“Why aren’t we allowed to talk about rationality!?”
We are allowed to talk about rationality, but talking about rationality should focus on the substance, which is not usually correlated with frequent repetition of the label “rational”. (Compare how frequently you encounter “rationality” on LW to the frequency of “mathematics” in a calculus textbook.)
There is a particular danger of losing the real goal when labels are overused. If I want to buy a car, I want to find a car which is reasonably cheap, with low fuel consumption, good looking, fast, big enough or small enough or whatever other criteria it may fulfill. Formulating the question as “what’s the rational way to buy a car” risks obscuring the real problem and replacing the original goal with some abstract ideal of rationality, which in practice can be identified with partly arbitrary norms accepted by the community of self-identified rationalists. Don’t underestimate the power of labels. When an abstract idea acquires a name, it starts its own life, becomes reified, easily substitutes in thought the original concrete concepts it was initially supposed to represent. You can see this effect with political labels all the time, if you think “rational” is immune, recall Randian Objectivism.
With a bit of exaggeration, “rationality” is too vague and broad term to be used in discussions of rationality.
We are allowed to talk about rationality, but talking about rationality should focus on the substance, which is not usually correlated with frequent repetition of the label “rational”. (Compare how frequently you encounter “rationality” on LW to the frequency of “mathematics” in a calculus textbook.)
There is a particular danger of losing the real goal when labels are overused. If I want to buy a car, I want to find a car which is reasonably cheap, with low fuel consumption, good looking, fast, big enough or small enough or whatever other criteria it may fulfill. Formulating the question as “what’s the rational way to buy a car” risks obscuring the real problem and replacing the original goal with some abstract ideal of rationality, which in practice can be identified with partly arbitrary norms accepted by the community of self-identified rationalists. Don’t underestimate the power of labels. When an abstract idea acquires a name, it starts its own life, becomes reified, easily substitutes in thought the original concrete concepts it was initially supposed to represent. You can see this effect with political labels all the time, if you think “rational” is immune, recall Randian Objectivism.
With a bit of exaggeration, “rationality” is too vague and broad term to be used in discussions of rationality.