My parents always told me “we only compare ourselves to the best”. I am only making these criticisms because rationalists self-define as, well, rational. And to be, rationality also has to do with achieving something. Pedantry, sophistry &c are unwelcome distractions.
I actually agree. I think one issue is that the kind of mind that is attraction to “rationality” as a topic also tends to be highly sensitive to perceived errors, and to be fond of taking things to the meta-level. These combine to lead to threads where nobody talks about the object-level questions. I frankly don’t even try to bring up object-level problems on Less Wrong.
My parents always told me “we only compare ourselves to the best”. I am only making these criticisms because rationalists self-define as, well, rational. And to be, rationality also has to do with achieving something. Pedantry, sophistry &c are unwelcome distractions.
I actually agree. I think one issue is that the kind of mind that is attraction to “rationality” as a topic also tends to be highly sensitive to perceived errors, and to be fond of taking things to the meta-level. These combine to lead to threads where nobody talks about the object-level questions. I frankly don’t even try to bring up object-level problems on Less Wrong.