I would think that the audience is people in the vague New Age spectrum which like pop spirituality and do have some sort of belief in God.
That is probably true.
Being thoughtful just means that you are better at rationalizing your belief. It doesn’t make you escape the trap of holding beliefs for signaling social status.
If a person is thoughtful and feels the need to rationalize their belief, then they are usually someone who can be reached through reason and rational arguments. If nothing else, they’ll probably have to improve their own rationalization, perhaps take a small step back from their previous position or have a little more doubt about it. Most people actually are willing to be convinced of most things, in the right situation, so long as you don’t try to push them too far out of their comfort zone all at once.
The only people who can’t be reached at all by reason are people who claim to be completely motivated by faith and belief.
Edit: Also, there are real and valid reasons that “cultural relativism” has become a system that intellectual types claim to have in order to signal social status. If you don’t understand that, then you’re never going to change the minds of the people who help create those signals in the first place.
Do you feel like I’m treating you as an idiot? If so, that’s not intended. Cultural relativists are not the target audience of posts I write on LessWrong.
No, no; I’m not offended. I just feel like you have an extremely low opinion of the people you’re talking about trying to convince, which is something you should generally try to avoid; if you act like you have contempt for someone, you will never convince them of anything.
I just feel like you have an extremely low opinion of the people you’re talking about trying to convince, which is something you should generally try to avoid; if you act like you have contempt for someone, you will never convince them of anything.
I’m far from contempt when it comes to people who are cultural relativists not being convinced by reason.
There nothing contemptful about recognizing that another person wants to be happy and helping them to be happy.
I don’t let my emotions interfere with my reasoning on that level. I don’t let myself get blinded by compassion. I don’t act based on the belief that people should be rational. I have read enough cognitive psychology to know that they aren’t.
I think this is a classic example where arguments alone don’t do much. You don’t like cultural relativists on some level. You think you would need to feel contempt if you would recognize the finding of cognitive psychology about how people come to hold the beliefs that they do.
If I don’t provide you with a way to not feel contempt while accepting cognitive psychology ideas about how humans come to hold the beliefs that they do, I won’t convince you because you have something to lose on a emotional level.
if you act like you have contempt for someone, you will never convince them of anything.
At the moment I’m not trying to convince them. I’m want to convince you.
It’s less than two weeks ago that a woman with a New Age background asked me whether I teach meditation somewhere. I don’t have any problem with interacting in that environment.
That is probably true.
If a person is thoughtful and feels the need to rationalize their belief, then they are usually someone who can be reached through reason and rational arguments. If nothing else, they’ll probably have to improve their own rationalization, perhaps take a small step back from their previous position or have a little more doubt about it. Most people actually are willing to be convinced of most things, in the right situation, so long as you don’t try to push them too far out of their comfort zone all at once.
The only people who can’t be reached at all by reason are people who claim to be completely motivated by faith and belief.
Edit: Also, there are real and valid reasons that “cultural relativism” has become a system that intellectual types claim to have in order to signal social status. If you don’t understand that, then you’re never going to change the minds of the people who help create those signals in the first place.
No, no; I’m not offended. I just feel like you have an extremely low opinion of the people you’re talking about trying to convince, which is something you should generally try to avoid; if you act like you have contempt for someone, you will never convince them of anything.
I’m far from contempt when it comes to people who are cultural relativists not being convinced by reason.
There nothing contemptful about recognizing that another person wants to be happy and helping them to be happy.
I don’t let my emotions interfere with my reasoning on that level. I don’t let myself get blinded by compassion. I don’t act based on the belief that people should be rational. I have read enough cognitive psychology to know that they aren’t.
I think this is a classic example where arguments alone don’t do much. You don’t like cultural relativists on some level. You think you would need to feel contempt if you would recognize the finding of cognitive psychology about how people come to hold the beliefs that they do.
If I don’t provide you with a way to not feel contempt while accepting cognitive psychology ideas about how humans come to hold the beliefs that they do, I won’t convince you because you have something to lose on a emotional level.
At the moment I’m not trying to convince them. I’m want to convince you.
It’s less than two weeks ago that a woman with a New Age background asked me whether I teach meditation somewhere. I don’t have any problem with interacting in that environment.