Are rationalist ideas always going to be offensive to just about everybody who doesn’t self-select in?
One loved one was quite receptive to Chesterton’s Fence the other day. Like, it stopped their rant in the middle of its tracks and got them on board with a different way of looking at things immediately.
On the other hand, I routinely feel this weird tension. Like to explain why I think as I do, I‘d need to go through some basic rational concepts. But I expect most people I know would hate it.
I wish we could figure out ways of getting this stuff across that was fun, made it seem agreeable and sensible and non-threatening.
Less negativity—we do sooo much critique. I was originally attracted to LW partly as a place where I didn’t feel obligated to participate in the culture war. Now, I do, just on a set of topics that I didn’t associate with the CW before LessWrong.
My guess? This is totally possible. But it needs a champion. Somebody willing to dedicate themselves to it. Somebody friendly, funny, empathic, a good performer, neat and practiced. And it needs a space for the educative process—a YouTube channel, a book, etc. And it needs the courage of its convictions. The sign of that? Not taking itself too seriously, being known by the fruits of its labors.
Traditionally, things like this are socially achieved by using some form of “good cop, bad cop” strategy. You have someone who explains the concepts clearly and bluntly, regardless of whom it may offend (e.g. Eliezer Yudkowsky), and you have someone who presents the concepts nicely and inoffensively, reaching a wider audience (e.g. Scott Alexander), but ultimately they both use the same framework.
The inoffensiveness of Scott is of course relative, but I would say that people who get offended by him are really not the target audience for rationalist thought. Because, ultimately, saying “2+2=4” means offending people who believe that 2+2=5 and are really sensitive about it; so the only way to be non-offensive is to never say anything specific.
If a movement only has the “bad cops” and no “good cops”, it will be perceived as a group of assholes. Which is not necessarily bad if the members are powerful; people want to join the winning side. But without actual power, it will not gain wide acceptance. Most people don’t want to go into unnecessary conflicts.
On the other hand, a movement with “good cops” without “bad cops” will get its message diluted. First, the diplomatic believers will dilute their message in order not to offend anyone. Their fans will further dilute the message, because even the once-diluted version is too strong for normies’ taste. At the end, the message may gain popular support… kind of… because the version that gains the popular support will actually contain maybe 1% of the original message, but mostly 99% of what the normies already believed, peppered by the new keywords.
The more people will present rationality using different methods, the better. Because each of them will reach a different audience. So I completely approve the approach you suggest… in addition to the existing ones.
I need to try a lot harder to remember that this is just a community full of individuals airing their strongly held personal opinions on a variety of topics.
Those opinions often have something in common—respect for the scientific method, effort to improve one’s rationality, concern about artificial intelligence—and I like to believe it is not just a random idiosyncratic mix (a bunch of random things Eliezer likes), but different manifestations of the same underlying principle (use your intelligence to win, not to defeat yourself). However, not everyone is interested in all of this.
And I would definitely like to see “somebody friendly, funny, empathic, a good performer, neat and practiced” promoting these values in a YouTube channel or in books. But that requires a talent I don’t have, so I can only wait until someone else with the necessary skills does it.
This reminded me of the YouTube channel of Julia Galef, but the latest videos there are 3 years old.
Her podcast is really good IMHO. She does a singularly good job of challenging guests in a friendly manner, dutifully tracking nuance, steelmanning, etc. It just picked back up after about a yearlong hiatus (presumably due to her book writing).
Unfortunately, I see the lack of notoriety for her podcast to be some evidence against the prospects of the “skilled & likeable performer” strategy. I assume that potential subscribers are more interested in lower-quality podcasts and YouTubers that indulge in bias rather than confronting it. Dunno what to do about that, but I’m glad she’s back to podcasting.
Like to explain why I think as I do, I‘d need to go through some basic rational concepts.
I believe that if the rational concepts are pulling their weight, it should be possible to explain the way the concept is showing up concretely in your thinking, rather than justifying it in the general case first.
As an example, perhaps your friend is protesting your use of anecdotes as data, but you wish to defend it as Bayesian, if not scientific, evidence. Rather than explaining the difference in general, I think you can say “I think that it’s more likely that we hear this many people complaining about an axe murderer downtown if that’s in fact what’s going on, and that it’s appropriate for us to avoid that area today. I agree it’s not the only explanation and you should be able to get a more reliable sort of data for building a scientific theory, but I do think the existence of an axe murderer is a likely enough explanation for these stories that we should act on it”
If I’m right that this is generally possible, then I think this is a route around the feeling of being trapped on the other side of an inferential gap (which is how I interpreted the ‘weird tension’)
I think you’re right, when the issue at hand is agreed on by both parties to be purely a “matter of fact.”
As soon as social or political implications crop in, that’s no longer a guarantee.
But we often pretend like our social/political values are matters of fact. The offense arises when we use rational concepts in a way that gives the lie to that pretense. Finding an indirect and inoffensive way to present the materials and let them deconstruct their pretenses is what I’m wishing for here. LW has a strong culture surrounding how these general-purpose tools get applied, so I’d like to see a presentation of the “pure theory” that’s done in an engaging way not obviously entangled with this blog.
The alternative is to use rationality to try and become savvier social operators. This can be “instrumental rationality” or it can be “dark arts,” depending on how we carry it out. I’m all for instrumental rationality, but I suspect that spreading rational thought further will require that other cultural groups appropriate the tools to refine their own viewpoints rather than us going out and doing the convincing ourselves.
Are rationalist ideas always going to be offensive to just about everybody who doesn’t self-select in?
One loved one was quite receptive to Chesterton’s Fence the other day. Like, it stopped their rant in the middle of its tracks and got them on board with a different way of looking at things immediately.
On the other hand, I routinely feel this weird tension. Like to explain why I think as I do, I‘d need to go through some basic rational concepts. But I expect most people I know would hate it.
I wish we could figure out ways of getting this stuff across that was fun, made it seem agreeable and sensible and non-threatening.
Less negativity—we do sooo much critique. I was originally attracted to LW partly as a place where I didn’t feel obligated to participate in the culture war. Now, I do, just on a set of topics that I didn’t associate with the CW before LessWrong.
My guess? This is totally possible. But it needs a champion. Somebody willing to dedicate themselves to it. Somebody friendly, funny, empathic, a good performer, neat and practiced. And it needs a space for the educative process—a YouTube channel, a book, etc. And it needs the courage of its convictions. The sign of that? Not taking itself too seriously, being known by the fruits of its labors.
Traditionally, things like this are socially achieved by using some form of “good cop, bad cop” strategy. You have someone who explains the concepts clearly and bluntly, regardless of whom it may offend (e.g. Eliezer Yudkowsky), and you have someone who presents the concepts nicely and inoffensively, reaching a wider audience (e.g. Scott Alexander), but ultimately they both use the same framework.
The inoffensiveness of Scott is of course relative, but I would say that people who get offended by him are really not the target audience for rationalist thought. Because, ultimately, saying “2+2=4” means offending people who believe that 2+2=5 and are really sensitive about it; so the only way to be non-offensive is to never say anything specific.
If a movement only has the “bad cops” and no “good cops”, it will be perceived as a group of assholes. Which is not necessarily bad if the members are powerful; people want to join the winning side. But without actual power, it will not gain wide acceptance. Most people don’t want to go into unnecessary conflicts.
On the other hand, a movement with “good cops” without “bad cops” will get its message diluted. First, the diplomatic believers will dilute their message in order not to offend anyone. Their fans will further dilute the message, because even the once-diluted version is too strong for normies’ taste. At the end, the message may gain popular support… kind of… because the version that gains the popular support will actually contain maybe 1% of the original message, but mostly 99% of what the normies already believed, peppered by the new keywords.
The more people will present rationality using different methods, the better. Because each of them will reach a different audience. So I completely approve the approach you suggest… in addition to the existing ones.
You’re right.
I need to try a lot harder to remember that this is just a community full of individuals airing their strongly held personal opinions on a variety of topics.
Those opinions often have something in common—respect for the scientific method, effort to improve one’s rationality, concern about artificial intelligence—and I like to believe it is not just a random idiosyncratic mix (a bunch of random things Eliezer likes), but different manifestations of the same underlying principle (use your intelligence to win, not to defeat yourself). However, not everyone is interested in all of this.
And I would definitely like to see “somebody friendly, funny, empathic, a good performer, neat and practiced” promoting these values in a YouTube channel or in books. But that requires a talent I don’t have, so I can only wait until someone else with the necessary skills does it.
This reminded me of the YouTube channel of Julia Galef, but the latest videos there are 3 years old.
Her podcast is really good IMHO. She does a singularly good job of challenging guests in a friendly manner, dutifully tracking nuance, steelmanning, etc. It just picked back up after about a yearlong hiatus (presumably due to her book writing).
Unfortunately, I see the lack of notoriety for her podcast to be some evidence against the prospects of the “skilled & likeable performer” strategy. I assume that potential subscribers are more interested in lower-quality podcasts and YouTubers that indulge in bias rather than confronting it. Dunno what to do about that, but I’m glad she’s back to podcasting.
That’s wonderful news, thank you for telling me!
For those who have clicked on the YouTube link in my previous comment, there is no new content as of now, go to the Rationally Speaking podcast.
You’re both assuming that you have a set of correct ideas coupled with bad PR...but how well are Bayes, Aumann and MWI (eg.) actually doing?
Look, I’m neurotypical and I don’t find anything Eliezer writes offensive, will you please stop ostracizing us.
Did either of them say neurotypical? I just heard them say normies.
Oh, sorry, I’ve only heard the word used in that context before, I thought that’s what it meant. Turns out it has a broader meaning.
I believe that if the rational concepts are pulling their weight, it should be possible to explain the way the concept is showing up concretely in your thinking, rather than justifying it in the general case first.
As an example, perhaps your friend is protesting your use of anecdotes as data, but you wish to defend it as Bayesian, if not scientific, evidence. Rather than explaining the difference in general, I think you can say “I think that it’s more likely that we hear this many people complaining about an axe murderer downtown if that’s in fact what’s going on, and that it’s appropriate for us to avoid that area today. I agree it’s not the only explanation and you should be able to get a more reliable sort of data for building a scientific theory, but I do think the existence of an axe murderer is a likely enough explanation for these stories that we should act on it”
If I’m right that this is generally possible, then I think this is a route around the feeling of being trapped on the other side of an inferential gap (which is how I interpreted the ‘weird tension’)
I think you’re right, when the issue at hand is agreed on by both parties to be purely a “matter of fact.”
As soon as social or political implications crop in, that’s no longer a guarantee.
But we often pretend like our social/political values are matters of fact. The offense arises when we use rational concepts in a way that gives the lie to that pretense. Finding an indirect and inoffensive way to present the materials and let them deconstruct their pretenses is what I’m wishing for here. LW has a strong culture surrounding how these general-purpose tools get applied, so I’d like to see a presentation of the “pure theory” that’s done in an engaging way not obviously entangled with this blog.
The alternative is to use rationality to try and become savvier social operators. This can be “instrumental rationality” or it can be “dark arts,” depending on how we carry it out. I’m all for instrumental rationality, but I suspect that spreading rational thought further will require that other cultural groups appropriate the tools to refine their own viewpoints rather than us going out and doing the convincing ourselves.