Rationality (both epistemic and instrumental) is about applying methods, not having beliefs about
those methods. Illustrating the methods, rather than just talking about them and saying that they
are good, would probably be more effective. Show characters engaging in rationality, not just
praising it.
I agree—and this is what I’m currently trying to figure out how to script out. (I’d tried to do something like this in the second part, describing how to try ‘getting the job done’ of increasing liberty even when stuck in a political system full of ‘top of the dung heap oligarchs’, but it ended up being more about the specific tactics than the thinking processes used to figure those tactics out.)
At this point, any suggestions on how to do that would be cheerfully welcomed.
I really do not like the panel where the ostensibly rationalist rat character is beating the religious dog
character over the head with a stick. In my experience, hitting people is not a useful way to get them to
think.
Maybe I should start a discussion thread here on the ‘Stick Test’ I came up with some time ago, a rather more direct method to refute certain forms of philosophical navel-gazing such as solipsism, adapted from Dr. Johnson’s famous “I refute it thus!”.
Moreover, giving “rationalist” people arguments for hating “non-rationalist” people is probably a really,
really bad idea.
… hate? Hrm. Do you really see that panel as involving hatred? I was hoping it would be closer to ‘frustration with people who disparage not just the truth, but the methods of determining it’ (and a bit of harmless cartoon-humorous release of said frustration).
At this point, any suggestions on how to do that would be cheerfully welcomed.
What’s something your rat might have wrong beliefs about?
How might she discover they were wrong?
In what way would she behave differently after this discovery?
… hate? Hrm. Do you really see that panel as involving hatred? I was hoping it would be closer to ‘frustration with people who disparage not just the truth, but the methods of determining it’ (and a bit of harmless cartoon-humorous release of said frustration).
It seems to me that a lot of people who think highly of their own rationality might take this panel as expressing a belief that “non-rationalist” people are not worth being treated well … though this may not be all of what disturbed me about it.
Perhaps it’s the contradiction between your rationalist rat doing violence here, and in the next page (the libertarian-oriented one) advocating not infringing on the rights of others.
Perhaps it’s that one of the presumptions that many folks have against “rationality” is that it involves being cold or inhumane; unsympathetic; cruel to those less intelligent or less rational. These are not at all what LW folks mean by “rationality”, but they are presumptions out there in the world which we shouldn’t reinforce.
Perhaps it’s that I associate a frustrated impatience with others’ stupidity or ignorance, as being one of the primary character flaws of nerds; one of the things that attracted me to LW was a sympathetic, patient approach to irrationality: “we’ve all got cognitive biases and other irrationality — we are running on flawed hardware — but if we practice together, we have a shot at getting better.”
Perhaps it’s the fact that historically, people who have treated other people as “inanimate objects” “slowing down the vital work” of advancement, have been some of the worst moral wrongdoers most folks can think of.
(As a matter of furry artistic style, I suspect that “harmless cartoon-humorous” violence works better with more ‘animalistic’ or ‘brutish’ characters rather than more ‘humane’ ones. Wile E. Coyote in Looney Tunes deals and receives cartoon violence; Chuck Katt in Omaha doesn’t.)
What’s something your rat might have wrong beliefs about?
How might she discover they were wrong?
In what way would she behave differently after this discovery?
Good questions—and while my target audience’s interests tend to narrow the field down of which beliefs to deal with, there’s still a wide variety to choose from.
frustrated impatience
I find myself not wanting your points to be true, my mind trying to come up with counter-arguments rather than trying to come up with the truth, whatever the truth may be. So I’m not entirely sure I can trust myself here, but: what process can be used to help gather evidence about whether this panel helps me achieve my current goal (of getting at least some members of my target audience interested in LW-style rationalism, and the more the better)? Or, perhaps, should the question being investigated be what could be done with said panel to best achieve my current goal?
Which I am very happy to read.
I agree—and this is what I’m currently trying to figure out how to script out. (I’d tried to do something like this in the second part, describing how to try ‘getting the job done’ of increasing liberty even when stuck in a political system full of ‘top of the dung heap oligarchs’, but it ended up being more about the specific tactics than the thinking processes used to figure those tactics out.)
At this point, any suggestions on how to do that would be cheerfully welcomed.
Maybe I should start a discussion thread here on the ‘Stick Test’ I came up with some time ago, a rather more direct method to refute certain forms of philosophical navel-gazing such as solipsism, adapted from Dr. Johnson’s famous “I refute it thus!”.
… hate? Hrm. Do you really see that panel as involving hatred? I was hoping it would be closer to ‘frustration with people who disparage not just the truth, but the methods of determining it’ (and a bit of harmless cartoon-humorous release of said frustration).
What’s something your rat might have wrong beliefs about?
How might she discover they were wrong?
In what way would she behave differently after this discovery?
It seems to me that a lot of people who think highly of their own rationality might take this panel as expressing a belief that “non-rationalist” people are not worth being treated well … though this may not be all of what disturbed me about it.
Perhaps it’s the contradiction between your rationalist rat doing violence here, and in the next page (the libertarian-oriented one) advocating not infringing on the rights of others.
Perhaps it’s that one of the presumptions that many folks have against “rationality” is that it involves being cold or inhumane; unsympathetic; cruel to those less intelligent or less rational. These are not at all what LW folks mean by “rationality”, but they are presumptions out there in the world which we shouldn’t reinforce.
Perhaps it’s that I associate a frustrated impatience with others’ stupidity or ignorance, as being one of the primary character flaws of nerds; one of the things that attracted me to LW was a sympathetic, patient approach to irrationality: “we’ve all got cognitive biases and other irrationality — we are running on flawed hardware — but if we practice together, we have a shot at getting better.”
Perhaps it’s the fact that historically, people who have treated other people as “inanimate objects” “slowing down the vital work” of advancement, have been some of the worst moral wrongdoers most folks can think of.
(As a matter of furry artistic style, I suspect that “harmless cartoon-humorous” violence works better with more ‘animalistic’ or ‘brutish’ characters rather than more ‘humane’ ones. Wile E. Coyote in Looney Tunes deals and receives cartoon violence; Chuck Katt in Omaha doesn’t.)
Good questions—and while my target audience’s interests tend to narrow the field down of which beliefs to deal with, there’s still a wide variety to choose from.
I find myself not wanting your points to be true, my mind trying to come up with counter-arguments rather than trying to come up with the truth, whatever the truth may be. So I’m not entirely sure I can trust myself here, but: what process can be used to help gather evidence about whether this panel helps me achieve my current goal (of getting at least some members of my target audience interested in LW-style rationalism, and the more the better)? Or, perhaps, should the question being investigated be what could be done with said panel to best achieve my current goal?
Well, I suppose the answer there is “show it to people and see what they think.” But you’re already doing that.