Like it or not, serious rationality tends to erode religious belief, just as it tends to erode belief in astrology. It tends to erode blind obedience to other authorities too. If “word spreads and authorities find out”, enthusiastic participation in any sort of rationalist community is liable to mean trouble in repressively religious communities, whether Eliezer is a raging bitter passionate atheist or not.
In any case, I’m having trouble imagining what the LW community could actually do to “try to distance ourselves from atheism and anti-religiousness as such” even if we wanted to, that would have any appreciable impact on the safety of being a serious rationalist in the sorts of countries you’re talking about. Go back through the LW archives and delete every post that says unkind things about religion? Forbid discussion of religious topics? It seems absurd to respond to the threat of oppression by meekly oppressing ourselves; and besides, I bet it wouldn’t work. There’s too much other stuff on LW that would be offensive to those regimes.
What it comes down to is this: A rationalist in a sufficiently repressive irrationalist regime is going to have to pretend not to be a rationalist. That’s very bad, but having rationalists everywhere else pretend half-heartedly not to be rationalists about everything won’t solve the problem.
We probably could distance ourselves from atheism very easily. We just have someone who is high status post about how “religious/anti-religious discussion is the mindkiller” and encourage people not to talk about it.
We’ve already done this with a topic. At risk of breaking the taboo (I’ll try to stay meta), I would like to remind people that that for the vast majority of LW readers there are at least two major political parties they can support and choose from. These parties do not base their platforms on reality equally nor do their platforms give equal expected utility towards LWers should they be voted into power. A sequence saying ” political party is the rational choice and this is why” could be done, yet we choose not to. Not only that, but we actively prevent discussion on it.
We could do it for religion as well if we really wanted to. I don’t think the trade-off would be worth it and I think our current system of ‘not talk about politics, talk about athiesm’ is fine. However, we shouldn’t pretend it’s something immutable. These things are within our control. We choose the trade-offs we make, and we accept this trade-off.
We (for some value of “we”) could do that. But it wouldn’t erase all the past discussions on LW (and OB before that) that have touched on religious topics, and in practice it probably wouldn’t stop LWers discussing religious topics, still less casually assuming things that are incompatible with conventional religious beliefs. (Even if explicitly religious discussion were strictly forbidden somehow, LWers would still be looking for natural causes and simple explanations, treating evolution as an important fact rather than an anti-God conspiracy, etc., etc., etc.) So it wouldn’t do much to make LW readers in oppressively religious regimes safer or happier.
Actually, we could be detected as atheists just by never saying that we “pray for someone’s rationality” or “hope that God will help us create a Friendly AI” etc. Speaking about important topics and never mentioning religion, especially when we speak a lot about morality, is suspicious enough.
It’s just a matter of how much we’re willing to give up for it. If it was decided to be truly worth it, we could use regular expressions to wipe out any post or comment with theism/religion/god/jesus/allah in it.
The question isn’t if it’s possible or not. It’s always possible. The question is “do we want this bad enough to be willing to use regular expressions?”
We probably could distance ourselves from atheism very easily. We just have someone who is high status post about how “religious/anti-religious discussion is the mindkiller” and encourage people not to talk about it.
Not discussing religion would be a lot more difficult than not discussing politics, because religion is much closer to the main topic of discussion. Unless you work in politics, your political views probably have very little impact on your day-to-day life, nor on most major decisions you make (barring extreme views). On the other hand, for most people, religion has a major impact on both their daily lives and on their epistemology.
On the other hand, for most people, religion has a major impact on both their daily lives and on their epistemology.
What do you mean with respect to daily lives? Attendance at religious services? Restricting marriage prospects to candidates within the religion? In the US, and moreso in Europe, most people don’t attend services very often and there is a lot of intermarriage. On a global scale, the impact of religion is higher, and there are subcultures where it is of quite high importance, but I’m not sure what you had in mind.
That is the conclusion to which I had come, though I was hoping for an alternative. Now the question remains:
How can a rationalist pretending not to be a rationalist help spread serious rationalism without them and the people they inluenced getting caught (in early stages) or triggering a witchunt (supposing they were somewhat successful)?
You pick the people you want to influence, and you make yourself like them in all ways EXCEPT a carefully chosen few that are your most important targets of change. You might seriously consider publicly espousing a moderate version of Islam no matter what you believe if you are committed to the Islamic people of Morocco. You could even do it pretty honestly I think, isn’t the essence of Islam submission to the will of Allah (as opposed to a believe in Allah)? If you made this choice couldn’t you honestly say “I have deliberately and rationally chosen to submit myself to the will of Allah as do so many others in my country. And I will work tirelessly to advance science and freedom in Morocco as I am told by Allah to do so.”
Whether it is admitted or not, This is what successful politicians must be doing. It is implausible that people so well informed as politicians, and some of them are incredibly intelligent, could truly back so many stupid policies as they do. They pick their battles and happily admit defeat on the battles they have not picked.
It could well be that given your values, this is the rational way for you to go.
They probably can’t. Living in a seriously oppressive society is, well, seriously oppressive. Sometimes it really does get in your way.
They might be able to chip away a little at the edges here and there. That’s probably about it, unless they want to change tack and start a revolution. In which case they’ll probably need a cause with more popular appeal than rationalism.
Paul Graham discusses some ideas in this essay, granted he’s mostly thinking about the western world, where the worst that’s likely to happen to you is being shunned and possibly fired, but some of the advise still applies.
Like it or not, serious rationality tends to erode religious belief, just as it tends to erode belief in astrology. It tends to erode blind obedience to other authorities too. If “word spreads and authorities find out”, enthusiastic participation in any sort of rationalist community is liable to mean trouble in repressively religious communities, whether Eliezer is a raging bitter passionate atheist or not.
In any case, I’m having trouble imagining what the LW community could actually do to “try to distance ourselves from atheism and anti-religiousness as such” even if we wanted to, that would have any appreciable impact on the safety of being a serious rationalist in the sorts of countries you’re talking about. Go back through the LW archives and delete every post that says unkind things about religion? Forbid discussion of religious topics? It seems absurd to respond to the threat of oppression by meekly oppressing ourselves; and besides, I bet it wouldn’t work. There’s too much other stuff on LW that would be offensive to those regimes.
What it comes down to is this: A rationalist in a sufficiently repressive irrationalist regime is going to have to pretend not to be a rationalist. That’s very bad, but having rationalists everywhere else pretend half-heartedly not to be rationalists about everything won’t solve the problem.
We probably could distance ourselves from atheism very easily. We just have someone who is high status post about how “religious/anti-religious discussion is the mindkiller” and encourage people not to talk about it.
We’ve already done this with a topic. At risk of breaking the taboo (I’ll try to stay meta), I would like to remind people that that for the vast majority of LW readers there are at least two major political parties they can support and choose from. These parties do not base their platforms on reality equally nor do their platforms give equal expected utility towards LWers should they be voted into power. A sequence saying ” political party is the rational choice and this is why” could be done, yet we choose not to. Not only that, but we actively prevent discussion on it.
We could do it for religion as well if we really wanted to. I don’t think the trade-off would be worth it and I think our current system of ‘not talk about politics, talk about athiesm’ is fine. However, we shouldn’t pretend it’s something immutable. These things are within our control. We choose the trade-offs we make, and we accept this trade-off.
We (for some value of “we”) could do that. But it wouldn’t erase all the past discussions on LW (and OB before that) that have touched on religious topics, and in practice it probably wouldn’t stop LWers discussing religious topics, still less casually assuming things that are incompatible with conventional religious beliefs. (Even if explicitly religious discussion were strictly forbidden somehow, LWers would still be looking for natural causes and simple explanations, treating evolution as an important fact rather than an anti-God conspiracy, etc., etc., etc.) So it wouldn’t do much to make LW readers in oppressively religious regimes safer or happier.
Actually, we could be detected as atheists just by never saying that we “pray for someone’s rationality” or “hope that God will help us create a Friendly AI” etc. Speaking about important topics and never mentioning religion, especially when we speak a lot about morality, is suspicious enough.
It’s just a matter of how much we’re willing to give up for it. If it was decided to be truly worth it, we could use regular expressions to wipe out any post or comment with theism/religion/god/jesus/allah in it.
The question isn’t if it’s possible or not. It’s always possible. The question is “do we want this bad enough to be willing to use regular expressions?”
Just kidding, I mean censorship.
Even further off-topic: even better regular expressions link.
Not discussing religion would be a lot more difficult than not discussing politics, because religion is much closer to the main topic of discussion. Unless you work in politics, your political views probably have very little impact on your day-to-day life, nor on most major decisions you make (barring extreme views). On the other hand, for most people, religion has a major impact on both their daily lives and on their epistemology.
What do you mean with respect to daily lives? Attendance at religious services? Restricting marriage prospects to candidates within the religion? In the US, and moreso in Europe, most people don’t attend services very often and there is a lot of intermarriage. On a global scale, the impact of religion is higher, and there are subcultures where it is of quite high importance, but I’m not sure what you had in mind.
Frankly, using Internet forums is offensive to some regimes.
That is the conclusion to which I had come, though I was hoping for an alternative. Now the question remains:
How can a rationalist pretending not to be a rationalist help spread serious rationalism without them and the people they inluenced getting caught (in early stages) or triggering a witchunt (supposing they were somewhat successful)?
You pick the people you want to influence, and you make yourself like them in all ways EXCEPT a carefully chosen few that are your most important targets of change. You might seriously consider publicly espousing a moderate version of Islam no matter what you believe if you are committed to the Islamic people of Morocco. You could even do it pretty honestly I think, isn’t the essence of Islam submission to the will of Allah (as opposed to a believe in Allah)? If you made this choice couldn’t you honestly say “I have deliberately and rationally chosen to submit myself to the will of Allah as do so many others in my country. And I will work tirelessly to advance science and freedom in Morocco as I am told by Allah to do so.”
Whether it is admitted or not, This is what successful politicians must be doing. It is implausible that people so well informed as politicians, and some of them are incredibly intelligent, could truly back so many stupid policies as they do. They pick their battles and happily admit defeat on the battles they have not picked.
It could well be that given your values, this is the rational way for you to go.
They probably can’t. Living in a seriously oppressive society is, well, seriously oppressive. Sometimes it really does get in your way.
They might be able to chip away a little at the edges here and there. That’s probably about it, unless they want to change tack and start a revolution. In which case they’ll probably need a cause with more popular appeal than rationalism.
Paul Graham discusses some ideas in this essay, granted he’s mostly thinking about the western world, where the worst that’s likely to happen to you is being shunned and possibly fired, but some of the advise still applies.