atheists—they usually have “reason” as their applause light (whether deservedly or not)
I think there a variety of different people who are atheists. Marx was an atheist but he’s not in the same movement as Richard Dawkins.
The same goes for the terms mathematician and philosopher.
I mostly agree, however… although Marx is not in the same movement as Dawkins, I think even Marx somewhat belongs to the rationalist reference class (just not in the same way as Dawkins).
But this is merely a question of degree—when two things are far enough in the thingspace that it doesn’t make sense to consider them the same cluster anymore. Dawkins is closer to LW than Marx is, but both are closer than… uhm… people who don’t even try to use reason / math / reductionism; so it depends on how closely you zoom in to the picture. I tried to err on the side of inclusion.
There is always going to be some difference, so I am going to ignore medium-sized differences here and cast a wide net:
scientists—obviously, right?
atheists—they usually have “reason” as their applause light (whether deservedly or not)
“social engineers” of all political flavors, including SJWs—believe themselves to know better than the uneducated folks
psychoanalysts
behaviorists
mathematicians
philosophers
I think there a variety of different people who are atheists. Marx was an atheist but he’s not in the same movement as Richard Dawkins. The same goes for the terms mathematician and philosopher.
I mostly agree, however… although Marx is not in the same movement as Dawkins, I think even Marx somewhat belongs to the rationalist reference class (just not in the same way as Dawkins).
But this is merely a question of degree—when two things are far enough in the thingspace that it doesn’t make sense to consider them the same cluster anymore. Dawkins is closer to LW than Marx is, but both are closer than… uhm… people who don’t even try to use reason / math / reductionism; so it depends on how closely you zoom in to the picture. I tried to err on the side of inclusion.
The question was about movements. Whether or not someone is in the same movement isn’t just a question of whether they are close to each other.