An alternate explanation: I’ve noticed a trend where rationalists seem more likely to criticize ideas in general. Perhaps a key experience that needs to happen before some people choose to undergo the rigors of becoming a rationalist is a “waking up” after some trauma that makes them err on the side of being paranoid. I have observed that most people without a “wake up” trauma prefer to simply retain optimism bias and tend to conserve thinking resources for other uses. Someone who thinks as much as you do probably does not feel a need to conserve thinking resources, and probably finds this concept ridiculous, but for most people, stamina for how much thinking they can do in a day is a factor—sad, but true. So, a trauma might be needed to make skepticism appeal to people. It may be that rational thought is often implemented as a defense mechanism and this leads them to create strong habits of doing rational thought in ways that tear ideas down without doing a comparable amount of practice in confirming ideas.
In my opinion, I think the solution to this would be to assist them in reaching a point of satiation when it comes to being great at tearing ideas down. If it’s a self-defense mechanism, no amount of brilliant rational appeals will make them give it up. Even if one starts by explaining the risks of tearing ideas down too much, that’s only confusing to the self-defense system, people won’t know what to do with the cognitive dissonance that causes, so they’re likely to reject it. If they feel secure because of a high level of ability with tearing ideas down, they’ll probably be more open to seeing the limitations to that and doing more practice with methods of confirming ideas.
An alternate explanation: I’ve noticed a trend where rationalists seem more likely to criticize ideas in general. Perhaps a key experience that needs to happen before some people choose to undergo the rigors of becoming a rationalist is a “waking up” after some trauma that makes them err on the side of being paranoid. I have observed that most people without a “wake up” trauma prefer to simply retain optimism bias and tend to conserve thinking resources for other uses. Someone who thinks as much as you do probably does not feel a need to conserve thinking resources, and probably finds this concept ridiculous, but for most people, stamina for how much thinking they can do in a day is a factor—sad, but true. So, a trauma might be needed to make skepticism appeal to people. It may be that rational thought is often implemented as a defense mechanism and this leads them to create strong habits of doing rational thought in ways that tear ideas down without doing a comparable amount of practice in confirming ideas.
In my opinion, I think the solution to this would be to assist them in reaching a point of satiation when it comes to being great at tearing ideas down. If it’s a self-defense mechanism, no amount of brilliant rational appeals will make them give it up. Even if one starts by explaining the risks of tearing ideas down too much, that’s only confusing to the self-defense system, people won’t know what to do with the cognitive dissonance that causes, so they’re likely to reject it. If they feel secure because of a high level of ability with tearing ideas down, they’ll probably be more open to seeing the limitations to that and doing more practice with methods of confirming ideas.