If you are offended by any of gjm’s statements, I suggest you walk away now, because what I’m going to say is going to be just as offensive to you as anything that gjm has posted.
Right, I take issue with your statement that autistic people are irrational, but I think that point has already been made for me. What I am taking issue with now is:
then I think that’s a sad state of affairs.
You believe it is a sad state of affairs that people on LessWrong are discouraged from discussing topics that will harm people more than benefit them? Am I correct in therefore saying that you believe it is a sad state of affairs people on LessWrong are discouraged from doing stupid and irrational things? Because if so, that doesn’t seem like a sad thing at all.
Consider the case where political commentary is viewed as just as acceptable a topic of debate as any other. Yes, it would be ideal to have everyone here so rational they can discuss politics freely, without risking harm to their rationality. Yet it is a fact that Politics is the Mind-Killer, and this is not going to go away and it is not going to change because you believe in freedom of speech. And I don’t think this is a particularly sad state of affairs, for the very fact that people avoid things that make them irrational is a promising sign that they value their lack of bias.
But you seem to think that the freedom to say silly things like “autistic people are less rational than others”, or to bring up disruptive topics, outweighs that consideration.
At this point, I would like to recommend that you close the window right now, turn away from the computer and think hard about whether complete freedom of speech is one of those things that, in the minds of some people, automatically equals a win. I can’t recall the technical term for it, but I do recall quite strongly that it will kill your mind.
At some point in a person’s “training” as a rationalist, there comes a time when they are supposed to be ready to undertake controversial conversation topics without spontaneous combustion of their discussions. (Never mind that jokes and art are not exactly examples of controversial topics...) Rationality encompasses skills such as being able to accurately understand people’s motives without caricaturing them, maintaining a good relationship with your conversation partners so that the channels for agreement and the channels for social relations don’t get mixed (so that you can disagree sanely with someone), not straying the conversation away from collective truth-seeking and towards mini-wars etc. In fact I would say that a controversial topic such as politics is the best test of a person’s actual wisdom and reasonableness.
I understand why some topics may not be appropriate for less-than-rational individuals. (But, again, these topics do not include humour and art and music! Otherwise you should pay a visit to the Wizard of Oz for him to give you a heart...) Anyone who has some legitimate claim towards better rationality skills, however, should at least try to test those better rationality skills on a higher difficulty setting. To forbid anything but sterile mathy discussions about game theory dilemmas involving alien intelligences does not improve the rationality level of people. (This honestly looks to me like cocooning; like fear of the outside world.) Nor does responsibly endeavouring to step into the arena of debates on topics relevant to humanity at large suddenly awaken your primal urges to kill, maim, and enslave your opponents. Ordinary people sometimes discuss this, in meatspace and on the internet. Ideas are expressed, values are clashed (instead of swords, mayhaps), insults are exchanged, people are warned or banned or not invited to the next dinner party. Egad, minds are sometimes even changed. With LessWrong, with all of our claims to an ardent dedication to rationality, I’m expecting to see less of the bad stuff and more of the good stuff. Much more.
Politics is the Mindkiller is not a law of nature, but a word of caution.
At some point in a person’s “training” as a rationalist, there comes a time when they are supposed to be ready to undertake controversial conversation topics without spontaneous combustion of their discussions.
I’ve found that people, in practice, tend to believe this point comes about five minutes after they’ve been introduced to the concept of rationality.
Empirically, I do think people who’ve put sufficient effort into debiasing are better at talking about value-loaded topics than those who haven’t. But that doesn’t do us much good as long as we lack accurate metrics of rationality (introspective or otherwise), effective ways of telling people that they probably haven’t leveled up enough to participate productively in a given discussion, or sufficient native forbearance. “You seem to be mindkilled” is about all we’ve got, and that tends to be interpreted, often correctly, as a partisan attack.
I have to go to bed soon, therefore I will not write up a long post but leave you with this short statement:
Yes, there is such a point in our rationality training. You underestimate the amount of work needed to get there. I do not think that I can reach that point within the next 30 years; and everyone on LW would have to reach that point to argue effectively. It only takes a few outraged posters to turn a thread into a shitstorm(see the comments and replies above).
It is indeed a word of caution, just like “do not play with electricity” is a word of caution. Grown adults should theoretically be able to handle electricity without getting electrocuted, but doing so(unless they’re electricians) won’t give them many benefits and there will always be that risk.
I believe that he suggested(he is not a moderator but a random poster making suggestions, remember) that jokes, humor and art not be posted here because this is not a website for jokes, humor and art, unless they somehow have to do with rationality. There are plenty of sites for such things if you really have a pressing need to discuss your love of the Mona Lisa or knock-knock jokes with people on the internet.
If you want my opinion, it’s that a debate about Obama’s healthcare reforms is less likely to improve rationality than a debate about the sequences or some other “traditional” topic. If you really want to apply your rationality skills in a real world context:
It’s right there. Just switch off your computer, go outside and strike up a debate with someone in meatspace.
If you are offended by any of gjm’s statements, I suggest you walk away now,
I notice you didn’t make a similar to reply gjm with respect to his being offended by Dahlen’s comment, even though gjm’s offense was much more irrational.
But you seem to think that the freedom to say silly things like “autistic people are less rational than others”
That is not a silly thing, it is in fact true for most definitions of “rational”.
If you are offended by any of gjm’s statements, I suggest you walk away now, because what I’m going to say is going to be just as offensive to you as anything that gjm has posted.
Right, I take issue with your statement that autistic people are irrational, but I think that point has already been made for me. What I am taking issue with now is:
You believe it is a sad state of affairs that people on LessWrong are discouraged from discussing topics that will harm people more than benefit them? Am I correct in therefore saying that you believe it is a sad state of affairs people on LessWrong are discouraged from doing stupid and irrational things? Because if so, that doesn’t seem like a sad thing at all.
Consider the case where political commentary is viewed as just as acceptable a topic of debate as any other. Yes, it would be ideal to have everyone here so rational they can discuss politics freely, without risking harm to their rationality. Yet it is a fact that Politics is the Mind-Killer, and this is not going to go away and it is not going to change because you believe in freedom of speech. And I don’t think this is a particularly sad state of affairs, for the very fact that people avoid things that make them irrational is a promising sign that they value their lack of bias.
But you seem to think that the freedom to say silly things like “autistic people are less rational than others”, or to bring up disruptive topics, outweighs that consideration.
At this point, I would like to recommend that you close the window right now, turn away from the computer and think hard about whether complete freedom of speech is one of those things that, in the minds of some people, automatically equals a win. I can’t recall the technical term for it, but I do recall quite strongly that it will kill your mind.
At some point in a person’s “training” as a rationalist, there comes a time when they are supposed to be ready to undertake controversial conversation topics without spontaneous combustion of their discussions. (Never mind that jokes and art are not exactly examples of controversial topics...) Rationality encompasses skills such as being able to accurately understand people’s motives without caricaturing them, maintaining a good relationship with your conversation partners so that the channels for agreement and the channels for social relations don’t get mixed (so that you can disagree sanely with someone), not straying the conversation away from collective truth-seeking and towards mini-wars etc. In fact I would say that a controversial topic such as politics is the best test of a person’s actual wisdom and reasonableness.
I understand why some topics may not be appropriate for less-than-rational individuals. (But, again, these topics do not include humour and art and music! Otherwise you should pay a visit to the Wizard of Oz for him to give you a heart...) Anyone who has some legitimate claim towards better rationality skills, however, should at least try to test those better rationality skills on a higher difficulty setting. To forbid anything but sterile mathy discussions about game theory dilemmas involving alien intelligences does not improve the rationality level of people. (This honestly looks to me like cocooning; like fear of the outside world.) Nor does responsibly endeavouring to step into the arena of debates on topics relevant to humanity at large suddenly awaken your primal urges to kill, maim, and enslave your opponents. Ordinary people sometimes discuss this, in meatspace and on the internet. Ideas are expressed, values are clashed (instead of swords, mayhaps), insults are exchanged, people are warned or banned or not invited to the next dinner party. Egad, minds are sometimes even changed. With LessWrong, with all of our claims to an ardent dedication to rationality, I’m expecting to see less of the bad stuff and more of the good stuff. Much more.
Politics is the Mindkiller is not a law of nature, but a word of caution.
I’ve found that people, in practice, tend to believe this point comes about five minutes after they’ve been introduced to the concept of rationality.
Empirically, I do think people who’ve put sufficient effort into debiasing are better at talking about value-loaded topics than those who haven’t. But that doesn’t do us much good as long as we lack accurate metrics of rationality (introspective or otherwise), effective ways of telling people that they probably haven’t leveled up enough to participate productively in a given discussion, or sufficient native forbearance. “You seem to be mindkilled” is about all we’ve got, and that tends to be interpreted, often correctly, as a partisan attack.
I have to go to bed soon, therefore I will not write up a long post but leave you with this short statement:
Yes, there is such a point in our rationality training. You underestimate the amount of work needed to get there. I do not think that I can reach that point within the next 30 years; and everyone on LW would have to reach that point to argue effectively. It only takes a few outraged posters to turn a thread into a shitstorm(see the comments and replies above).
It is indeed a word of caution, just like “do not play with electricity” is a word of caution. Grown adults should theoretically be able to handle electricity without getting electrocuted, but doing so(unless they’re electricians) won’t give them many benefits and there will always be that risk.
I believe that he suggested(he is not a moderator but a random poster making suggestions, remember) that jokes, humor and art not be posted here because this is not a website for jokes, humor and art, unless they somehow have to do with rationality. There are plenty of sites for such things if you really have a pressing need to discuss your love of the Mona Lisa or knock-knock jokes with people on the internet.
If you want my opinion, it’s that a debate about Obama’s healthcare reforms is less likely to improve rationality than a debate about the sequences or some other “traditional” topic. If you really want to apply your rationality skills in a real world context:
It’s right there. Just switch off your computer, go outside and strike up a debate with someone in meatspace.
I notice you didn’t make a similar to reply gjm with respect to his being offended by Dahlen’s comment, even though gjm’s offense was much more irrational.
That is not a silly thing, it is in fact true for most definitions of “rational”.