Hm, I actually met several people who argued that those not dedicated to learning the LW jargon don’t deserve the benefits. I guess we meet different people.
The rationality merchandise is not aimed at the broad audience primarily, but for donors who would like to support our work.
Regarding your comment about the video, I notice I’m confused, did you mean to say this video on evaluating reality clearly that I cited in the post as part of our offerings is meant to teach people buzzwords and spread stupid ideas? Can you clarify where in the video you noticed those? We’d be glad to optimize our offerings based on feedback.
About the article on polyamory: the goal of that article is not to advocate polyamory, but to encourage people to consider it as an acceptable relationship style—the salient phrase in the article is “encourage an openness toward poly relationships as one among many relationship styles.” At Intentional Insights we aim to contribute to de-stigmatizing polyamory and promoting thinking about relationships rationally in general.
I agree that asking for dark arts is a strategic choice. In this case, I think the ends do justify the means. It’s a balance we all draw differently, and I accept that you may draw it differently than we do.
Hm, I actually met several people who argued that those not dedicated to learning the LW jargon don’t deserve the benefits
I follow debates about the topic when they are on LW and I don’t remember that position to have been argued in that way on LW. If you do, could you link?
Regarding your comment about the video, I notice I’m confused, did you mean to say this video on evaluating reality clearly
When people usually talk about producing videos they don’t mean lecture recordings but things optimized to be easy to digest.
Even for a lecture recording your video is full of distracting camera movements and not optimized to be easy to digest.
About the article on polyamory: the goal of that article is not to advocate polyamory,
Your goal doesn’t really matter. It will be read by an average person as advocating polyamory.
If you see de-stigmatizing polyamory as part of your mission, it seems to me that you lack strategic focus. You try to do everything you can think of.
Additionally running an NGO to try to remove social stigma conjures certain associations that are quite different from what I expect an NGO who effectively spreads rationality to do.
promoting thinking about relationships rationally in general.
When I think about “thinking rationally about relationships” I think about more complex thoughts than simply observing that if “Bob is glad to accept Mary’s desire to have a romantic relationship with John” there will be less conflict.
I think the ends do justify the means.
That’s not my main concern. Promoting values that you visible don’t follow yourself is a recipe for messing up.
That leads to not steelmanning because not steelmanning is easier.
Appreciate your thoughts about the video, we will work on better camera equipment and technique. As you can envision, we are a new nonprofit, and our current financing prevents us from being able to get the best video equipment and production. However, I hope you’ll agree that this video is better than not doing anything at all to raise the sanity waterline and we aim to get better over time :-)
running an NGO to try to remove social stigma conjures certain associations that are quite different from what I expect an NGO who effectively spreads rationality to do
Hm, I am curious about that statement. I would envision that spreading rationality would inherently involve removing certain social stigma because it would result in people thinking more rationally, and much social stigma is associated with not-very-rational thinking.
To clarify, my probabilistic assessment is that increasing rational thinking would result in at least some degree of decreasing social stigma. Your thoughts?
I don’t know why it would. Social stigma is basically the expression of the they-are-from-a-different-tribe feeling. Becoming more rational does not necessarily lead to less tribalism.
I think we may have a different take on the term social stigma. Per the common usage of that word, as well as the way it is used by researchers such as Erving Goffman, I generally perceive things such as sexual orientation and gender identity as part of what is referred to by social stigma. To me it seems that gaining greater rationality is generally associated with less ugh fields around sexual orientation and gender identity, as well as relationship styles such as polyamory. I accept that we may have a difference of opinion, however.
Hm, I actually met several people who argued that those not dedicated to learning the LW jargon don’t deserve the benefits. I guess we meet different people.
The rationality merchandise is not aimed at the broad audience primarily, but for donors who would like to support our work.
Regarding your comment about the video, I notice I’m confused, did you mean to say this video on evaluating reality clearly that I cited in the post as part of our offerings is meant to teach people buzzwords and spread stupid ideas? Can you clarify where in the video you noticed those? We’d be glad to optimize our offerings based on feedback.
About the article on polyamory: the goal of that article is not to advocate polyamory, but to encourage people to consider it as an acceptable relationship style—the salient phrase in the article is “encourage an openness toward poly relationships as one among many relationship styles.” At Intentional Insights we aim to contribute to de-stigmatizing polyamory and promoting thinking about relationships rationally in general.
I agree that asking for dark arts is a strategic choice. In this case, I think the ends do justify the means. It’s a balance we all draw differently, and I accept that you may draw it differently than we do.
I follow debates about the topic when they are on LW and I don’t remember that position to have been argued in that way on LW. If you do, could you link?
When people usually talk about producing videos they don’t mean lecture recordings but things optimized to be easy to digest.
Even for a lecture recording your video is full of distracting camera movements and not optimized to be easy to digest.
Your goal doesn’t really matter. It will be read by an average person as advocating polyamory. If you see de-stigmatizing polyamory as part of your mission, it seems to me that you lack strategic focus. You try to do everything you can think of.
Additionally running an NGO to try to remove social stigma conjures certain associations that are quite different from what I expect an NGO who effectively spreads rationality to do.
When I think about “thinking rationally about relationships” I think about more complex thoughts than simply observing that if “Bob is glad to accept Mary’s desire to have a romantic relationship with John” there will be less conflict.
That’s not my main concern. Promoting values that you visible don’t follow yourself is a recipe for messing up. That leads to not steelmanning because not steelmanning is easier.
Appreciate your thoughts about the video, we will work on better camera equipment and technique. As you can envision, we are a new nonprofit, and our current financing prevents us from being able to get the best video equipment and production. However, I hope you’ll agree that this video is better than not doing anything at all to raise the sanity waterline and we aim to get better over time :-)
Hm, I am curious about that statement. I would envision that spreading rationality would inherently involve removing certain social stigma because it would result in people thinking more rationally, and much social stigma is associated with not-very-rational thinking.
Much social stigma is associated with different values and rationality by itself does not change (terminal) values.
To clarify, my probabilistic assessment is that increasing rational thinking would result in at least some degree of decreasing social stigma. Your thoughts?
I don’t know why it would. Social stigma is basically the expression of the they-are-from-a-different-tribe feeling. Becoming more rational does not necessarily lead to less tribalism.
Rationality and values are mostly orthogonal.
I think we may have a different take on the term social stigma. Per the common usage of that word, as well as the way it is used by researchers such as Erving Goffman, I generally perceive things such as sexual orientation and gender identity as part of what is referred to by social stigma. To me it seems that gaining greater rationality is generally associated with less ugh fields around sexual orientation and gender identity, as well as relationship styles such as polyamory. I accept that we may have a difference of opinion, however.