I’d prefer it if you used “mistaken” rather than “delusional”
Funny, on my second read-through I thought about editing it, but then my mind went “whatever, a healthy ego can probably take it”. No hurt feelings I hope.
I’m also living in the EU, but I’m very aware and constantly following what’s going on in the US, because their erratic development concerns me. As far as evolution and creationism goes, I’m drawing my statistics from the Gallup polls: in the last 30 years creationism went down to 40% from 45%, “evolution through divine intervention” remained stagnant at 40% and “plain natural selection” went up about 5% to 15%.
There is a positive movement here, but I don’t see how in another 30 years the collapse of religion will be imminent. And that’s just the US, to a resident of the Middle East I shouldn’t need to point out, that there are plenty of countries out there much more religious than the US. (Essentially all of them, apart from a few developed countries—and even those countries have usually only around 20% confirmed atheists. Many don’t visit the church, but they’re still holding on to a mountain of superstitious garbage → http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_atheism#Europe )
You’re of course also right that here in Europe there’s hardly any creationists—unlike in the US it’s just too damaging to one’s reputation, so people conveniently adapt their views. I doubt however, that this has all that much to do with the quality of education, and a lot more with cultural attitudes towards religion. As far as Europe goes, I can imagine that the church in the biggest countries (France, Germany, Spain, UK...) will be essentially dead in another 30 years, but what has that to say about people’s ability to make rational decisions? There’s a lot more to rationality than not believing in obvious bs.
There’s gonna be close to 9 billion people in 30 years and you think we -a tiny speck of nerds like LW- could hope to reach out and educate a sizable portion (almost half no less) of the world’s people in the art of rationality and in scientific understanding, so we can put AGI up for vote? And it’s not just simply educating them mind you—in a struggle of memes the application of rationality would require them to throw out just about all of their cherished beliefs about life and the world! And you also seem to be forgetting, that the average LW-IQ may perhaps lie somewhere around 120, and that most people aren’t actually all that clever.
I’m an optimist, but I’m afraid without brain-augmentation something like this just isn’t in the realm of possibilities. There’s no way how you could polish our message to a point where it could stick for so many different people.
You believe in Transhuman-level cybernetics and brain expansions and you don’t believe we can make pigs fly and carry people on their backs?
Damn it! I knew someone would say that and ruin my rhetoric.
As a resident of the Middle East, I can tell you that mentalities are changing fast. Regardless, the attitude towards Science isn’t the same as Christians, since they don’t feel threatened by it, believing that the Qur’an not only isn’t in conflict with science, but actually anticipated some discoveries. They also reclaim the development of modern scientific research as a proud heritage they are enthusiastic to live up to again, and believe researchers should be left alone to investigate, no matter how outrageous the stuff they come up with is (if i remember well think there’s even a command in the Qran specifically to that effect).
As for countries that have been converted to major religions by colonialism, I have a strong feelings that they would actually convert to whatever looks coolest, most Western and most high-status-signalling. We just need to be about 20% cooler than everyone else. Seems manageable.
you also seem to be forgetting, that the average LW IQ may lie somewhere around 120 and that most people aren’t actually all that clever
We should be able to teach rationality to anyone capable of deliberative thought. That is, anyone with an IQ over 70. that the original developers and vanguard be more fast-learning than average is not surprising at all.
Our stuff is simpler, less confusing, far clearer, and far more useful, than anything any religion can teach. I think people could definitely be attracted to our lack of bullshit, if we sell it right.
Funny, on my second read-through I thought about editing it, but then my mind went “whatever, a healthy ego can probably take it”. No hurt feelings I hope.
I’m also living in the EU, but I’m very aware and constantly following what’s going on in the US, because their erratic development concerns me. As far as evolution and creationism goes, I’m drawing my statistics from the Gallup polls: in the last 30 years creationism went down to 40% from 45%, “evolution through divine intervention” remained stagnant at 40% and “plain natural selection” went up about 5% to 15%.
There is a positive movement here, but I don’t see how in another 30 years the collapse of religion will be imminent. And that’s just the US, to a resident of the Middle East I shouldn’t need to point out, that there are plenty of countries out there much more religious than the US. (Essentially all of them, apart from a few developed countries—and even those countries have usually only around 20% confirmed atheists. Many don’t visit the church, but they’re still holding on to a mountain of superstitious garbage → http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_atheism#Europe )
You’re of course also right that here in Europe there’s hardly any creationists—unlike in the US it’s just too damaging to one’s reputation, so people conveniently adapt their views. I doubt however, that this has all that much to do with the quality of education, and a lot more with cultural attitudes towards religion. As far as Europe goes, I can imagine that the church in the biggest countries (France, Germany, Spain, UK...) will be essentially dead in another 30 years, but what has that to say about people’s ability to make rational decisions? There’s a lot more to rationality than not believing in obvious bs.
There’s gonna be close to 9 billion people in 30 years and you think we -a tiny speck of nerds like LW- could hope to reach out and educate a sizable portion (almost half no less) of the world’s people in the art of rationality and in scientific understanding, so we can put AGI up for vote? And it’s not just simply educating them mind you—in a struggle of memes the application of rationality would require them to throw out just about all of their cherished beliefs about life and the world! And you also seem to be forgetting, that the average LW-IQ may perhaps lie somewhere around 120, and that most people aren’t actually all that clever.
I’m an optimist, but I’m afraid without brain-augmentation something like this just isn’t in the realm of possibilities. There’s no way how you could polish our message to a point where it could stick for so many different people.
Damn it! I knew someone would say that and ruin my rhetoric.
As a resident of the Middle East, I can tell you that mentalities are changing fast. Regardless, the attitude towards Science isn’t the same as Christians, since they don’t feel threatened by it, believing that the Qur’an not only isn’t in conflict with science, but actually anticipated some discoveries. They also reclaim the development of modern scientific research as a proud heritage they are enthusiastic to live up to again, and believe researchers should be left alone to investigate, no matter how outrageous the stuff they come up with is (if i remember well think there’s even a command in the Qran specifically to that effect).
As for countries that have been converted to major religions by colonialism, I have a strong feelings that they would actually convert to whatever looks coolest, most Western and most high-status-signalling. We just need to be about 20% cooler than everyone else. Seems manageable.
We should be able to teach rationality to anyone capable of deliberative thought. That is, anyone with an IQ over 70. that the original developers and vanguard be more fast-learning than average is not surprising at all.
Our stuff is simpler, less confusing, far clearer, and far more useful, than anything any religion can teach. I think people could definitely be attracted to our lack of bullshit, if we sell it right.
LOL at the last bit!