I take [passionate atheism/skepticism] as strong evidence against their rationality
Why? Just because they spend their time in a perhaps less than optimal manner (compared to existential risks) doesn’t automatically mean that passionate atheists and skeptics are somehow highly irrational people, does it? I suspect a lot of them would be potential lesswrong readers, it’s just that they haven’t yet encountered these ideas yet.
Most people first had to become “regular” rationalists before they became lesswrongers. If I had stumbled upon this website a looong time ago when I was still something along the lines of a New Ager, I strongly suspect the Bayesian rationality meme simply would not have fallen on fertile ground. Cleaning out the superstitious garbage from your mind seems to be quite an important step for many people. It certainly was for me.
I do not agree with your viewpoint that these people are entirely wasting their time. Not every man, woman and child can participate directly or indirectly in the development of friendly AGI—and I’ve seen much worse use of time and effort than conversion attempts by the “New Atheist” movement. After all, something we may want to keep in mind is that the success and failure of many futuristic things we discuss here on lesswrong may somewhat depend on public opinion and perception (think stem cells) - and I’d much rather face at least somewhat rational atheists than a bunch of deluded theists and esoterics. The difference between 10 and 20% atheists may be all the difference it takes, to achieve more positive outcomes in certain scenarios.
Furthermore, if lesswrongian though has any kind of easily identifiable target group that would be worth “advertising” to, you’d probably find it among skeptics and atheists.
Just because they spend their time in a perhaps less than optimal manner (compared to existential risks) doesn’t automatically mean that passionate atheists and skeptics are somehow highly irrational people, does it?
I didn’t say it was conclusive evidence, only that it is strong evidence.
Moreover, the present neglect of technology-related existential (and other) risk is only one example where the respectable opinion is nowadays remote from reality. There are many other questions where the prevailing views of academic experts, intellectuals, and other high-status shapers of public opinion, are, in my opinion, completely delusional. Some of these are just theoretical questions without much practical bearing on anything, but others have real ugly consequences on a large scale, up to and including mass death and destruction, or seriously threaten such consequences in the future. Many of them also make the world more ugly and dysfunctional, and life more burdensome and joyless, in countless little ways; others are presented as enlightened wisdom on how to live your life but are in fact a recipe for disaster for most people who might believe and try to apply them.
In this situation, if someone focuses on traditional religion as a supposedly especially prominent source of false beliefs and irrationality, it is likely that this is due to ideological reasons, which in turn means that they also swallow much of the above mentioned respectable delusions. Again, there are exceptions, which is why I wrote “lacking other information.” But this is really true in most cases.
Also, another devilish intellectual hack that boosts many modern respectable delusions is the very notion of separating “religious” beliefs and opinions from others. Many modern ideological beliefs that are no less metaphysical and irrational than anything found in traditional religions can nevertheless be advertised as rational and objective—and in turn backed and enforced by governments and other powerful institutions without violating the “separation of church and state” -- just because they don’t fall under the standard definition of “religion.” In my experience, and again with a few honorable exceptions, those who advocate against traditional religion are often at the same time entirely OK with such enforcement of state-backed ideology, even though there is no rational reason to see it as essentially different from the old-fashion establishment of religion.
There are many other questions where the prevailing views of academic experts, intellectuals, and other high-status shapers of public opinion, are, in my opinion, completely delusional.
Name three?
edit: I find that he has already named three, and two heuristics for determining whether an academic field is full of bunk or not, here. I commend him on this article. While I remain unconvinced on the general strategy outlined, I now understand the sort of field he is discussing and find that, on the specifics, I tentatively agree.
I strongly recommend reading Robin Hanson’s answer here.
Many modern ideological beliefs that are no less metaphysical and irrational than anything found in traditional religions can nevertheless be advertised as rational and objective—and in turn backed and enforced by governments and other powerful institutions without violating the “separation of church and state”—just because they don’t fall under the standard definition of “religion.”
Well, as I pointed out in my other comments, unless I answered your challenges with essays of enormous length, my answer would consist of multiple assertions without supporting evidence that sound outlandish on the face of it. Remember that we are talking about delusions that are presently shared by the experts and/or respectable high-status people.
Note that you should accept my point even if we completely disagree on what these high-status delusions are, as long as we agree that there are some, whatever they might be. Try to focus on the main point in the abstract: if delusion X is low-status and rejected by experts and high-status people (even if it might be fairly widespread among the common folk), while delusion Y is instead accepted by them, so much that by asserting non-Y you risk coming off as a crackpot, should we be more worried about X or Y, in terms of both the idealistic pursuit of truth and the practical problems that follow?
Try to focus on the main point in the abstract: if delusion X is low-status and rejected by experts and high-status people (even if it might be fairly widespread among the common folk), while delusion Y is instead accepted by them, so much that by asserting non-Y you risk coming off as a crackpot, should we be more worried about X or Y, in terms of both the idealistic pursuit of truth and the practical problems that follow?
Y, of course. Perhaps I should have started out by saying that while I agree that what you say is possible, I don’t know if it describes the real world. Your assertion was that there are many high status delusions, but without evidence of that, all I can say is that I agree that supposed experts are not guaranteed to be correct on every point, and that it is extremely possible that they will reinforce delusions within their community.
Why? Just because they spend their time in a perhaps less than optimal manner (compared to existential risks) doesn’t automatically mean that passionate atheists and skeptics are somehow highly irrational people, does it? I suspect a lot of them would be potential lesswrong readers, it’s just that they haven’t yet encountered these ideas yet.
Most people first had to become “regular” rationalists before they became lesswrongers. If I had stumbled upon this website a looong time ago when I was still something along the lines of a New Ager, I strongly suspect the Bayesian rationality meme simply would not have fallen on fertile ground. Cleaning out the superstitious garbage from your mind seems to be quite an important step for many people. It certainly was for me.
I do not agree with your viewpoint that these people are entirely wasting their time. Not every man, woman and child can participate directly or indirectly in the development of friendly AGI—and I’ve seen much worse use of time and effort than conversion attempts by the “New Atheist” movement. After all, something we may want to keep in mind is that the success and failure of many futuristic things we discuss here on lesswrong may somewhat depend on public opinion and perception (think stem cells) - and I’d much rather face at least somewhat rational atheists than a bunch of deluded theists and esoterics. The difference between 10 and 20% atheists may be all the difference it takes, to achieve more positive outcomes in certain scenarios.
Furthermore, if lesswrongian though has any kind of easily identifiable target group that would be worth “advertising” to, you’d probably find it among skeptics and atheists.
I didn’t say it was conclusive evidence, only that it is strong evidence.
Moreover, the present neglect of technology-related existential (and other) risk is only one example where the respectable opinion is nowadays remote from reality. There are many other questions where the prevailing views of academic experts, intellectuals, and other high-status shapers of public opinion, are, in my opinion, completely delusional. Some of these are just theoretical questions without much practical bearing on anything, but others have real ugly consequences on a large scale, up to and including mass death and destruction, or seriously threaten such consequences in the future. Many of them also make the world more ugly and dysfunctional, and life more burdensome and joyless, in countless little ways; others are presented as enlightened wisdom on how to live your life but are in fact a recipe for disaster for most people who might believe and try to apply them.
In this situation, if someone focuses on traditional religion as a supposedly especially prominent source of false beliefs and irrationality, it is likely that this is due to ideological reasons, which in turn means that they also swallow much of the above mentioned respectable delusions. Again, there are exceptions, which is why I wrote “lacking other information.” But this is really true in most cases.
Also, another devilish intellectual hack that boosts many modern respectable delusions is the very notion of separating “religious” beliefs and opinions from others. Many modern ideological beliefs that are no less metaphysical and irrational than anything found in traditional religions can nevertheless be advertised as rational and objective—and in turn backed and enforced by governments and other powerful institutions without violating the “separation of church and state” -- just because they don’t fall under the standard definition of “religion.” In my experience, and again with a few honorable exceptions, those who advocate against traditional religion are often at the same time entirely OK with such enforcement of state-backed ideology, even though there is no rational reason to see it as essentially different from the old-fashion establishment of religion.
Name three?
edit: I find that he has already named three, and two heuristics for determining whether an academic field is full of bunk or not, here. I commend him on this article. While I remain unconvinced on the general strategy outlined, I now understand the sort of field he is discussing and find that, on the specifics, I tentatively agree.
I strongly recommend reading Robin Hanson’s answer here.
Same challenge.
edit: I would still like to hear these.
Wow answering that challenge might seriously kill some minds.
I suggest you two PM it out.
Well, as I pointed out in my other comments, unless I answered your challenges with essays of enormous length, my answer would consist of multiple assertions without supporting evidence that sound outlandish on the face of it. Remember that we are talking about delusions that are presently shared by the experts and/or respectable high-status people.
Note that you should accept my point even if we completely disagree on what these high-status delusions are, as long as we agree that there are some, whatever they might be. Try to focus on the main point in the abstract: if delusion X is low-status and rejected by experts and high-status people (even if it might be fairly widespread among the common folk), while delusion Y is instead accepted by them, so much that by asserting non-Y you risk coming off as a crackpot, should we be more worried about X or Y, in terms of both the idealistic pursuit of truth and the practical problems that follow?
Y, of course. Perhaps I should have started out by saying that while I agree that what you say is possible, I don’t know if it describes the real world. Your assertion was that there are many high status delusions, but without evidence of that, all I can say is that I agree that supposed experts are not guaranteed to be correct on every point, and that it is extremely possible that they will reinforce delusions within their community.