[SEQ RERUN] Imaginary Positions
Today’s post, Imaginary Positions was originally published on 23 December 2008. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):
People who are not members of a minority group may somehow come to believe that members of this group possess certain traits which seem to “fit”. These traits are not required to have any connection to the real traits of that group.
Discuss the post here (rather than in the comments to the original post).
This post is part of the Rerunning the Sequences series, where we’ll be going through Eliezer Yudkowsky’s old posts in order so that people who are interested can (re-)read and discuss them. The previous post was Living By Your Own Strength, and you can use the sequence_reruns tag or rss feed to follow the rest of the series.
Sequence reruns are a community-driven effort. You can participate by re-reading the sequence post, discussing it here, posting the next day’s sequence reruns post, or summarizing forthcoming articles on the wiki. Go here for more details, or to have meta discussions about the Rerunning the Sequences series.
Just read the OP. My primary response is OH GOD WHY.
I realize now that I have had several possibly-Imaginary Position misconceptions in the past, including the following:
LW is almost entirely dominated by libertarians (seem very common but there is diversity)
All singularitarianism is Kurzweilian (I definitely don’t believe his idea) And in particular (I think this one is actually an Imaginary Position that resists contradiction):
Transhumanists/Singularitarians want to create or are likely to inadvertantly create a successor race and obsolete humanity in a way distinct from self-upgrading or having better children than the parents.
I’ve behaved in a manner consistent with my belief that other people would always be reasonable and rational. I updated that belief only slightly slower than I should have.