The last few times I wrote stuff here, it was to ask questions that were basically about myself, and therefore entirely uninteresting to anyone else here. But I think it has finally evolved into an actually interesting question about rationality. That’s not really a complex question, or even one I have nice answers for, but it’s one that really seems to have been overlooked here, even though it also seems like it should be central to getting more people on board with rationality. Also, of course, that’s something I’m personally struggling a lot with, to the point where I would say it’s the main barrier preventing me from being as skilled at applying rationality the way I would like.
Bay Area Rationality is a subculture ; and it seems to include a rather large proportion of some types of people, like people on the autism spectrum, and generally all manner of contrarian folks, who may not care too much about fitting in society at large and espousing commonly-held views. Neither of these statements should be at all surprising, but the reason I’m highlighting them is that most people aren’t like that, which isn’t that surprising either, but has interesting implications. My point is that most people, including myself (*), aren’tthat comfortable being a contrarian when others aren’t (as if being a contrarian when everyone else is too was at all fun ;) ), most people aren’t really able to tolerate being looked down upon by a dining roomful of people after trying to suggest that shouting at each other over politics might not be the ultimate goal of a Christmas dinner, most people aren’t really able to stand up to a college teacher and even think about what would be a polite and productive way of explaining him he’s talking nonsense, (**), etc, etc.
So, that’s my question for us: how can we help our brains go to all the trouble of being a rationalist while being as socially anxious as most people (if not cripplingly overanxious, like I am)?
Any ideas?
(*) Actually, I’d say for me particularly it’s been getting worse with time, as my mild-Asperger induced social awkwardness was partly rubbed off by the contact of other people.
(**) Obviously, this description of what “most people” do was based upon a mildly rigorous analysis conducted on a sample of one (1) individual. So feel free to discuss that point also, because it seems obviously true to me, so there must be something to be said against it ;)
The more I think of it, the more it sounds like I’ve been falling into the valley of bad rationality, which I knew about but never realised I was in. Still, that doesn’t change my question much: what’s the way out?, or rather, how do I make getting out of it easier? There aren’t many resource on that specific topic, although a lot of things go very near it indeed.
Rationality and social anxiety
The last few times I wrote stuff here, it was to ask questions that were basically about myself, and therefore entirely uninteresting to anyone else here. But I think it has finally evolved into an actually interesting question about rationality. That’s not really a complex question, or even one I have nice answers for, but it’s one that really seems to have been overlooked here, even though it also seems like it should be central to getting more people on board with rationality. Also, of course, that’s something I’m personally struggling a lot with, to the point where I would say it’s the main barrier preventing me from being as skilled at applying rationality the way I would like.
Bay Area Rationality is a subculture ; and it seems to include a rather large proportion of some types of people, like people on the autism spectrum, and generally all manner of contrarian folks, who may not care too much about fitting in society at large and espousing commonly-held views. Neither of these statements should be at all surprising, but the reason I’m highlighting them is that most people aren’t like that, which isn’t that surprising either, but has interesting implications. My point is that most people, including myself (*), aren’t that comfortable being a contrarian when others aren’t (as if being a contrarian when everyone else is too was at all fun ;) ), most people aren’t really able to tolerate being looked down upon by a dining roomful of people after trying to suggest that shouting at each other over politics might not be the ultimate goal of a Christmas dinner, most people aren’t really able to stand up to a college teacher and even think about what would be a polite and productive way of explaining him he’s talking nonsense, (**), etc, etc.
So, that’s my question for us: how can we help our brains go to all the trouble of being a rationalist while being as socially anxious as most people (if not cripplingly overanxious, like I am)?
Any ideas?
(*) Actually, I’d say for me particularly it’s been getting worse with time, as my mild-Asperger induced social awkwardness was partly rubbed off by the contact of other people.
(**) Obviously, this description of what “most people” do was based upon a mildly rigorous analysis conducted on a sample of one (1) individual. So feel free to discuss that point also, because it seems obviously true to me, so there must be something to be said against it ;)
The more I think of it, the more it sounds like I’ve been falling into the valley of bad rationality, which I knew about but never realised I was in. Still, that doesn’t change my question much: what’s the way out?, or rather, how do I make getting out of it easier? There aren’t many resource on that specific topic, although a lot of things go very near it indeed.