There’s this general problem of Rationalists splitting into factions and subcults with minor doctrinal differences, each composed of relatively elite members of The Community, each with a narrative of how they’re the real rationalists and the rest are just posers and/or parasites. And, they’re kinda right. Many of the rest are posers, we have a mop problem.
There’s just one problem. All of these groups are wrong. They are in fact only slightly more special than their rival groups think they are. In fact, the criticisms each group makes of the epistemics and practices of other groups are mostly on-point.
Once people have formed a political splinter group, almost anything they write will start to contain a subtle attempt to slip in the doctrine they’re trying to push. With sufficient skill, you can make it hard to pin down where the frame is getting shoved in.
I have at one point or another been personally involved with a quite large fraction of the rationalist subcults. This has made the thread hard to read—I keep feeling a tug of motivation to jump into the fray, to take a position in the jostling for credibility or whatever it is being fought over here, which is then marred by the realization that this will win nothing. Local validity isn’t a cure for wrong questions. The tug of political defensiveness that I feel, and that many commenters are probably also feeling, is sufficient to show that whatever question is being asked here is not the right one.
Seeing my friends behave this way hurts. The defensiveness has at this point gone far enough that it contains outright lies.
I’m stuck with a political alignment because of history and social ties. In terms of political camps, I’ve been part of the Vassarites since 2017. It’s definitely a faction, and its members obviously know this at some level, despite their repeated insistence to me of the contrary over the years.
They’re right about a bunch of stuff, and wrong about a bunch of stuff. Plenty of people in the comments are looking to scapegoat them for trying to take ideas seriously instead of just chilling out and following somebody’s party line. That doesn’t really help anything. When I was in the camp, people doing that locked me in further, made outsiders seem more insane and unreachable, and made public disagreement with my camp feel dangerous in the context of a broader political game where the scapegoaters were more wrong than the Vassarites.
So I’m making a public declaration of not being part of that camp anymore, and leaving it there. I left earlier this year, and have spent much of the time since trying to reorient / understand why I had to leave. I still count them among my closest friends, but I don’t want to be socially liable for the things they say. I don’t want the implicit assumption to be that I’d agree with them or back them up.
I had to edit out several lines from this comment because they would just be used as ammunition against one side or another. The degree of truth-seeking in the discourse is low enough that any specific information has to be given very carefully so it can’t be immediately taken up as a weapon.
I still count them among my closest friends, but I don’t want to be socially liable for the things they say. I don’t want the implicit assumption to be that I’d agree with them or back them up.
Same. I don’t think I can exit a faction by declaration without joining another, but I want many of the consequences of this. I think I get to move towards this outcome by engaging nonfactional protocols more, not by creating political distance between me & some particular faction.
Without disagreeing with any specific logical statement you have made, I call bullshit on this. You have quoted a short segment such that technically what you’re saying is not false, but you’re drawing a broader equivalence & request for social credit around “not wanting to be in factions” which is not valid in context of the fact that you are blatantly participating in a faction and doing factional protocols. People are usually on board with the idea of it being better to just talk rather than do politics, and I acknowledge & appreciate the sense in which you want to want to not do politics, but there is a game here which you are playing in and I wish you would own up to that.
If Ben says: “I desire X, and I could get that by doing less faction stuff”, that implies that he is doing faction stuff. But you’re taking it as implying that he isn’t.
The only way I could understand your criticism is as making a revealed-preference critique, where Ben is expressing a preference for doing non-faction stuff but is still doing faction stuff. That doesn’t seem like a strong critique, though, since doing less faction stuff is somewhat difficult, and noticing the problem is the first step to fixing it.
Seems like you agree with what I actually said, and are claiming to find some implied posture objectionable, but aren’t willing to criticize me explicitly enough for me or anyone else to learn from. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
There’s this general problem of Rationalists splitting into factions and subcults with minor doctrinal differences, each composed of relatively elite members of The Community, each with a narrative of how they’re the real rationalists and the rest are just posers and/or parasites. And, they’re kinda right. Many of the rest are posers, we have a mop problem.
There’s just one problem. All of these groups are wrong. They are in fact only slightly more special than their rival groups think they are. In fact, the criticisms each group makes of the epistemics and practices of other groups are mostly on-point.
Once people have formed a political splinter group, almost anything they write will start to contain a subtle attempt to slip in the doctrine they’re trying to push. With sufficient skill, you can make it hard to pin down where the frame is getting shoved in.
I have at one point or another been personally involved with a quite large fraction of the rationalist subcults. This has made the thread hard to read—I keep feeling a tug of motivation to jump into the fray, to take a position in the jostling for credibility or whatever it is being fought over here, which is then marred by the realization that this will win nothing. Local validity isn’t a cure for wrong questions. The tug of political defensiveness that I feel, and that many commenters are probably also feeling, is sufficient to show that whatever question is being asked here is not the right one.
Seeing my friends behave this way hurts. The defensiveness has at this point gone far enough that it contains outright lies.
I’m stuck with a political alignment because of history and social ties. In terms of political camps, I’ve been part of the Vassarites since 2017. It’s definitely a faction, and its members obviously know this at some level, despite their repeated insistence to me of the contrary over the years.
They’re right about a bunch of stuff, and wrong about a bunch of stuff. Plenty of people in the comments are looking to scapegoat them for trying to take ideas seriously instead of just chilling out and following somebody’s party line. That doesn’t really help anything. When I was in the camp, people doing that locked me in further, made outsiders seem more insane and unreachable, and made public disagreement with my camp feel dangerous in the context of a broader political game where the scapegoaters were more wrong than the Vassarites.
So I’m making a public declaration of not being part of that camp anymore, and leaving it there. I left earlier this year, and have spent much of the time since trying to reorient / understand why I had to leave. I still count them among my closest friends, but I don’t want to be socially liable for the things they say. I don’t want the implicit assumption to be that I’d agree with them or back them up.
I had to edit out several lines from this comment because they would just be used as ammunition against one side or another. The degree of truth-seeking in the discourse is low enough that any specific information has to be given very carefully so it can’t be immediately taken up as a weapon.
This game sucks and I want out.
Same. I don’t think I can exit a faction by declaration without joining another, but I want many of the consequences of this. I think I get to move towards this outcome by engaging nonfactional protocols more, not by creating political distance between me & some particular faction.
Without disagreeing with any specific logical statement you have made, I call bullshit on this. You have quoted a short segment such that technically what you’re saying is not false, but you’re drawing a broader equivalence & request for social credit around “not wanting to be in factions” which is not valid in context of the fact that you are blatantly participating in a faction and doing factional protocols. People are usually on board with the idea of it being better to just talk rather than do politics, and I acknowledge & appreciate the sense in which you want to want to not do politics, but there is a game here which you are playing in and I wish you would own up to that.
If Ben says: “I desire X, and I could get that by doing less faction stuff”, that implies that he is doing faction stuff. But you’re taking it as implying that he isn’t.
The only way I could understand your criticism is as making a revealed-preference critique, where Ben is expressing a preference for doing non-faction stuff but is still doing faction stuff. That doesn’t seem like a strong critique, though, since doing less faction stuff is somewhat difficult, and noticing the problem is the first step to fixing it.
Seems like you agree with what I actually said, and are claiming to find some implied posture objectionable, but aren’t willing to criticize me explicitly enough for me or anyone else to learn from. ¯_(ツ)_/¯