In terms of weird fixations, there are quite a few strange things that the LW community seems to have as part of its identity—polyamory and cryonics are perhaps the best examples of things that seem to have little to do with rationality but are widely accepted as norms here.
If you think rationality leads you to poly or to cryo, I’m fine with that, but I’m not fine with it becoming such a point of fixation or an element of group identity.
For that matter, I think atheism falls into the same category. Religion is basically politics, and politics is the mind-killer, but people here love to score cheap points by criticizing religion. The fact that things like the “secular solstice” have become part of rationalist community norms and identity is indicative of serious errors IMO.
For me, one of the most appealing things about EA (as opposed to rationalist) identity is that it’s not wrapped up in all this unnecessary weird stuff.
For me, one of the most appealing things about EA (as opposed to rationalist) identity is that it’s not wrapped up in all this unnecessary weird stuff.
I’d consider EA itself to be one of those strange things that LW has as part of its identity. It’s true that EA involves rationality, but the premises that EA is based on are profoundly weird. I have no desire to maximize utility for the entire human race in such a way that each person’s utility counts equally, and neither does just about everyone else outside of the LW-sphere. I prefer to increase utility for myself, my family, friends, neighbors, and countrymen in preference to increasing the utility of arbitrary people. And you’ll find that pretty much everyone else outside of here does too.
I don’t view this as inconsistent with EA. I basically share the same preferences as you (except that I don’t think I care about countrymen more than arbitrary people). On the other hand, I care a non-zero amount about arbitrary people, and I would like whatever resources I spend helping them to be spent efficiently. (Also, given the sheer number of other people, things like scientific research that would potentially benefit everyone at once feel pretty appealing to me.)
Well, that’s a matter of semantics. I could say “I don’t want to maximize utility added up among all people”, or I could say “I assign greater utility to people closer to me, and I want to maximize utility given that assignment”. Is that EA? If you phrase it the second way, it sort of is, but if you phrase it the first, it isn’t.
Also, I probably should add “and people who think like me” after “countrymen”. For instance, I don’t really care about the negative utility some people get when others commit blasphemy.
I prefer to increase utility for myself, my family, friends, neighbors, and countrymen in preference to increasing the utility of arbitrary people. And you’ll find that pretty much everyone else outside of here does too.
I think there are plenty of people out there who do care to some extend about saving starving African children.
Yes, they care to some extent, but they would still prefer saving their own child from starvation to saving another child in a distant continent from starvation. Caring to some extent is not equally preferring.
The argument usually goes in reverse: since you’d care about your own child, surely you should care equally about this child in Africa who’s just as human. It’s presented as a reason to care more for the distant child, not care less for your own child. But it still implies that you should care equally about them, not care more about your own.
I’m not fine with it becoming such a point of fixation or an element of group identity.
So, maybe this is just my view of things, but I think a big part of this conversation is whether you’re outside looking in or inside looking out.
For example, I’m neither poly nor signed up for cryo, but I’m open to both of those things, and I’ve thought them through and have a balanced sense of what facts about the world would have to change for my identification / recommendations to have to change. In a place where most people have seriously considered the issue, that gets me no weird looks.
But saying “I’m open to cryo” to an audience of stereotypical skeptics comes across as an admission of kookery, and so that’s the relevant piece about LW they notice: not “they don’t scoff at ideas” but “they believe in cryonics more than normal.”
people here love to score cheap points by criticizing religion.
Is that true? I mostly don’t notice people scoring cheap points by criticizing religion; I mostly notice them ignoring religion.
Religion is basically politics… The fact that things like the “secular solstice” have become part of rationalist community norms and identity is indicative of serious errors IMO.
Mmm. I would say that “religion is basically community”—they’re the people you spend a lot of time with, they’re the people you have a shared history / myth base with, they’re people you can trust more than normal. And any community, as it becomes more sophisticated, basically becomes a ‘religion.’ The Secular Solstice is part of making a genuine sophisticated rationalist community—i.e., a rationalist religion, of the “brownies and babysitting” variety rather than the “guru sex cult” variety.
So, maybe this is just my view of things, but I think a big part of this conversation is whether you’re outside looking in or inside looking out.
I’m on the inside and I think we should get rid of these things for the sake of both insiders and outsiders.
Is that true? I mostly don’t notice people scoring cheap points by criticizing religion; I mostly notice them ignoring religion.
See for instance Raising the Sanity Waterline, a post which raises very important points but is so unnecessarily mean-spirited towards religion that I can’t particularly show it to many people. As Eliezer writes elsewhere:
Why would anyone pick such a distracting example to illustrate nonmonotonic reasoning? Probably because the author just couldn’t resist getting in a good, solid dig at those hated Greens.
Seems to me we have to differentiate between two things:
a) x-rationality (rationality without compartmentalization)
b) LessWrong x-rationalist culture
Rationality means thinking and acting correctly, not doing stupid stuff. Culture means creating an environment where people feel comfortable, and are encouraged to do (what the culture considers to be) the right thing.
There is only one rationality, but there can be multiple rationalist cultures. Different cultures may work better for different people. But different people cannot have different definitions of rationality.
Seems to me that polyamory is a clearly cultural thing, atheism is a part of rationality itself (not believing in magic, not accepting “mysterious answers”, reductionism), and cryonics is… somewhere in between, these days probably more on the cultural side. Secular solstice is obviously a cultural thing, and in my opinion not even a central component of the traditional LW culture; although it’s obviously related.
I love the “old good hardcore LessWrong rationalist culture”, and I would be sad to see it disappear. I want it to survive somewhere, and LW seems like the logical place. (I mean, where else?) But I don’t want to push it on other people, if they object. I enjoy it, but I can understand if other people don’t. I support experimenting with other rationalist cultures.
Not sure what is the solution here. Maybe making the cultures more explicit? Giving them names? Yes, this encourages tribal thinking, but on the other hand, names are Schelling points. (And if we don’t have an explicit name for the culture, people will simply use “the rationalist community” as a name, and then there will be confusion when different people will try to define it differently, when what they really mean is they prefer different cultures.)
Actually, this could be an interesting topic for a separate discussion: Do we need a rationalist culture? What kinds of cultures (that we could consider rationalist) already exist? How to design a new one?
I don’t notice Less Wrong users bashing religion all the time. At some point in the past, there may have been more overlap with New Atheism, but because there are no new points being made in that domain these days, among other reasons, I don’t observe this as much. Mind you I could be biased based on how I spend less time on Less Wrong the website these days, and spend more time discussing with friends on social media and at meetups, where bashing religion seems like it would take place less often anyway.
Religion is basically politics, and politics is the mind-killer
Mentally, I’ve switched out “politics is the mind-killer” for “politics is hard mode”. That article was originally written by Robby Bensinger, and I think it works better than the original sentiment, for what it’s worth.
I perceive the secular solstice as part of the rationalist community being a step away from the public atheism and skeptic communities, at large. While in many skeptic circles, or among casual atheists, people I know seem grossed out by the elements of piety and community devotion, it seems to me the rationalist community embraces them because they understand, psychologically, replicating such activity from organized religion can engender happiness and be empowering. The rationalist community may be able to do so without receiving all the fake and false beliefs which usually comes with the territory of organized religion. In embracing the secular solstice, perhaps the rationalist community isn’t afraid of looking like a bunch of clowns to achieve their goals as a social group.
On the other hand, the secular solstice could be too heavy-handed with symbolism and themes of anti-deathism and transhumanism. I haven’t attended one. I know there were big ones in Seattle, New York, and Berkeley in 2014, and I think only the latter was so overtly steeped in transhumanist memes. I could also have more sentimentality for the of a “secular solstice” than most non-religious folk, as I seem to perceive more value in “spirituality” than others.
In terms of weird fixations, there are quite a few strange things that the LW community seems to have as part of its identity—polyamory and cryonics are perhaps the best examples of things that seem to have little to do with rationality but are widely accepted as norms here.
If you think rationality leads you to poly or to cryo, I’m fine with that, but I’m not fine with it becoming such a point of fixation or an element of group identity.
For that matter, I think atheism falls into the same category. Religion is basically politics, and politics is the mind-killer, but people here love to score cheap points by criticizing religion. The fact that things like the “secular solstice” have become part of rationalist community norms and identity is indicative of serious errors IMO.
For me, one of the most appealing things about EA (as opposed to rationalist) identity is that it’s not wrapped up in all this unnecessary weird stuff.
I’d consider EA itself to be one of those strange things that LW has as part of its identity. It’s true that EA involves rationality, but the premises that EA is based on are profoundly weird. I have no desire to maximize utility for the entire human race in such a way that each person’s utility counts equally, and neither does just about everyone else outside of the LW-sphere. I prefer to increase utility for myself, my family, friends, neighbors, and countrymen in preference to increasing the utility of arbitrary people. And you’ll find that pretty much everyone else outside of here does too.
I don’t view this as inconsistent with EA. I basically share the same preferences as you (except that I don’t think I care about countrymen more than arbitrary people). On the other hand, I care a non-zero amount about arbitrary people, and I would like whatever resources I spend helping them to be spent efficiently. (Also, given the sheer number of other people, things like scientific research that would potentially benefit everyone at once feel pretty appealing to me.)
Well, that’s a matter of semantics. I could say “I don’t want to maximize utility added up among all people”, or I could say “I assign greater utility to people closer to me, and I want to maximize utility given that assignment”. Is that EA? If you phrase it the second way, it sort of is, but if you phrase it the first, it isn’t.
Also, I probably should add “and people who think like me” after “countrymen”. For instance, I don’t really care about the negative utility some people get when others commit blasphemy.
this was an unhelpful comment, removed and replaced by the comment you are now reading
I think there are plenty of people out there who do care to some extend about saving starving African children.
Yes, they care to some extent, but they would still prefer saving their own child from starvation to saving another child in a distant continent from starvation. Caring to some extent is not equally preferring.
I don’t think any of the EA people wouldn’t care more about their own child. To me that seems like a strawman.
The argument usually goes in reverse: since you’d care about your own child, surely you should care equally about this child in Africa who’s just as human. It’s presented as a reason to care more for the distant child, not care less for your own child. But it still implies that you should care equally about them, not care more about your own.
I don’t know any EA who says that they have an utility function that treats every child 100% equally.
So, maybe this is just my view of things, but I think a big part of this conversation is whether you’re outside looking in or inside looking out.
For example, I’m neither poly nor signed up for cryo, but I’m open to both of those things, and I’ve thought them through and have a balanced sense of what facts about the world would have to change for my identification / recommendations to have to change. In a place where most people have seriously considered the issue, that gets me no weird looks.
But saying “I’m open to cryo” to an audience of stereotypical skeptics comes across as an admission of kookery, and so that’s the relevant piece about LW they notice: not “they don’t scoff at ideas” but “they believe in cryonics more than normal.”
Is that true? I mostly don’t notice people scoring cheap points by criticizing religion; I mostly notice them ignoring religion.
Mmm. I would say that “religion is basically community”—they’re the people you spend a lot of time with, they’re the people you have a shared history / myth base with, they’re people you can trust more than normal. And any community, as it becomes more sophisticated, basically becomes a ‘religion.’ The Secular Solstice is part of making a genuine sophisticated rationalist community—i.e., a rationalist religion, of the “brownies and babysitting” variety rather than the “guru sex cult” variety.
I’m on the inside and I think we should get rid of these things for the sake of both insiders and outsiders.
See for instance Raising the Sanity Waterline, a post which raises very important points but is so unnecessarily mean-spirited towards religion that I can’t particularly show it to many people. As Eliezer writes elsewhere:
Seems to me we have to differentiate between two things:
a) x-rationality (rationality without compartmentalization)
b) LessWrong x-rationalist culture
Rationality means thinking and acting correctly, not doing stupid stuff. Culture means creating an environment where people feel comfortable, and are encouraged to do (what the culture considers to be) the right thing.
There is only one rationality, but there can be multiple rationalist cultures. Different cultures may work better for different people. But different people cannot have different definitions of rationality.
Seems to me that polyamory is a clearly cultural thing, atheism is a part of rationality itself (not believing in magic, not accepting “mysterious answers”, reductionism), and cryonics is… somewhere in between, these days probably more on the cultural side. Secular solstice is obviously a cultural thing, and in my opinion not even a central component of the traditional LW culture; although it’s obviously related.
I love the “old good hardcore LessWrong rationalist culture”, and I would be sad to see it disappear. I want it to survive somewhere, and LW seems like the logical place. (I mean, where else?) But I don’t want to push it on other people, if they object. I enjoy it, but I can understand if other people don’t. I support experimenting with other rationalist cultures.
Not sure what is the solution here. Maybe making the cultures more explicit? Giving them names? Yes, this encourages tribal thinking, but on the other hand, names are Schelling points. (And if we don’t have an explicit name for the culture, people will simply use “the rationalist community” as a name, and then there will be confusion when different people will try to define it differently, when what they really mean is they prefer different cultures.)
Actually, this could be an interesting topic for a separate discussion: Do we need a rationalist culture? What kinds of cultures (that we could consider rationalist) already exist? How to design a new one?
I don’t notice Less Wrong users bashing religion all the time. At some point in the past, there may have been more overlap with New Atheism, but because there are no new points being made in that domain these days, among other reasons, I don’t observe this as much. Mind you I could be biased based on how I spend less time on Less Wrong the website these days, and spend more time discussing with friends on social media and at meetups, where bashing religion seems like it would take place less often anyway.
Mentally, I’ve switched out “politics is the mind-killer” for “politics is hard mode”. That article was originally written by Robby Bensinger, and I think it works better than the original sentiment, for what it’s worth.
I perceive the secular solstice as part of the rationalist community being a step away from the public atheism and skeptic communities, at large. While in many skeptic circles, or among casual atheists, people I know seem grossed out by the elements of piety and community devotion, it seems to me the rationalist community embraces them because they understand, psychologically, replicating such activity from organized religion can engender happiness and be empowering. The rationalist community may be able to do so without receiving all the fake and false beliefs which usually comes with the territory of organized religion. In embracing the secular solstice, perhaps the rationalist community isn’t afraid of looking like a bunch of clowns to achieve their goals as a social group.
On the other hand, the secular solstice could be too heavy-handed with symbolism and themes of anti-deathism and transhumanism. I haven’t attended one. I know there were big ones in Seattle, New York, and Berkeley in 2014, and I think only the latter was so overtly steeped in transhumanist memes. I could also have more sentimentality for the of a “secular solstice” than most non-religious folk, as I seem to perceive more value in “spirituality” than others.