1) The purpose of the pursuit of rationality is to increase an individual’s understanding of and power over their environment and the people in it.
2) The only way to establish rational thinking in a group of people not otherwise disposed towards it* is to establish a group norm of praising rational thinkers and shaming the irrational, by an established standard of rationality.
Therefore:
Rationalists are power-seekers, and the pursuit of rationality is inherently elitist and exclusionary.
Number two is flawed. You can also establish rationality in people not otherwise interested in it by convincing them that it will be useful to them in pursuing other goals that they’re interested in.
But recognizing that rationality is useful requires the application of rationality. So you’ll only convince people that already agree, to the degree that they do agree.
The real obstacle is that people often don’t want to apply rationality and prefer to use magical thinking instead. Rationalists aren’t those who know how to be rational, they’re the ones who choose rationality over magic when push comes to shove.
You don’t have to wait until they already agree, just until they come up against a situation where their magical thinking is obviously not working. Show them that rationality fixes the problem in a few of those situations, and there’s a decent chance that they’ll start trying it on their own.
That’s not nearly enough. To work, you have to pick a situation where the emotional obstacles to thinking rationally are weak, the tendency to avoid extended thought is most likely to be overridden because the outcome is important, and then present the rational strategy in a way that doesn’t denigrate magical thinking.
It’s difficult to locate such moments, as they are very rare. Better by far simply to find people who genuinely want to be right.
A situation where the person has already figured out that their way of handling things isn’t working, and they’re looking for advice, fits those criteria. They’re still unlikely to ask for advice from someone who’s more likely to mock them than to be useful, though, which is probably why you hear about those situations so infrequently.
But such people usually don’t conclude that the magical thinking itself isn’t working. They just want help finding a specific magical argument that will end up with their getting what they want.
I don’t think I’ve ever known anyone who was actually against rationality altogether. Most people just want a solution that works, and if the one they wind up using is rational, they don’t have a problem with that. And if you can teach them some rationalist skills while you’re giving them that solution, all the better. It takes time to bootstrap people that way, but it’s far from being impossible.
The imaginary critic points out that convincing wholly irrational people to be rational is unlikely to be possible using rational arguments. A rationalist would need power over the irrationalist in order to change their mind.
Or, we could just use the same systems that less-rational people use to convince each other of things, but in a way that in in line with the rationalist ethos.
Since when does valuing rationality limit what other skills we can use?
Critic: “‘Other skills’ means skills of manipulation, rationalists readily abandon honesty in favour of power.”
I just want to clarify that this is not what I think, but I have seen comments of this kind made about Overcoming Bias (on other blogs), though never about Less Wrong. I have never written anything in reply. I was wondering how anyone here would respond to this kind social criticism. Would you even care enough to respond?
Anticipating critics and responses to them is largely a waste of time, if they are determined to be against you. Whatever you say will only be fodder for the next attack, and you are wasting precious time and energy being pinned down by their fire.
What we want is responses for people who are not the critics, but may have heard the critics’ arguments. That’s a considerably less-demanding audience.
Power and honesty (or, more accurately, Friendliness?) aren’t mutually exclusive, but yes, that’s a major issue. Maybe we need to spend more time talking about Friendliness here, even though it’s not exactly a rationalist topic?
I’m highly skeptical of the idea that rationalism isn’t a strategy for getting laid. It’s just a strategy that says the direct methods of using manipulation are worse than using rationality to get rich (or save the world, or something in between). This is because we recognize that most manipulators fall prey to their own shoddy reasoning and are ultimately handicapping themselves even if they have more success in the short term. Of course such rationalizing about short term vs long term success can be thought of as a natural response from high IQ nerds who find little success with women in day-to-day life. I still think this is true even if it turns out to be correct that long term planning pays off (as is usually the case, unless you get hit by a truck :)
Rationalism, as discussed on LW, is not particularly helpful for getting laid.
Perhaps what you mean is that our interest in rationalism is motivated by mental circuits which are indirectly oriented towards us getting laid. This is true, but this could also be said of peoples interest in sports, dance, conversation, literature and the arts, etc. Is there any reason to believe it is more true of rationalism?
Rationalism, as discussed on LW, is not particularly helpful for getting laid.
Well, if you filter out the epistemic stuff and focus on various instrumental-rationality bits like:
Willingness to accept unpleasant or unpopular ideas
Willingness to try things you see others succeeding with, even if they seem to be based on ideas that are absurd or impossibly wrong
Willingness to suspend disbelief while you are doing something, separating evaluating from doing
Observing reality to see what works, rather than imagining you are more (or less) successful than you actually are, by devising as-objective-as-practical test/success criteria in advance
Accepting others’ beliefs and worldviews at face value, without judging them “good” or “bad”
Then yeah, you will find some useful things here, though of course perhaps not nearly as useful things as studying some domain-specific materials on the topic. But the above ideas will serve you well in any domain that involves influencing human behavior, whether it’s your own behavior or someone else’s.
What a critic might say about Less Wrong:
1) The purpose of the pursuit of rationality is to increase an individual’s understanding of and power over their environment and the people in it.
2) The only way to establish rational thinking in a group of people not otherwise disposed towards it* is to establish a group norm of praising rational thinkers and shaming the irrational, by an established standard of rationality.
Therefore:
Rationalists are power-seekers, and the pursuit of rationality is inherently elitist and exclusionary.
*That is to say, the vast majority of people.
Number two is flawed. You can also establish rationality in people not otherwise interested in it by convincing them that it will be useful to them in pursuing other goals that they’re interested in.
But recognizing that rationality is useful requires the application of rationality. So you’ll only convince people that already agree, to the degree that they do agree.
The real obstacle is that people often don’t want to apply rationality and prefer to use magical thinking instead. Rationalists aren’t those who know how to be rational, they’re the ones who choose rationality over magic when push comes to shove.
You don’t have to wait until they already agree, just until they come up against a situation where their magical thinking is obviously not working. Show them that rationality fixes the problem in a few of those situations, and there’s a decent chance that they’ll start trying it on their own.
That’s not nearly enough. To work, you have to pick a situation where the emotional obstacles to thinking rationally are weak, the tendency to avoid extended thought is most likely to be overridden because the outcome is important, and then present the rational strategy in a way that doesn’t denigrate magical thinking.
It’s difficult to locate such moments, as they are very rare. Better by far simply to find people who genuinely want to be right.
A situation where the person has already figured out that their way of handling things isn’t working, and they’re looking for advice, fits those criteria. They’re still unlikely to ask for advice from someone who’s more likely to mock them than to be useful, though, which is probably why you hear about those situations so infrequently.
But such people usually don’t conclude that the magical thinking itself isn’t working. They just want help finding a specific magical argument that will end up with their getting what they want.
I don’t think I’ve ever known anyone who was actually against rationality altogether. Most people just want a solution that works, and if the one they wind up using is rational, they don’t have a problem with that. And if you can teach them some rationalist skills while you’re giving them that solution, all the better. It takes time to bootstrap people that way, but it’s far from being impossible.
The imaginary critic points out that convincing wholly irrational people to be rational is unlikely to be possible using rational arguments. A rationalist would need power over the irrationalist in order to change their mind.
Or, we could just use the same systems that less-rational people use to convince each other of things, but in a way that in in line with the rationalist ethos.
Since when does valuing rationality limit what other skills we can use?
Critic: “‘Other skills’ means skills of manipulation, rationalists readily abandon honesty in favour of power.”
I just want to clarify that this is not what I think, but I have seen comments of this kind made about Overcoming Bias (on other blogs), though never about Less Wrong. I have never written anything in reply. I was wondering how anyone here would respond to this kind social criticism. Would you even care enough to respond?
Anticipating critics and responses to them is largely a waste of time, if they are determined to be against you. Whatever you say will only be fodder for the next attack, and you are wasting precious time and energy being pinned down by their fire.
What we want is responses for people who are not the critics, but may have heard the critics’ arguments. That’s a considerably less-demanding audience.
This is a key distinction which all rationalists trying to talk to the public should keep in mind in all places at all times.
Power and honesty (or, more accurately, Friendliness?) aren’t mutually exclusive, but yes, that’s a major issue. Maybe we need to spend more time talking about Friendliness here, even though it’s not exactly a rationalist topic?
I’m highly skeptical of the idea that rationalism isn’t a strategy for getting laid. It’s just a strategy that says the direct methods of using manipulation are worse than using rationality to get rich (or save the world, or something in between). This is because we recognize that most manipulators fall prey to their own shoddy reasoning and are ultimately handicapping themselves even if they have more success in the short term.
Of course such rationalizing about short term vs long term success can be thought of as a natural response from high IQ nerds who find little success with women in day-to-day life. I still think this is true even if it turns out to be correct that long term planning pays off (as is usually the case, unless you get hit by a truck :)
bring on the downvotes.
Rationalism, as discussed on LW, is not particularly helpful for getting laid.
Perhaps what you mean is that our interest in rationalism is motivated by mental circuits which are indirectly oriented towards us getting laid. This is true, but this could also be said of peoples interest in sports, dance, conversation, literature and the arts, etc. Is there any reason to believe it is more true of rationalism?
Well, if you filter out the epistemic stuff and focus on various instrumental-rationality bits like:
Willingness to accept unpleasant or unpopular ideas
Willingness to try things you see others succeeding with, even if they seem to be based on ideas that are absurd or impossibly wrong
Willingness to suspend disbelief while you are doing something, separating evaluating from doing
Observing reality to see what works, rather than imagining you are more (or less) successful than you actually are, by devising as-objective-as-practical test/success criteria in advance
Accepting others’ beliefs and worldviews at face value, without judging them “good” or “bad”
Then yeah, you will find some useful things here, though of course perhaps not nearly as useful things as studying some domain-specific materials on the topic. But the above ideas will serve you well in any domain that involves influencing human behavior, whether it’s your own behavior or someone else’s.