in an expanded definition of rationality, though not useful. If rationality comprises patterns of thought that help with cognition and its many purposes, and there is a cognition-related problem like emotions acting up in nonstandard ways, perhaps interfering with usual communication norms or objecting to usual communication norms, this calls for patterns of emotional rationality that improve the situation. This is not useful because I don’t have (references about) particular patterns of emotional rationality to offer. But there might be some discussion of this, and should be even if there isn’t.
Do you mind expanding on “no room for being skeptical” and how that relates to my first paragraph? I am curious on the connection. Is it that the authors of the posts who are the subject of my criticism of not sounding “universal enough” in their posts, prefer rationality, and so they are not skeptical enough of it as to make it more accessible for other types of people? Or is it something totally different..
I meant that rationality is about systematically getting what you want, and is independent of moods/emotions. One could be a highly emotional rationalist if you are still making the right decisions.
I prefer Dagon’s comments though. Mine wasn’t particularly helpful.
I feel pretty unhappy that many of the posts on LW and the likes that are geared towards seemingly sounding “universal” in their prescriptions for how to arrive at accurate beliefs, how to change your beliefs, how to recognize your biases, double-cruxing, so on, all assume this hard to define baseline emotional stability/technical intelligence that just isn’t spelled out anywhere and if it isn’t achieved, is used as a reason to discard certain individuals as those able to benefit from the posts.
There do actually exist individuals, not a novel mind-blowing statement I’m trying to make here, for whom every day to regulate their emotions to a level to which society does not deem unacceptable, as well as manage extremely difficult to regulate physical anxiety and fatigue symptoms, and very aberrant free-wheeling thought patterns, wish to do more technical thinking and feel safe to ask questions.
Now 1) where do these kind of individuals post “technically basic” questions, and 2) how do they learn to be of the personality type as to take criticism gently when their very emotional signals, all their life, have been considered “amplified/absurd”? Where do these individuals post without coming across “disorganized”?
I don’t think the majority of authors here would claim universality, though many try to generalize observations to “most” or “aggregate” behaviors or values. https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/typical-mind-fallacy is well-known and often mentioned.
That said, I suspect you are nowhere near alone in your reactions, and I support and wish you well in your desire to become more rational and considered in your reactions to things. I don’t know any good answers to your two questions—you’re likely to get some sympathy, but also some hostility and not necessarily much useful advice here.
I’ll predict that, to the extent you can ask ABOUT emotional reactions and reactions in the context of rationality, and to the extent that you can draft and edit things to minimize the disorganization, you can get some useful discussions here. If you’re asking about other topics, especially fairly advanced or technical ones, before you’re able to organize thoughts and handle a mix of responses which include some jerks and insensitive directness, you’re probably not going to enjoy it.
Thanks for your reply. I am curious “you’re likely to get some sympathy, but also some hostility and not necessarily much useful advice here.” How are you defining hostile here and what may you think the hostility towards me would be in response to? Why would people be doing this if they aren’t themselves emotionally shaken deeply to tears by something I write or say? Just for the fun of it?
I am wondering how thought organization is defined, and if there is a good template to assess if it has been achieved in a writing sample . Right now it just seems like an intuitive sense people have and use to put down others when they think others haven’t achieved it.
Hostility may be too strong a word. It would appear mostly in the form of downvotes and helpful-sounding-but-not-really-actionable comments, for a post on a rationality-related topic that comes across as too fuzzy or incoherent. I don’t think you’ll find the kind of hostility you might on Reddit or Twitter, just a lack of embracing your ideas. It won’t be personal attacks, people here are very good at suppressing their initial emotional reactions, even if it’s a topic that triggers them.
Unfortunately, it’s not something that can be templated—I’d advise reading a lot of posts, and starting with comments and shortform posts, to get a sense of the common styles and the kinds of reactions they get.
Response to first paragraph: Under the regime of “rationality is winning” (which is possibly being used as a motte) there is no room for being skeptical about rationality if rationality is simply what you would most prefer.
Response to second and third paragraph: such a person will come across as “disorganized” if they actually are so, but hopefully their interlocutor will be charitable after recognizing the goodness of the intent of that person.
EDIT: I prefer Dagon’s comments above. Mine wasn’t particularly helpful.
Rationality is patterns of systematically desirable/correct/winning/relevant cognition. It is (in part) about (or for) winning, the way a spoon is about eating, it’s not winning itself. There is lots of room for being skeptical about spoons being useful for eating. If a pattern of reasoning doesn’t offer systematic correctness/winning/etc., it’s not part of rationality, that’s how skepticism of rationality works.
Rationality is not what you would most prefer, the way a spoon is not the most eatworthy object, what you would prefer is captured by goals. Rationality is not just about achieving goals, patterns of reasoning conductive to achieving goals, it’s also about correct/relevant understanding of facts, that are not tethered to any goals (epistemic rationality).
That’s true, but I intentionally wrote “if rationality is simply what you would most prefer” i.e. if it really is the case that it is the most preferred means to the end. In your spoon example, it really may be the case that a spoon is the means you would most prefer to eat something with. A quibble, but yes.
I agree there is also a normative epistemic aspect to rationality, which could either complicate or be subsumed by the slogan “rationality is winning”.
You were replying to someone new here, with statements that are very easy to read in very confused ways. So I attempted to reformulate them clearly, with a secondary objective of possibly catching something that you were also conflating in your own mind.
There is actually something directly relevant to flaritza’s question in an expanded definition of rationality, though not useful. If rationality comprises patterns of thought that help with cognition and its many purposes, and there is a cognition-related problem like emotions acting up in nonstandard ways, perhaps interfering with usual communication norms or objecting to usual communication norms, this calls for patterns of emotional rationality that improve the situation. This is not useful because I don’t have (references about) particular patterns of emotional rationality to offer. But there might be some discussion of this, and should be even if there isn’t.
Do you mind expanding on “no room for being skeptical” and how that relates to my first paragraph? I am curious on the connection. Is it that the authors of the posts who are the subject of my criticism of not sounding “universal enough” in their posts, prefer rationality, and so they are not skeptical enough of it as to make it more accessible for other types of people? Or is it something totally different..
I meant that rationality is about systematically getting what you want, and is independent of moods/emotions. One could be a highly emotional rationalist if you are still making the right decisions.
I prefer Dagon’s comments though. Mine wasn’t particularly helpful.