Well, put it this way: I think that saying “the reason most people don’t agree with us is that they’re just not smart enough” is a bit of a jerk thing to say. It doesn’t represent us well and it’s not nice. If you’re absolutely convinced this is true, (and I think there’s not enough evidence for that), you should be much more circumspect in how you say it. Yes, I want to be pro-nice and anti-jerk.
LW does not behave like the crew of a sinking ship. As a matter of observation, it just doesn’t function that way. It’s partly a social or discussion forum.
“the reason most people don’t agree with us is that they’re just not smart enough” is a bit of a jerk thing to say. …. If you’re absolutely convinced this is true
Why do I have to be “absolutely convinced”? Can’t I give it a 90% credence and still say it? Or are we playing anti-epistemology and applying higher standards of evidence to statements that we find emotionally uncomfortable? Geez I leave for a few months and come back to find TEXTBOOK EXAMPLES of irrationality passing for LW debate! ;-)
I basically posted without thinking too carefully; I knew I didn’t like something about Alexandros’ post. (Now that he’s rephrased it it’s starting to sound more plausible.) And I’m sorry if I came on too strong or insulted him personally.
Straight-up rational epistemology, where you’re only concerned with truth, is … a little unnatural to me, I have to admit. Doing it all the time (as opposed to just on special occasions when you heroically overcome your bias) would be a very different life.
Upvoted for honesty (we need more of this kind of thing I think)
I think you have a good point about image of LW—we must be careful to present ourselves, that is I think something I tend to forget, there is, in fact a need for good image, as well as for good rationality
Re. “the reason most people don’t agree with us is that they’re just not smart enough”...totally aside from the question of whether this sort of sentiment is liable to be offputting to a lot of people, I’ve very often wondered whether anyone who holds such a sentiment is at all worried about the consequences of an “Emperor’s New Clothes” effect.
What I mean by “Emperor’s New Clothes” effect is that, regardless of what a person’s actual views are on a given subject (or set of subjects), there’s really nothing stopping said person from just copying the favored vocabulary, language patterns, stated opinions, etc., of those they see as the cleverest/most prominent/most respectable members of a community they want to join and be accepted in.
E.g., in self-described “rationalist” communities, I’ve noted that lots of people involved (a) value intelligence (however they define it) highly, and (b) appear to enjoy being acknowledged as clever themselves. The easiest way to do this, of course, is to parrot others that the community of interest clearly thinks are the Smartest of the Smart. And in some situations I suspect the “parroting” can occur involuntarily, just as a result of reading a lot of the writing of someone you like, admire, or respect intellectually, even if you may not have any real, deep understanding of what you are saying.
So my question is...does anyone even care about this possibility? Or are “communities” largely in the business of collecting members and advocates who can talk the talk, regardless of what their brains are actually doing behind the scenes?
For my own part: if hordes of people who aren’t really rationalists start adopting, for purely signaling reasons, the trappings of epistemic hygiene… if they start providing arguments in defense of their positions and admitting when those arguments are shown to be wrong, for example, not because of a genuine desire for the truth but merely because of a desire to be seen that way… if they start reliably articulating their biases and identifying the operation of biases in others, merely because that’s the social norm… if they start tagging their assertions with confidence indicators and using those indicators consistently without actually having a deep-rooted commitment to avoiding implicitly overstating or understating their confidence… and so on and so forth…
...well, actually, I’d pretty much call that an unadulterated win. Sign me up for that future, please.
OTOH, if hordes of people just start talking about how smart and rational they are and how that makes them better than ordinary people, well, that’s not worth much to me.
I think at this point I should clarify that the article didn’t (intend to) say “the reason most people don’t agree with us is that they’re just not smart enough” but rather that for people without the capability to contribute to cutting edge maths, science, AI research and the like, our worldview is not that exciting and may therefore refuse to be convinced. Notice that it implies possible irrationality for many of the people who have joined thus far, as they commonly belong to the classes that our worldview values to a large extent. This includes myself.
Is it a nice thing to say? I personally do not feel comfortable bringing this stuff up and would prefer if things were differently. Perhaps the fact that I feel this way made this thought stand out as more urgent to discuss than many others that I have not bothered to post. In any case, this is the reality I perceive, and I’ve tried to be as inoffensive as possible while at the same time phrasing a coherent point. If anyone else is capable of expressing the core of this message in a less divisive way, they’re welcome to do so.
Well, put it this way: I think that saying “the reason most people don’t agree with us is that they’re just not smart enough” is a bit of a jerk thing to say. It doesn’t represent us well and it’s not nice. If you’re absolutely convinced this is true, (and I think there’s not enough evidence for that), you should be much more circumspect in how you say it. Yes, I want to be pro-nice and anti-jerk.
LW does not behave like the crew of a sinking ship. As a matter of observation, it just doesn’t function that way. It’s partly a social or discussion forum.
Why do I have to be “absolutely convinced”? Can’t I give it a 90% credence and still say it? Or are we playing anti-epistemology and applying higher standards of evidence to statements that we find emotionally uncomfortable? Geez I leave for a few months and come back to find TEXTBOOK EXAMPLES of irrationality passing for LW debate! ;-)
Ok, at this point I say “oops.”
I basically posted without thinking too carefully; I knew I didn’t like something about Alexandros’ post. (Now that he’s rephrased it it’s starting to sound more plausible.) And I’m sorry if I came on too strong or insulted him personally.
Straight-up rational epistemology, where you’re only concerned with truth, is … a little unnatural to me, I have to admit. Doing it all the time (as opposed to just on special occasions when you heroically overcome your bias) would be a very different life.
Upvoted for honesty (we need more of this kind of thing I think)
I think you have a good point about image of LW—we must be careful to present ourselves, that is I think something I tend to forget, there is, in fact a need for good image, as well as for good rationality
Re. “the reason most people don’t agree with us is that they’re just not smart enough”...totally aside from the question of whether this sort of sentiment is liable to be offputting to a lot of people, I’ve very often wondered whether anyone who holds such a sentiment is at all worried about the consequences of an “Emperor’s New Clothes” effect.
What I mean by “Emperor’s New Clothes” effect is that, regardless of what a person’s actual views are on a given subject (or set of subjects), there’s really nothing stopping said person from just copying the favored vocabulary, language patterns, stated opinions, etc., of those they see as the cleverest/most prominent/most respectable members of a community they want to join and be accepted in.
E.g., in self-described “rationalist” communities, I’ve noted that lots of people involved (a) value intelligence (however they define it) highly, and (b) appear to enjoy being acknowledged as clever themselves. The easiest way to do this, of course, is to parrot others that the community of interest clearly thinks are the Smartest of the Smart. And in some situations I suspect the “parroting” can occur involuntarily, just as a result of reading a lot of the writing of someone you like, admire, or respect intellectually, even if you may not have any real, deep understanding of what you are saying.
So my question is...does anyone even care about this possibility? Or are “communities” largely in the business of collecting members and advocates who can talk the talk, regardless of what their brains are actually doing behind the scenes?
I suspect answers vary.
For my own part: if hordes of people who aren’t really rationalists start adopting, for purely signaling reasons, the trappings of epistemic hygiene… if they start providing arguments in defense of their positions and admitting when those arguments are shown to be wrong, for example, not because of a genuine desire for the truth but merely because of a desire to be seen that way… if they start reliably articulating their biases and identifying the operation of biases in others, merely because that’s the social norm… if they start tagging their assertions with confidence indicators and using those indicators consistently without actually having a deep-rooted commitment to avoiding implicitly overstating or understating their confidence… and so on and so forth…
...well, actually, I’d pretty much call that an unadulterated win. Sign me up for that future, please.
OTOH, if hordes of people just start talking about how smart and rational they are and how that makes them better than ordinary people, well, that’s not worth much to me.
I think at this point I should clarify that the article didn’t (intend to) say “the reason most people don’t agree with us is that they’re just not smart enough” but rather that for people without the capability to contribute to cutting edge maths, science, AI research and the like, our worldview is not that exciting and may therefore refuse to be convinced. Notice that it implies possible irrationality for many of the people who have joined thus far, as they commonly belong to the classes that our worldview values to a large extent. This includes myself.
Is it a nice thing to say? I personally do not feel comfortable bringing this stuff up and would prefer if things were differently. Perhaps the fact that I feel this way made this thought stand out as more urgent to discuss than many others that I have not bothered to post. In any case, this is the reality I perceive, and I’ve tried to be as inoffensive as possible while at the same time phrasing a coherent point. If anyone else is capable of expressing the core of this message in a less divisive way, they’re welcome to do so.
ok, clarified it makes more sense. I just extracted the wrong main point.