Phil’s terminology is probably the way I would have worded the same.
Posts that talk about things like “how do we use the anthropic principle”, “what is morality”, “what decision theory makes sense”, “what is a mysterious answer to a mysterious question”, etc. all seem object-level...
...whereas there’s another class of posts that always uses the word “rationality”—ie “how can we be more rational in our lives”, “how can we promote rationality”, “am I a good enough rationalist if...” “who is/isn’t a rationalist” et cetera, and these seem properly termed meta-level because they involve being rational about rationality.
I have a feeling the latter class of posts would benefit if they tried to taboo “rationality”.
I’m somewhat puzzled by your terminology since the topics you call “meta-rationality”:
strike me as much more practical and applied then the ones you call “applied rationality”:
which strike me as much more meta.
Going by the list of topics you’re complaining about, it appears that you are the one who “would rather talk about rationality than use it.”
Phil’s terminology is probably the way I would have worded the same.
Posts that talk about things like “how do we use the anthropic principle”, “what is morality”, “what decision theory makes sense”, “what is a mysterious answer to a mysterious question”, etc. all seem object-level...
...whereas there’s another class of posts that always uses the word “rationality”—ie “how can we be more rational in our lives”, “how can we promote rationality”, “am I a good enough rationalist if...” “who is/isn’t a rationalist” et cetera, and these seem properly termed meta-level because they involve being rational about rationality.
I have a feeling the latter class of posts would benefit if they tried to taboo “rationality”.
or: use rationality and don’t mention it.
Bingo.
Perhaps these would be good rewrite targets.
Much clearer than the original post.
I see your point. I don’t think of them as meta, because I see them as rungs on a ladder with a definite destination. I changed the wording a little.
Perhaps ‘abstract’ is a better word than ‘meta’ here.
The prefix ‘meta’ is incredibly overused...just saying.
Bravo
Yeah, I agree with PhilGoetz but downvoted because of bizarre terminology.