I think preventing “poseurs” requires going to a level deeper in the following ways:
Even though we might think that rationalists should agree if they all have the same information, we need to go deeper by acknowledging that we have no proven method which accomplishes this, and have no clue whether we ever will. It creates pressure to agree. We need to release that pressure and just start where we are, living with the fact that all we can do is keep learning and sharing and improving our methods for these and hope everyone gets on the same page eventually. It needs to be labeled as the far-off ideal that it is.
I agree with the problem you point out in undiscriminating skeptics, however I disagree with your solution there. Which was (paraphrasing) “The real rationalists are the ones who are able to disagree with the other skeptics and show that they’ve thought it out.”
This encourages people to look for reasons to disagree in order to show off. It might, on the one hand, be a good thing, since it encourages people to think critically and they may find more mistakes that way, but going in the opposite direction of “Believe people are rationalists because they believe X, Y, and Z.” is an over-correction. This is relevant because it is likely to promote schisms. A group of thinkers of any stripe are going to have an overwhelming number of disagreements as it is because groups of thinkers grow in their own directions and tend to refuse to conform to promote social cohesion.
When it comes down to it, promoting disagreement is no better aimed at the target of promoting truth-seeking than promoting agreement. If what you want is truth-seekers, promote truth-seekers.
There are nasty pitfalls to using labels at all but “rationalist” might be able to be a healthy and constructive label. Here’s what I mean by pitfall and how I think a rationalist label might be made healthy and constructive:
When earning a label (whether that be a job title or a social status title), we’re looking at it as a system to game (give the right answers on tests, do posturing) and it is those system-gaming efforts that result in the superficial and empty appearance of belonging (like undiscriminating skeptics who mock what you expect).
People desire to earn status, and that can be a really positive force, but only if it’s directed at a goal and the right type of goal. “Disagree sometimes and support your point” will result in disagreements (not necessarily high quality ideas), whereas a goal like “make something that actually works” (a theory that’s proven true, a social program that gets results, etc.) would be a wonderful “fire under the ass” to get us moving and figuring out how to do what works.
If status is going to be important to people, the way of determining whether they deserve it should not be quick and it should require that they game reality rather than gaming your model of what a rationalist is.
If you want to use quick mental models as shortcuts to save time while you’re navigating the jungle of irrational people out there, this is understandable, everyone does it—but if you publish that here, it’s going to become part of the culture, and applying these shortcuts when it comes to which people deserve respect is going to motivate people to value activity over results.
I think preventing “poseurs” requires going to a level deeper in the following ways:
Even though we might think that rationalists should agree if they all have the same information, we need to go deeper by acknowledging that we have no proven method which accomplishes this, and have no clue whether we ever will. It creates pressure to agree. We need to release that pressure and just start where we are, living with the fact that all we can do is keep learning and sharing and improving our methods for these and hope everyone gets on the same page eventually. It needs to be labeled as the far-off ideal that it is.
I agree with the problem you point out in undiscriminating skeptics, however I disagree with your solution there. Which was (paraphrasing) “The real rationalists are the ones who are able to disagree with the other skeptics and show that they’ve thought it out.”
This encourages people to look for reasons to disagree in order to show off. It might, on the one hand, be a good thing, since it encourages people to think critically and they may find more mistakes that way, but going in the opposite direction of “Believe people are rationalists because they believe X, Y, and Z.” is an over-correction. This is relevant because it is likely to promote schisms. A group of thinkers of any stripe are going to have an overwhelming number of disagreements as it is because groups of thinkers grow in their own directions and tend to refuse to conform to promote social cohesion.
When it comes down to it, promoting disagreement is no better aimed at the target of promoting truth-seeking than promoting agreement. If what you want is truth-seekers, promote truth-seekers.
There are nasty pitfalls to using labels at all but “rationalist” might be able to be a healthy and constructive label. Here’s what I mean by pitfall and how I think a rationalist label might be made healthy and constructive:
When earning a label (whether that be a job title or a social status title), we’re looking at it as a system to game (give the right answers on tests, do posturing) and it is those system-gaming efforts that result in the superficial and empty appearance of belonging (like undiscriminating skeptics who mock what you expect).
People desire to earn status, and that can be a really positive force, but only if it’s directed at a goal and the right type of goal. “Disagree sometimes and support your point” will result in disagreements (not necessarily high quality ideas), whereas a goal like “make something that actually works” (a theory that’s proven true, a social program that gets results, etc.) would be a wonderful “fire under the ass” to get us moving and figuring out how to do what works.
If status is going to be important to people, the way of determining whether they deserve it should not be quick and it should require that they game reality rather than gaming your model of what a rationalist is.
If you want to use quick mental models as shortcuts to save time while you’re navigating the jungle of irrational people out there, this is understandable, everyone does it—but if you publish that here, it’s going to become part of the culture, and applying these shortcuts when it comes to which people deserve respect is going to motivate people to value activity over results.