As cool as that term sounds, I’m not sure I like it. I think it’s too strongly reinforcing of ideas like superiority of rationalists over non-rationalists. Even in cases where rationalists are just better at things, it seems like it’s encouraging thinking of Us and Them to an unnecessary degree.
Also, assuming there is a good enough reason to convince me that the term should be used, why is transhumanism-and-polyamory the set of powers defining the non-muggles? LessWrong isn’t that overwhelmingly poly, is it?
Plots which are just about people not being rational are a subspecies of “Idiot Plots”. Plots which are about people not behaving like SF con-goers are “Muggle Plots”.
I don’t really see the inherent superiority idea. Seems like there should be plenty of interesting ways to mess up everything with polyamory and transhumanism as well as with monogamy and bioconservatism, just like muggles and wizards both have failure modes, just different.
I thought for a while, and I really can’t imagine any cases of works which would be unsuitable for all LWers that arn’t worth hanging around and arguing about. I agree. We should be calling these people ignorant and criticising their work, not assigning them a permanent class division, shaking our heads, and going back to our camp.
As cool as that term sounds, I’m not sure I like it. I think it’s too strongly reinforcing of ideas like superiority of rationalists over non-rationalists. Even in cases where rationalists are just better at things, it seems like it’s encouraging thinking of Us and Them to an unnecessary degree.
Also, assuming there is a good enough reason to convince me that the term should be used, why is transhumanism-and-polyamory the set of powers defining the non-muggles? LessWrong isn’t that overwhelmingly poly, is it?
Plots which are just about people not being rational are a subspecies of “Idiot Plots”. Plots which are about people not behaving like SF con-goers are “Muggle Plots”.
I don’t really see the inherent superiority idea. Seems like there should be plenty of interesting ways to mess up everything with polyamory and transhumanism as well as with monogamy and bioconservatism, just like muggles and wizards both have failure modes, just different.
I thought for a while, and I really can’t imagine any cases of works which would be unsuitable for all LWers that arn’t worth hanging around and arguing about. I agree. We should be calling these people ignorant and criticising their work, not assigning them a permanent class division, shaking our heads, and going back to our camp.