“Either false or unproductive” is exactly how I’d describe most rationalists’ (and certainly that of most of the ones in visible/influential online spaces) attitude toward atheism/secularism/etc.
This really surprises me. Do you mean to say that if you asked 20 randomly-selected high-karma LW users whether God as depicted in typical religions exist, at least 10 would say “yes”? If so, I strongly disagree, based on my experience hanging out and living with rationalists in the Bay Area, and would love to bet with you. (You might be right about SSC commenters, I’ll snobbishly declare them “not real rationalists” by default)
In these conversations, it pays to be precise. To wit:
Do you mean to say that if you asked 20 randomly-selected high-karma LW users whether God as depicted in typical religions exist, at least 10 [half of the total —SA.] would say “yes”?
(Emphasis mine.)
I do not mean to say this, no. There is, indeed, a difference between all of these:
“The most high-status[1] members of a community (almost) all believe X.”
“The members of a community (almost) all believe X.”
“The vocal members of a community (almost) all believe X (and say so).”
“The members of a community (almost) all believe X, and the high-status members of that community do not make publicly clear their disbelief in X.”
“The vocal members of a community (almost) all believe X (and say so), and the high-status members of that community do not gainsay them.”
What I said was somewhere in the #s 2–5 region. You asked whether I really believed #1. I never claimed to.
What’s more, my use of the disjunction was deliberate. I did not mean to imply that the breakdown between “believes that atheism/secularism is false” and “considers atheism/secularism unproductive” is even. It would surprise me if it were. But if, in a community, 5% believe X, 5% believe ¬X, and 90% (including all or almost all of the highest-status individuals) probably more or less believe ¬X but consider it unproductive to discuss or even clearly state the (claimed) fact that ¬X, or possibly even unproductive to believe ¬X, then this community will be friendly to discussions of X but unfriendly to objections that, actually, ¬X; and X (and X-derived/adjacent memes) will spread more easily than ¬X (and ¬X-derived/adjacent memes).
Finally, nothing at all that I said referred to, or implied, anything about “as depicted in typical religions”. That, I regret to note, was entirely a strawman on your part.
[1] We can, perhaps—and should, probably—have a discussion about how karma on Less Wrong maps to status in rationalist communities. This is not that discussion, however.
I agree that it pays to be precise, which is why I was asking if you believed that statement, rather than asserting that you did. I guess I’d like to hear what proposition you’re claiming—is “X” meant to stand in for “atheism/secularism” there? Atheism is almost precise (although I start wondering whether simulation hypotheses technically count, which is why I included the “as depicted in typical religions” bit), but I at least could map “secularism” to a variety of claims, some of which I accept and some of which I reject. I also still don’t know what you mean by “unproductive”—if almost everybody I interact with is an atheist, and therefore I don’t feel the need to convince them of atheism, does that mean that I believe atheism is unproductive? (Again, this is a question, not me claiming that your answer to the question will be “yes”)
if almost everybody I interact with is an atheist, and therefore I don’t feel the need to convince them of atheism, does that mean that I believe atheism is unproductive?
I note an important distinction between “don’t feel the need to preach to the choir” and “don’t feel the need to hold people accountable for X”. It’s one thing if I’m operating in a high trust environment where people almost never steal from each other, and so policies that reduce the risk of theft or agitating against theft seem like a waste of time, and it’s another thing if I should shrug off thefts when I witness them because thefts are pretty rare, all things considered.
By analogy, it seems pretty important if theism is in the same category as ‘food preferences’ (where I would hassle Alice if Alice hassled Bob over Bob liking the taste of seaweed) or as ‘theft’ (where I would hassle Alice over not hassling Bob over Bob stealing things). (Tolerate tolerance, coordinate meanness, etc.)
[Edit: to be clear, I don’t think theism is obviously in the same category as stealing, but I think it is clearly an intellectual mistake and have a difficult time trusting the thinking of someone who is theist for reasons that aren’t explicitly social, and when deciding how much to tolerate theism one of the considerations is something like “what level of toleration leads to the lowest number of theists in the long-run, or flips my view on atheism?”.]
In the sense of LessWrong “productive” means that you can write posts based on a certain framework that produces valuable ideas.
Bring Back the Sabbath would be a post that productively uses Judaism. Multiple people in our local dojo found a lot of value in that post even when they don’t have any personal connection to Judaism.
Elsewhere you find us making up gods like Omega and Morloch and using them productively.
There aren’t any similar straight secular posts that come to mind in the last years that made productive use of atheism or secularism.
This really surprises me. Do you mean to say that if you asked 20 randomly-selected high-karma LW users whether God as depicted in typical religions exist, at least 10 would say “yes”? If so, I strongly disagree, based on my experience hanging out and living with rationalists in the Bay Area, and would love to bet with you. (You might be right about SSC commenters, I’ll snobbishly declare them “not real rationalists” by default)
In these conversations, it pays to be precise. To wit:
(Emphasis mine.)
I do not mean to say this, no. There is, indeed, a difference between all of these:
“The most high-status[1] members of a community (almost) all believe X.”
“The members of a community (almost) all believe X.”
“The vocal members of a community (almost) all believe X (and say so).”
“The members of a community (almost) all believe X, and the high-status members of that community do not make publicly clear their disbelief in X.”
“The vocal members of a community (almost) all believe X (and say so), and the high-status members of that community do not gainsay them.”
What I said was somewhere in the #s 2–5 region. You asked whether I really believed #1. I never claimed to.
What’s more, my use of the disjunction was deliberate. I did not mean to imply that the breakdown between “believes that atheism/secularism is false” and “considers atheism/secularism unproductive” is even. It would surprise me if it were. But if, in a community, 5% believe X, 5% believe ¬X, and 90% (including all or almost all of the highest-status individuals) probably more or less believe ¬X but consider it unproductive to discuss or even clearly state the (claimed) fact that ¬X, or possibly even unproductive to believe ¬X, then this community will be friendly to discussions of X but unfriendly to objections that, actually, ¬X; and X (and X-derived/adjacent memes) will spread more easily than ¬X (and ¬X-derived/adjacent memes).
Finally, nothing at all that I said referred to, or implied, anything about “as depicted in typical religions”. That, I regret to note, was entirely a strawman on your part.
[1] We can, perhaps—and should, probably—have a discussion about how karma on Less Wrong maps to status in rationalist communities. This is not that discussion, however.
I agree that it pays to be precise, which is why I was asking if you believed that statement, rather than asserting that you did. I guess I’d like to hear what proposition you’re claiming—is “X” meant to stand in for “atheism/secularism” there? Atheism is almost precise (although I start wondering whether simulation hypotheses technically count, which is why I included the “as depicted in typical religions” bit), but I at least could map “secularism” to a variety of claims, some of which I accept and some of which I reject. I also still don’t know what you mean by “unproductive”—if almost everybody I interact with is an atheist, and therefore I don’t feel the need to convince them of atheism, does that mean that I believe atheism is unproductive? (Again, this is a question, not me claiming that your answer to the question will be “yes”)
I note an important distinction between “don’t feel the need to preach to the choir” and “don’t feel the need to hold people accountable for X”. It’s one thing if I’m operating in a high trust environment where people almost never steal from each other, and so policies that reduce the risk of theft or agitating against theft seem like a waste of time, and it’s another thing if I should shrug off thefts when I witness them because thefts are pretty rare, all things considered.
By analogy, it seems pretty important if theism is in the same category as ‘food preferences’ (where I would hassle Alice if Alice hassled Bob over Bob liking the taste of seaweed) or as ‘theft’ (where I would hassle Alice over not hassling Bob over Bob stealing things). (Tolerate tolerance, coordinate meanness, etc.)
[Edit: to be clear, I don’t think theism is obviously in the same category as stealing, but I think it is clearly an intellectual mistake and have a difficult time trusting the thinking of someone who is theist for reasons that aren’t explicitly social, and when deciding how much to tolerate theism one of the considerations is something like “what level of toleration leads to the lowest number of theists in the long-run, or flips my view on atheism?”.]
Beware punishing nonpunishers!
In the sense of LessWrong “productive” means that you can write posts based on a certain framework that produces valuable ideas.
Bring Back the Sabbath would be a post that productively uses Judaism. Multiple people in our local dojo found a lot of value in that post even when they don’t have any personal connection to Judaism.
Elsewhere you find us making up gods like Omega and Morloch and using them productively.
There aren’t any similar straight secular posts that come to mind in the last years that made productive use of atheism or secularism.