This is going to sound like a stupid excuse… okay, instead of the originally planned excuse, let me just give you an example of what happened to me a week or two ago...
I wrote an introductory article about LW-style rationality in Slovak language on a website where it quickly got 5000 visitors. (link) About 30 of them wrote something in a discussion below the article, some of them sent me private messages about how they like what I wrote, and some of them “friended” me on Facebook.
The article was mostly about that reality exists and map is not the territory, and how politics is the mindkiller. With specific examples about how the politics is the mindkiller, and mentioning the research about how political opinions reduced subjects’ math abilities.
One guy who “friended” me because of this article… when I looked at his page, it was full of political conspiracy theories. He published a link to some political conspiracy theory article every few hours. (Judging from the context, he meant it seriously.) When I had him briefly in the friend list (because I clicked “okay” without checking his page first), my Facebook homepage turned mostly to a list of conspiracy links. After seeing this, I quickly “unfriended” him.
What does this mean? This guy somehow believed that we are on the same page, although in my eyes, he is the complete opposite of what I try to achieve. I was horrified by seeing his Facebook page. But he liked my article about rationality. I believe that politics is the mindkiller… and my best model of him (not very reliable) says that he believes that his opponents are mindkilled, but this doesn’t apply to him, because he is simply telling the truth, the facts. Anyway, for some reasons he identified with what I wrote, and… I wouldn’t be quite surprised if he decided that he likes LW, too, using a similar thought process like he applied to me.
Okay, so here is the originally planned stupid excuse… just because someone likes LW and decides to call themselves rationalist, it doesn’t necessarily make them a characteristic member of the culture. People are perfectly able to pick the parts they like, adopt the language, and ignore the incovenient parts.
(And I know it sounds like “No true Scottsman”, and I am not sure how to fix this. Let’s just make it “No typical Scottsman”, perhaps?)
I don’t think all or even most LWers exhibit the behavior I’m complaining about. But I think people who do it are attracted to LW/rationalism, and it bothers me enough that I’m willing to give up completely on a community after I’ve seen it from a few people there.
This is going to sound like a stupid excuse… okay, instead of the originally planned excuse, let me just give you an example of what happened to me a week or two ago...
I wrote an introductory article about LW-style rationality in Slovak language on a website where it quickly got 5000 visitors. (link) About 30 of them wrote something in a discussion below the article, some of them sent me private messages about how they like what I wrote, and some of them “friended” me on Facebook.
The article was mostly about that reality exists and map is not the territory, and how politics is the mindkiller. With specific examples about how the politics is the mindkiller, and mentioning the research about how political opinions reduced subjects’ math abilities.
One guy who “friended” me because of this article… when I looked at his page, it was full of political conspiracy theories. He published a link to some political conspiracy theory article every few hours. (Judging from the context, he meant it seriously.) When I had him briefly in the friend list (because I clicked “okay” without checking his page first), my Facebook homepage turned mostly to a list of conspiracy links. After seeing this, I quickly “unfriended” him.
What does this mean? This guy somehow believed that we are on the same page, although in my eyes, he is the complete opposite of what I try to achieve. I was horrified by seeing his Facebook page. But he liked my article about rationality. I believe that politics is the mindkiller… and my best model of him (not very reliable) says that he believes that his opponents are mindkilled, but this doesn’t apply to him, because he is simply telling the truth, the facts. Anyway, for some reasons he identified with what I wrote, and… I wouldn’t be quite surprised if he decided that he likes LW, too, using a similar thought process like he applied to me.
Okay, so here is the originally planned stupid excuse… just because someone likes LW and decides to call themselves rationalist, it doesn’t necessarily make them a characteristic member of the culture. People are perfectly able to pick the parts they like, adopt the language, and ignore the incovenient parts.
(And I know it sounds like “No true Scottsman”, and I am not sure how to fix this. Let’s just make it “No typical Scottsman”, perhaps?)
I don’t think all or even most LWers exhibit the behavior I’m complaining about. But I think people who do it are attracted to LW/rationalism, and it bothers me enough that I’m willing to give up completely on a community after I’ve seen it from a few people there.
I think “true” LW members are people who go to meetups or who participate on LW by writing comments.