Wow. Thank you. I just finished “Epistemic Learned Helplessness,” and I feel much better now. Those two articles have successfully inoculated me against being sucked in too easily into the “x-rationalist” view.
I actually disagree with what he says in “Epistemic Learned Helplessness”; or rather, I don’t believe that that helplessness is actually necessary, that I can—or if I can’t, it is possible to with sufficient training—tell when a case has been reasonably proven and when I should suspend judgement. Or maybe he’s more right than I like to admit; I have to concede that I was taken in by much of Graham Hancock’s work until I tried to write a short story based on one of his ideas and it completely fell apart after some research and analysis. But regardless of whether the dilemma he poses is avoidable or not, he makes some excellent, indeed critical, points, and I can now proceed with a healthy dose of skepticism of rationalism, a phrase I would likely have been ashamed to utter before reading that article.
Wow. Thank you. I just finished “Epistemic Learned Helplessness,” and I feel much better now. Those two articles have successfully inoculated me against being sucked in too easily into the “x-rationalist” view.
I actually disagree with what he says in “Epistemic Learned Helplessness”; or rather, I don’t believe that that helplessness is actually necessary, that I can—or if I can’t, it is possible to with sufficient training—tell when a case has been reasonably proven and when I should suspend judgement. Or maybe he’s more right than I like to admit; I have to concede that I was taken in by much of Graham Hancock’s work until I tried to write a short story based on one of his ideas and it completely fell apart after some research and analysis. But regardless of whether the dilemma he poses is avoidable or not, he makes some excellent, indeed critical, points, and I can now proceed with a healthy dose of skepticism of rationalism, a phrase I would likely have been ashamed to utter before reading that article.