Question: How to be more rational without being more misanthropic? / Rationality in life and the workplace
This is actually a terrible title, but I couldn’t find a better one.
I’m currently in college, doing something I’m interested in, with good career prospects (basically, I’m in a very good business school, though my degree also has both a touch of polsci and of sustainability/energy and environment). However, even though I like what I’m studying, I’m a lot less comfortable with the vibes that go with it: neither most of management roles nor ‘warm fuzzies activism’ environmentalism (especially coupled with widespread political involvement) seem to be the most obvious place to find LW-style rationalists-in-training, and in fact it can sometimes (only rarely, I’ve got to admit) feel like I’m actually running against the tide by trying to be more rational, in a way that wouldn’t be true if I were in a STEM field.
However, I’d be really surprised if everyone here came strictly from programming, math, or physics backgrounds only, as rationalism certainly isn’t limited to any field, being mainly a sort of mental personal hygiene for the rationalist himself.
But I’m still getting concerned with how to do it in practice: the social pressures and work culture in management positions sound like they would probably make it harder to follow rationalism there. No, scratch that, of course it wouldn’t prevent me at all from keeping an eye on my own cognitive processes, at least once I’ve graduated and left the heavily politicized /huge social pressure college I’m currently in, but it would still mean some form of getting entangled into culture wars stuff, in ways that might mean it would be more difficult for me to use rationality to do a good job. And it might also make me mad at people. Yeah, I know, we (‘we-regular human beings who can’t stand the culture wars anymore’, not only ‘we-LW folks’) all feel like this, but I’m having trouble finding a rationalist answer to that.
Hence my two questions: rationality is mainly built for oneself, for some kind of self-improvement, and it couldn’t be otherwise, but how can it be used in context where there are other people around who don’t want too much of these weirdly rigorous and nerdy ways of dealing with things? And also, rationality is great to think about one’s worldview, as well as other people’s, and to have informed debates instead of bravery debates, etc. but it still is super hard to use all of that when a) the other person doesn’t want to depoliticize the issue, or think clearly about it, and b) they don‘t want you to say you’d rather not have this conversation, either: how do I deal with these situations without becoming mad at people?
N.B.: Until today, I had only ever commented on other people’s posts here, so tell me if I’ve made any kind of mistakes in writing this :)
I think that working effectively in high-people-skills potentially-politicized roles like management necessarily involve needing to be able to be internally frank & honest with oneself while presenting partial truths and selected subsets of your beliefs to the outside world. Not to deceive people, but to tell them what they need to hear rather than things that won’t be helpful to them where they are currently at. Not an easy skill! Probably getting into the habit of privately writing down your ‘full thoughts’ whenever you feel a bit of friction around being fully open with people is a good way to maintain your internal honesty. Also, making private predictions about facts and future events, to keep yourself calibrated.
Question: How to be more rational without being more misanthropic? / Rationality in life and the workplace
This is actually a terrible title, but I couldn’t find a better one.
I’m currently in college, doing something I’m interested in, with good career prospects (basically, I’m in a very good business school, though my degree also has both a touch of polsci and of sustainability/energy and environment). However, even though I like what I’m studying, I’m a lot less comfortable with the vibes that go with it: neither most of management roles nor ‘warm fuzzies activism’ environmentalism (especially coupled with widespread political involvement) seem to be the most obvious place to find LW-style rationalists-in-training, and in fact it can sometimes (only rarely, I’ve got to admit) feel like I’m actually running against the tide by trying to be more rational, in a way that wouldn’t be true if I were in a STEM field.
However, I’d be really surprised if everyone here came strictly from programming, math, or physics backgrounds only, as rationalism certainly isn’t limited to any field, being mainly a sort of mental personal hygiene for the rationalist himself.
But I’m still getting concerned with how to do it in practice: the social pressures and work culture in management positions sound like they would probably make it harder to follow rationalism there. No, scratch that, of course it wouldn’t prevent me at all from keeping an eye on my own cognitive processes, at least once I’ve graduated and left the heavily politicized /huge social pressure college I’m currently in, but it would still mean some form of getting entangled into culture wars stuff, in ways that might mean it would be more difficult for me to use rationality to do a good job. And it might also make me mad at people. Yeah, I know, we (‘we-regular human beings who can’t stand the culture wars anymore’, not only ‘we-LW folks’) all feel like this, but I’m having trouble finding a rationalist answer to that.
Hence my two questions: rationality is mainly built for oneself, for some kind of self-improvement, and it couldn’t be otherwise, but how can it be used in context where there are other people around who don’t want too much of these weirdly rigorous and nerdy ways of dealing with things? And also, rationality is great to think about one’s worldview, as well as other people’s, and to have informed debates instead of bravery debates, etc. but it still is super hard to use all of that when a) the other person doesn’t want to depoliticize the issue, or think clearly about it, and b) they don‘t want you to say you’d rather not have this conversation, either: how do I deal with these situations without becoming mad at people?
N.B.: Until today, I had only ever commented on other people’s posts here, so tell me if I’ve made any kind of mistakes in writing this :)
I think that working effectively in high-people-skills potentially-politicized roles like management necessarily involve needing to be able to be internally frank & honest with oneself while presenting partial truths and selected subsets of your beliefs to the outside world. Not to deceive people, but to tell them what they need to hear rather than things that won’t be helpful to them where they are currently at. Not an easy skill! Probably getting into the habit of privately writing down your ‘full thoughts’ whenever you feel a bit of friction around being fully open with people is a good way to maintain your internal honesty. Also, making private predictions about facts and future events, to keep yourself calibrated.