You have pointed out some important tradeoffs. Many of my closest friends and intellectual influences outside of lesswrong are religious, and often have interesting perspectives and ideas (though I can’t speak to whether this is because of their religions, caused by a common latent variable, or something else). However, I do not think that the purpose of lesswrong is served by engaging with religious ideology here, and I think that avoiding this is probably worth the cost of losing some valuable perspectives.
As you’ve said, @Jeffrey Heninger does participate in the lesswrong community, at its current level of hostility towards religion. I have read some of his other posts in the past and found them enjoyable and valuable, though I think I am roughly indifferent to this one being published. Why does this suggest to you that the community needs to be less hostile to religion, instead of more or roughly the same amount? Presumably if it were less hostile towards religion, there would be more than the current level of religious discussion—do you think that would be better on the margin? I would also expect an influx of religious people below Jeffrey’s level, not above it.
I’m open to starting a dialogue if you want to discuss this further.
However, I do not think that the purpose of lesswrong is served by engaging with religious ideology here,
I didn’t say we should engage with it! I was still speaking within the context of barbs at religion at the Solstice. I agree we should continue to reject (epistemically unsound versions of) religion, just not also be needlessly hostile to it in contexts where it could be avoided with some small tweaks and without compromising on any principles.
Why does this suggest to you that the community needs to be less hostile to religion, instead of more or roughly the same amount?
Usually if a group signals hostility to X and some X-people are thick-skinned enough to participate anyway, there’ll be a much greater number of X-people who are less thick-skinned and decide to stay out. Even if the X-people could make good contributions, as they empirically can.
And if their contributions are bad, they’ll just be downvoted on their own (lack of) merits, the same as any other bad post.
You have pointed out some important tradeoffs. Many of my closest friends and intellectual influences outside of lesswrong are religious, and often have interesting perspectives and ideas (though I can’t speak to whether this is because of their religions, caused by a common latent variable, or something else). However, I do not think that the purpose of lesswrong is served by engaging with religious ideology here, and I think that avoiding this is probably worth the cost of losing some valuable perspectives.
As you’ve said, @Jeffrey Heninger does participate in the lesswrong community, at its current level of hostility towards religion. I have read some of his other posts in the past and found them enjoyable and valuable, though I think I am roughly indifferent to this one being published. Why does this suggest to you that the community needs to be less hostile to religion, instead of more or roughly the same amount? Presumably if it were less hostile towards religion, there would be more than the current level of religious discussion—do you think that would be better on the margin? I would also expect an influx of religious people below Jeffrey’s level, not above it.
I’m open to starting a dialogue if you want to discuss this further.
I didn’t say we should engage with it! I was still speaking within the context of barbs at religion at the Solstice. I agree we should continue to reject (epistemically unsound versions of) religion, just not also be needlessly hostile to it in contexts where it could be avoided with some small tweaks and without compromising on any principles.
Usually if a group signals hostility to X and some X-people are thick-skinned enough to participate anyway, there’ll be a much greater number of X-people who are less thick-skinned and decide to stay out. Even if the X-people could make good contributions, as they empirically can.
And if their contributions are bad, they’ll just be downvoted on their own (lack of) merits, the same as any other bad post.