Ok, I think I get it. So basically, pissing contests put aside, meta-rationalists should probably just concede that LW-style rationalists are also meta-rational and have a constructive discussion about better ways of thinking (I’ve actually seen a bit of this, for example in the comments to this post).
Judging from the tone of your comment, I gather that that’s the opposite of what many of them are doing. Well, that doesn’t really surprise me, but it’s kind of sad.
This is how it seems to me. I may be horribly wrong, of course. But the comments on what you linked...
my problem with the substantial advice on thinking that you give in this post is that… I don’t disagree with it. Nor do I really think that it contradicts anything that has been said on LW. In fact, if it was somewhat polished, cut into a set of smaller posts and posted on LW, I expect that it might get quite upvoted.
I’m not sure if you would find anyone on LW who would disagree!
what you’ve written so far would fit well into the LW consensus.
...are similar to how I often feel. It’s like the meta-rationalists are saying “rationalists are stupid because they don’t see X, Y, Z”, and I am like “but I agree with X, Y, Z, and at least two of them are actually mentioned in the Sequences, so why did you have to start with an assumption that rationalists obviously must be stupid?”
(I had a colleague at one job who always automatically assumed that other people were idiots, so whenever someone was talking about something this colleague knew about, he interrupted him with: “That is wrong. Here is how it actually is: .” And a few times other people were like: “Hey, but you just repeated in different words what he was already saying before your interrupted him!” The guy probably didn’t notice, because he wasn’t paying attention.)
I am aware of my own hostility in this debate, but it is quite difficult for me to be charitable towards someone who pretty much defines themselves as “better than you” (the “meta-” prefix), proceeds with strawmanning you and refuses to update, and concludes that they are morally superior to you (the Kegan scale). Neither of this seems like an evidence that the other side is open to cooperation.
Ok, I think I get it. So basically, pissing contests put aside, meta-rationalists should probably just concede that LW-style rationalists are also meta-rational and have a constructive discussion about better ways of thinking (I’ve actually seen a bit of this, for example in the comments to this post).
Judging from the tone of your comment, I gather that that’s the opposite of what many of them are doing. Well, that doesn’t really surprise me, but it’s kind of sad.
This is how it seems to me. I may be horribly wrong, of course. But the comments on what you linked...
...are similar to how I often feel. It’s like the meta-rationalists are saying “rationalists are stupid because they don’t see X, Y, Z”, and I am like “but I agree with X, Y, Z, and at least two of them are actually mentioned in the Sequences, so why did you have to start with an assumption that rationalists obviously must be stupid?”
(I had a colleague at one job who always automatically assumed that other people were idiots, so whenever someone was talking about something this colleague knew about, he interrupted him with: “That is wrong. Here is how it actually is: .” And a few times other people were like: “Hey, but you just repeated in different words what he was already saying before your interrupted him!” The guy probably didn’t notice, because he wasn’t paying attention.)
I am aware of my own hostility in this debate, but it is quite difficult for me to be charitable towards someone who pretty much defines themselves as “better than you” (the “meta-” prefix), proceeds with strawmanning you and refuses to update, and concludes that they are morally superior to you (the Kegan scale). Neither of this seems like an evidence that the other side is open to cooperation.