That’s no-win given that ideas generally held on LW imply that we should sign up for cryonics.
There’s nothing necessarily unfair about that. Suppose some group’s professed beliefs imply that the sun goes around the earth; then you may say that members of the group are inconsistent if they aren’t geocentrists, and crazy if they are. No win, indeed, but the problem is that their group’s professed beliefs imply something crazy.
In this case, I don’t think it’s clear there is such a thing as LW’s professed beliefs, it’s not clear that if there are they imply that we should sign up for cryonics, and I don’t think signing up for cryonics is particularly crazy. So I’m not exactly endorsing the no-win side of this. But it looks like you’re making a complaint about the logical structure of the criticism that would invalidate some perfectly reasonable criticisms of (other?) groups and their members.
it looks like you’re making a complaint about the logical structure of the criticism
Nope. I’m making a guess that this particular argument looked like a good soldier and so was sent into battle; a mirror-image argument would also look like a good soldier and would also be sent into the same battle. Logical structure is an irrelevant detail X-/
Right, but what about the people who say they strongly believe in cryonics, have income high enough to afford it (and the insurance isn’t that expensive actually), yet haven’t signed up? I.e. “cryocrastinators”. There are a lot of those on the survey results every year.
I believe this was the argument used, that Lesswronger’s aren’t very instrumentally rational, or good at actually getting things done. Again, I can’t find the post in question, it’s possible it was deleted.
It’s a standard no-win situation: if too few have signed up, LW people are irrational; and if many have signed up, LW is a cult.
That’s no-win given that ideas generally held on LW imply that we should sign up for cryonics.
There’s nothing necessarily unfair about that. Suppose some group’s professed beliefs imply that the sun goes around the earth; then you may say that members of the group are inconsistent if they aren’t geocentrists, and crazy if they are. No win, indeed, but the problem is that their group’s professed beliefs imply something crazy.
In this case, I don’t think it’s clear there is such a thing as LW’s professed beliefs, it’s not clear that if there are they imply that we should sign up for cryonics, and I don’t think signing up for cryonics is particularly crazy. So I’m not exactly endorsing the no-win side of this. But it looks like you’re making a complaint about the logical structure of the criticism that would invalidate some perfectly reasonable criticisms of (other?) groups and their members.
Nope. I’m making a guess that this particular argument looked like a good soldier and so was sent into battle; a mirror-image argument would also look like a good soldier and would also be sent into the same battle. Logical structure is an irrelevant detail X-/
Right, but what about the people who say they strongly believe in cryonics, have income high enough to afford it (and the insurance isn’t that expensive actually), yet haven’t signed up? I.e. “cryocrastinators”. There are a lot of those on the survey results every year.
I believe this was the argument used, that Lesswronger’s aren’t very instrumentally rational, or good at actually getting things done. Again, I can’t find the post in question, it’s possible it was deleted.