The question is, can you make people think: “I would like to be as awesome as that person. I see he is wearing a rationality shirt. I should check that out.” ?
Here are two alternatives:
People might think that rationality is something that’s only for nerdy looking folk who wear +1 epic shirts.
People’s brains might associate rationality with other concepts that are often seen on shirts, such as Jesus and Guns.
People’s brains might associate rationality with other concepts that are often seen on shirts, such as Jesus and Guns.
Oh no. We’d better stop writing in words. They might associate us with literate religious people.
Seriously though, do you live in a place where you see a lot of people wearing religious or gun-related T-shirts? I have only ever seen one person wear a T-shirt explicitly about Jesus.
I don’t understand. It seems to me that it would be very easy to make rationality seem like a (religious) cult. Wearing dorky clothes, knocking on people’s doors to spread the joy, and handing out pamphlets praising our savior Rationality. We could even send volunteers to beg for money at airports: “Hello sir, would you like to help prevent the coming end of the world?”
I just don’t associate T-shirts with religion as strongly as you do, I think.
This might be because I see a lot of people wearing nerdy T-shirts, or T-shirts associated with various interests/groups, like DnD, heir fraternities, or professional groups (chemical engineering society, etc.). From that perspective, having a rationality T-shirt just falls into one of those categories, and is therefore OK. It’s just another medium that some people with certain interests use to signal to each other.
Like I said: do you see it differently? Are most of the T-shirts with slogans you see people wearing religiously-related?
Religion was an example, coming from the general category of social subgroups that carry a large impact on identity and create a sense of exclusivity, which also includes every group you described.
I would rather not see rationality marginalized into such categories, in anyone’s mind.
So, you think it is bad for rationality to be a) strongly associated with a person’s identity, and/or b) create a sense of exclusivity, or belonging to a group. Is that right?
Maybe I’m missing something obvious here, but… why do you think this is a bad thing?
The question is, can you make people think: “I would like to be as awesome as that person. I see he is wearing a rationality shirt. I should check that out.” ?
Here are two alternatives:
People might think that rationality is something that’s only for nerdy looking folk who wear +1 epic shirts.
People’s brains might associate rationality with other concepts that are often seen on shirts, such as Jesus and Guns.
Oh no. We’d better stop writing in words. They might associate us with literate religious people.
Seriously though, do you live in a place where you see a lot of people wearing religious or gun-related T-shirts? I have only ever seen one person wear a T-shirt explicitly about Jesus.
I don’t understand. It seems to me that it would be very easy to make rationality seem like a (religious) cult. Wearing dorky clothes, knocking on people’s doors to spread the joy, and handing out pamphlets praising our savior Rationality. We could even send volunteers to beg for money at airports: “Hello sir, would you like to help prevent the coming end of the world?”
I just don’t associate T-shirts with religion as strongly as you do, I think.
This might be because I see a lot of people wearing nerdy T-shirts, or T-shirts associated with various interests/groups, like DnD, heir fraternities, or professional groups (chemical engineering society, etc.). From that perspective, having a rationality T-shirt just falls into one of those categories, and is therefore OK. It’s just another medium that some people with certain interests use to signal to each other.
Like I said: do you see it differently? Are most of the T-shirts with slogans you see people wearing religiously-related?
I guess there are huge geographical (and age-cohort) variations in this kind of stuff.
Religion was an example, coming from the general category of social subgroups that carry a large impact on identity and create a sense of exclusivity, which also includes every group you described.
I would rather not see rationality marginalized into such categories, in anyone’s mind.
So, you think it is bad for rationality to be a) strongly associated with a person’s identity, and/or b) create a sense of exclusivity, or belonging to a group. Is that right?
Maybe I’m missing something obvious here, but… why do you think this is a bad thing?
Uhh… my question was much closer to “What would make me think ‘Hey, that’s a cool rationality shirt!’?”.