My point is that the statement “Eliezer is one of the world’s foremost intellectuals” is a proposition with a truth value. We should argue about the truth value of that proposition, not about how our beliefs might affect our status in the eyes of another rationalist group, particularly if that “rationalist” group assigns status based on obvious fallacies.
I assign a high prior belief to the statement. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t waste my time on Less Wrong. I believe this is also true for many of the other participants, who just don’t want to say it out loud. You can argue that we should try to hide our true beliefs in order to avoid signaling low status, but given how seriously we take this website, it would be very difficult to send a credible signal. To most intelligent observers, it would be obvious that we are sending a false signal for status reason, which is inconsistent with our own basic standards for discussion
It’s a proposition with a truth value in a sense, but if we are disagreeing about the topic then it seems most likely that the term “one of the world’s foremost intellectuals” is ambiguous enough that elucidating what we mean by the term is necessary before we can worry about the truth value.
Obviously I think that the truth value is false, and so obviously so that it needs little further argument to establish the implied claim that it is rational to think that calling Eliezer “one of the world’s foremost intellectuals” is cult-like and that is is rational to place a low value on a rationalist forum if it is cult-like.
So the question is how you are defining “one of the world’s foremost intellectuals”? I tend to define it as a very small group of very elite thinkers, typically people in their fifties or later with outstanding careers who have made major contributions to human knowledge or ethics.
My point is that the statement “Eliezer is one of the world’s foremost intellectuals” is a proposition with a truth value. We should argue about the truth value of that proposition, not about how our beliefs might affect our status in the eyes of another rationalist group, particularly if that “rationalist” group assigns status based on obvious fallacies.
I assign a high prior belief to the statement. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t waste my time on Less Wrong. I believe this is also true for many of the other participants, who just don’t want to say it out loud. You can argue that we should try to hide our true beliefs in order to avoid signaling low status, but given how seriously we take this website, it would be very difficult to send a credible signal. To most intelligent observers, it would be obvious that we are sending a false signal for status reason, which is inconsistent with our own basic standards for discussion
It’s a proposition with a truth value in a sense, but if we are disagreeing about the topic then it seems most likely that the term “one of the world’s foremost intellectuals” is ambiguous enough that elucidating what we mean by the term is necessary before we can worry about the truth value.
Obviously I think that the truth value is false, and so obviously so that it needs little further argument to establish the implied claim that it is rational to think that calling Eliezer “one of the world’s foremost intellectuals” is cult-like and that is is rational to place a low value on a rationalist forum if it is cult-like.
So the question is how you are defining “one of the world’s foremost intellectuals”? I tend to define it as a very small group of very elite thinkers, typically people in their fifties or later with outstanding careers who have made major contributions to human knowledge or ethics.