I mostly agree. I believe it is possible—and desirable—in theory to do the “salvage epistemology” correctly, but sadly I suspect that in practice 90% of wannabe rationalists will do it incorrectly.
Not sure what is the correct strategy here, because telling people “be careful” will probably just result in them saying “yes, we already are” when in fact they are not.
Why, for example, are you trying to “salvage” Buddhism, and not Old Believer-ism?
That actually makes sense. I would assume that each of them contains maybe 5% of useful stuff, but almost all useful stuff of Old Believer-ism is probably shared with the rest of Christianity, and maybe 1⁄3 of it is already “in the water supply” if you grew up in a Christian culture.
Also, the “Buddhism” popular in the West is probably quite different from the original Buddhism; it is filtered for modern audience. Big focus on meditation and equanimity, and mostly silence about Buddha doing literal miracles or how having the tiniest sexual thought will fuck up your afterlife. (So it’s kinda like Jordan B. Peterson’s idea of Christianity, compared to the actual Christianity.) So I wouldn’t be surprised if the Western “Buddhism” actually contained 10% of useful stuff.
But of course, 10% correct still means 90% incorrect. And when I hear some people in rationalist community talk about Buddhism, they do not sound like someone who is 90% skeptical.
I mostly agree. I believe it is possible—and desirable—in theory to do the “salvage epistemology” correctly, but sadly I suspect that in practice 90% of wannabe rationalists will do it incorrectly.
Not sure what is the correct strategy here, because telling people “be careful” will probably just result in them saying “yes, we already are” when in fact they are not.
That actually makes sense. I would assume that each of them contains maybe 5% of useful stuff, but almost all useful stuff of Old Believer-ism is probably shared with the rest of Christianity, and maybe 1⁄3 of it is already “in the water supply” if you grew up in a Christian culture.
Also, the “Buddhism” popular in the West is probably quite different from the original Buddhism; it is filtered for modern audience. Big focus on meditation and equanimity, and mostly silence about Buddha doing literal miracles or how having the tiniest sexual thought will fuck up your afterlife. (So it’s kinda like Jordan B. Peterson’s idea of Christianity, compared to the actual Christianity.) So I wouldn’t be surprised if the Western “Buddhism” actually contained 10% of useful stuff.
But of course, 10% correct still means 90% incorrect. And when I hear some people in rationalist community talk about Buddhism, they do not sound like someone who is 90% skeptical.