A big problem with trying to spread rationality is that an approximation is not necessarily an improvement, and may even sometimes make things worse. As an analogy, getting people from “I have no idea how much is 2+2” to “2+2 equals 5″ is not an improvement in math (especially when the latter become resistant against learning that the result is actually 4, because they “already know” the answer).
There already exist several approximations of rationality, for example RationalWiki, Intentional Insights, Logic Nation. Your most likely risk at spreading rationality is failing completely, but your second greatest risk is becoming (or inspiring) yet another of those.
Generally, I agree with you that it is good to: simplify the language, prioritize stuff, avoid needless offense, find easily memorable words, show everyday usefulness, etc. I just think that even after you do all of this… most people will remain unimpressed. Most of them will simply not care. The rest will take what you made and twist is somehow to include their pet topic, typically some form of supernaturalism.
I wish I knew what to do instead. I don’t. :( I think that having the Sequences is already a huge improvement over the previous situation (having a book I can point at, instead of just saying “uhm, the way you are using this reason thing feels wrong to me” only to be told “well, that’s just your opinion, man”), but still, even most of the highly intelligent and educated people remain unimpressed. And when a century ago Korzybski wrote Science and Sanity, also a few people were highly energized by it, but most remained unimpressed, and then it mostly got forgotten. -- It would be interesting to do research on what makes people predisposed to respond positively to the idea of rationality. Because it seems to me that most people who were impressed by it, already came somehow prepared to get it. If we could only replicate this previous step...
A big problem with trying to spread rationality is that an approximation is not necessarily an improvement, and may even sometimes make things worse. As an analogy, getting people from “I have no idea how much is 2+2” to “2+2 equals 5″ is not an improvement in math (especially when the latter become resistant against learning that the result is actually 4, because they “already know” the answer).
Related: Knowing About Biases Can Hurt People
There already exist several approximations of rationality, for example RationalWiki, Intentional Insights, Logic Nation. Your most likely risk at spreading rationality is failing completely, but your second greatest risk is becoming (or inspiring) yet another of those.
Generally, I agree with you that it is good to: simplify the language, prioritize stuff, avoid needless offense, find easily memorable words, show everyday usefulness, etc. I just think that even after you do all of this… most people will remain unimpressed. Most of them will simply not care. The rest will take what you made and twist is somehow to include their pet topic, typically some form of supernaturalism.
I wish I knew what to do instead. I don’t. :( I think that having the Sequences is already a huge improvement over the previous situation (having a book I can point at, instead of just saying “uhm, the way you are using this reason thing feels wrong to me” only to be told “well, that’s just your opinion, man”), but still, even most of the highly intelligent and educated people remain unimpressed. And when a century ago Korzybski wrote Science and Sanity, also a few people were highly energized by it, but most remained unimpressed, and then it mostly got forgotten. -- It would be interesting to do research on what makes people predisposed to respond positively to the idea of rationality. Because it seems to me that most people who were impressed by it, already came somehow prepared to get it. If we could only replicate this previous step...