After reading this, I think that the reason that nonbelievers are known for being more disagreeable is that people who are more disagreeable are more likely to stop believing.
That is to say, everyone has doubts, but the more agreeable a person is the more they weight other people’s opinions and feelings in their consideration, thus making them less likely to, all other things being equal, stop believing.
Or, it’s easier to stop believing when you actually do care more about the truth than continuing to be in your religious community.
This isn’t to say that there aren’t really nice nonbelievers, but the selection effect is probably noticeable.
A very interesting point. At the London get-together we talked about how people that are into rationality are the kinds of people who are driven to question everything.
People that continually question everything would certainly not do well in a dogmatic religion—which is often defined by a set of things that you are not allowed to question. When you’re in the religion, this is often seen as accepting what other people say “on faith”, and that questioning them is being rude to them (perhaps as you say by not taking their feelings into consideration). But a questioner isn’t actually trying to be rude… just trying to get to the truth.
I once wrote a blogpost about the spectrum of preference between Truth and Harmony. People that value Truth will continue to seek the Truth even if it disturbs the harmony amongst a bunch of people—Harmony people will be more likely to “agree to disagree” or make other ameliorating behaviours to preserve the Harmony where people disagree over Truth.
I put forward that everyone is on that spectrum. I think an awful lot of people are on the Harmony end of that spectrum. ie they’re willing to forego the Truth for the sake of some temporary Harmony.
From what I can tell, rationalists are on the other end. Rationalists believe that finding out the Truth is important. They they’ll try hard not to hurt people’s feelings, but when there is a direct conflict between them, that Truth is more valuable in the long run.
I’d agree with this, and there’s obviously a tension in a lot of situations. But it’s not a zero-sum game either: some people care about both and sometimes have to sacrifice one. Some don’t really care about either that much: either because they just don’t care or because they have some value they regard as more important.
I think I personally have moved from “care only about truth and don’t care a whit about harmony” to “trying really hard to keep harmony and yet not compromise on the truth”…
Yep: especially because it’s all to easy to approach one in an artificial way: we can easily create a cargo cult of either, trying to look ‘truthy’ or doing the sort of things that harmonious people do but in a massively counter-productive way.
One HR person I know springs to mind: she tries very hard to follow all the rules on how to make people feel valued and work together, but it doesn’t come at all naturally, and the results feels like you’re being turned into a box to be ticked. Much worse in practice than someone just not caring about harmony at all.
I am way on the end of the Harmony spectrum. I like lively discussion, but I hate conflict. I don’t know if you’ve read Eliezer’s Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, but at one point the main character has to learn how to ‘lose’ and admit that other characters are right. I read that part and thought ‘that’s my default already.’ This probably makes it harder for me to be a rationalist.
at one point the main character has to learn how to ‘lose’ and admit that other characters are right.
Really? That’s not at all the lesson I took away, admitting that the other characters were ‘right’. Snape was quite wrong; the bullies were even more wrong. Nothing in the narrative tells us that they were ‘right’.
The lesson I took away was that one shouldn’t try to win in every situation, that doing so is very short-sighted, that some victories are Pyrrhic or Cadmean, that sometimes one has to let wrong people/characters go on their wrong way because the cost of correcting them is too high.
Harry, in those chapters, refuses to lose and is willing to escalate all the way to his nuclear option even when the issue doesn’t merit taking such a risk. One wants to accomplish things, not destroy oneself over principles. Thinking is for doing, as the saying goes.
I guess I phrased that badly. When I’m in conflict with someone else, I don’t necessarily think they’re right, but I almost invariably back down. And usually I TELL them ‘maybe you’re right’ because that pacifies people really well. I don’t think this is a good strategy.
This probably makes it harder for me to be a rationalist.
I suspect less so than being on the opposite end of said spectrum. Of course being towards the middle and being able to play both sides is almost all the way to be. :)
After reading this, I think that the reason that nonbelievers are known for being more disagreeable is that people who are more disagreeable are more likely to stop believing.
That is to say, everyone has doubts, but the more agreeable a person is the more they weight other people’s opinions and feelings in their consideration, thus making them less likely to, all other things being equal, stop believing.
Or, it’s easier to stop believing when you actually do care more about the truth than continuing to be in your religious community.
This isn’t to say that there aren’t really nice nonbelievers, but the selection effect is probably noticeable.
A very interesting point. At the London get-together we talked about how people that are into rationality are the kinds of people who are driven to question everything.
People that continually question everything would certainly not do well in a dogmatic religion—which is often defined by a set of things that you are not allowed to question. When you’re in the religion, this is often seen as accepting what other people say “on faith”, and that questioning them is being rude to them (perhaps as you say by not taking their feelings into consideration). But a questioner isn’t actually trying to be rude… just trying to get to the truth.
I once wrote a blogpost about the spectrum of preference between Truth and Harmony. People that value Truth will continue to seek the Truth even if it disturbs the harmony amongst a bunch of people—Harmony people will be more likely to “agree to disagree” or make other ameliorating behaviours to preserve the Harmony where people disagree over Truth.
I put forward that everyone is on that spectrum. I think an awful lot of people are on the Harmony end of that spectrum. ie they’re willing to forego the Truth for the sake of some temporary Harmony.
From what I can tell, rationalists are on the other end. Rationalists believe that finding out the Truth is important. They they’ll try hard not to hurt people’s feelings, but when there is a direct conflict between them, that Truth is more valuable in the long run.
I’d agree with this, and there’s obviously a tension in a lot of situations. But it’s not a zero-sum game either: some people care about both and sometimes have to sacrifice one. Some don’t really care about either that much: either because they just don’t care or because they have some value they regard as more important.
oh definitely agreed.
I think I personally have moved from “care only about truth and don’t care a whit about harmony” to “trying really hard to keep harmony and yet not compromise on the truth”…
it’s a much tougher line to walk.
Yep: especially because it’s all to easy to approach one in an artificial way: we can easily create a cargo cult of either, trying to look ‘truthy’ or doing the sort of things that harmonious people do but in a massively counter-productive way.
One HR person I know springs to mind: she tries very hard to follow all the rules on how to make people feel valued and work together, but it doesn’t come at all naturally, and the results feels like you’re being turned into a box to be ticked. Much worse in practice than someone just not caring about harmony at all.
I am way on the end of the Harmony spectrum. I like lively discussion, but I hate conflict. I don’t know if you’ve read Eliezer’s Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, but at one point the main character has to learn how to ‘lose’ and admit that other characters are right. I read that part and thought ‘that’s my default already.’ This probably makes it harder for me to be a rationalist.
Really? That’s not at all the lesson I took away, admitting that the other characters were ‘right’. Snape was quite wrong; the bullies were even more wrong. Nothing in the narrative tells us that they were ‘right’.
The lesson I took away was that one shouldn’t try to win in every situation, that doing so is very short-sighted, that some victories are Pyrrhic or Cadmean, that sometimes one has to let wrong people/characters go on their wrong way because the cost of correcting them is too high.
Harry, in those chapters, refuses to lose and is willing to escalate all the way to his nuclear option even when the issue doesn’t merit taking such a risk. One wants to accomplish things, not destroy oneself over principles. Thinking is for doing, as the saying goes.
I guess I phrased that badly. When I’m in conflict with someone else, I don’t necessarily think they’re right, but I almost invariably back down. And usually I TELL them ‘maybe you’re right’ because that pacifies people really well. I don’t think this is a good strategy.
I suspect less so than being on the opposite end of said spectrum. Of course being towards the middle and being able to play both sides is almost all the way to be. :)