Your comment is, I’m afraid, full of the most egregious strawmen
Looking at the discussion you linked… I admit I cannot find the horrible examples my mind keeps telling me I have seen. So, maybe I was wrong. Or maybe it was a different article, dunno. A few negative comments were deleted; but those were all written by the same person, so in either case they do not represent a mass reaction. The remaining comment closest to what I wanted to say is this one...
The whole point of rituals like this in religion is to switch off thinking and get people going with the flow. The epistemic danger should be pretty obvious. Ritual = irrational. [1]
...but even that one is not too bad.
It is only “a perfectly normal thing” because everyone who didn’t think it was perfectly normal, has left! … It is a simple case of evaporative cooling!
This is a good point. Whatever the community does, if it causes the opposing people to leave, will be in hindsight seen as the obviously right thing to do (because those who disagree have already left), even if in a parallel Everett branch doing the opposite thing is seen as the obviously right thing.
I still feel weird about people who would leave a community just because a few members of the community did sing a song together. Also, people keep leaving for all kinds of reasons. I am pretty sure some have left because of lack of emotional connection, such as, uhm, doing things together.
Meta:
Okay, at this moment I feel quite confused about this comment I just wrote. Like, from certain perspectives it seems like you are right, and I am simply refusing to say “oops”. At the very least, I failed to find a sufficiently horrible anti-Solstice comment.
Yet, somehow, it is you saying that there were people who left the rationality movement because of the Solstice ritual, which is the kind of hysterical reaction I tried to point at. (I can’t imagine myself leaving a movement just because a few of its members decided to meet and sing a song together.)
Yet, somehow, it is you saying that there were people who left the rationality movement because of the Solstice ritual, which is the kind of hysterical reaction I tried to point at. (I can’t imagine myself leaving a movement just because a few of its members decided to meet and sing a song together.)
I don’t think it’s really “a few people singing songs together”. It’s more like...an overall shift in demographics, tone, and norms. If I had to put it succinctly, the old school LessWrong was for serious STEM nerds and hard science fiction dorks. It was super super deep into the whole Shock Level memeplex thing. Over time it’s become a much softer sort of fandom geek thing. Rationalist Tumblr and SlateStarCodex aren’t marginal colonies, they’re the center driving force behind what’s left of the original ‘LessWrong rationality movement’. Naturally, a lot of those old guard members find this abhorrent and have no plans to ever participate in it.
I agree with Raemon that it is unlikely to be productive or appropriate to rehash this argument in the current thread. However, I do have things to say on the matter (in response to this comment of yours in particular), so it may be worthwhile to start another post, or a thread on the latest Open Thread post, on this topic; or you may feel free to ask for my thoughts on the matter via private message.
Note: while this thread is sort of relevant, and I think there are some productive ways for it to continue, I think there are many more unproductive ways to continue than productive ones.
As thread-owner, I’d say: “Feel free to continue this here if you have a specific confusion that needs resolving, that seems resolvable, or an outcome that you think is actually achievable to achieve. But don’t just rehash a 8-year-old-argument without reflecting on your life choices and having some kind of goal. Err on the side of disengaging if you’re not sure if you have a goal.”
Looking at the discussion you linked… I admit I cannot find the horrible examples my mind keeps telling me I have seen. So, maybe I was wrong. Or maybe it was a different article, dunno. A few negative comments were deleted; but those were all written by the same person, so in either case they do not represent a mass reaction. The remaining comment closest to what I wanted to say is this one...
...but even that one is not too bad.
This is a good point. Whatever the community does, if it causes the opposing people to leave, will be in hindsight seen as the obviously right thing to do (because those who disagree have already left), even if in a parallel Everett branch doing the opposite thing is seen as the obviously right thing.
I still feel weird about people who would leave a community just because a few members of the community did sing a song together. Also, people keep leaving for all kinds of reasons. I am pretty sure some have left because of lack of emotional connection, such as, uhm, doing things together.
Meta:
Okay, at this moment I feel quite confused about this comment I just wrote. Like, from certain perspectives it seems like you are right, and I am simply refusing to say “oops”. At the very least, I failed to find a sufficiently horrible anti-Solstice comment.
Yet, somehow, it is you saying that there were people who left the rationality movement because of the Solstice ritual, which is the kind of hysterical reaction I tried to point at. (I can’t imagine myself leaving a movement just because a few of its members decided to meet and sing a song together.)
I don’t think it’s really “a few people singing songs together”. It’s more like...an overall shift in demographics, tone, and norms. If I had to put it succinctly, the old school LessWrong was for serious STEM nerds and hard science fiction dorks. It was super super deep into the whole Shock Level memeplex thing. Over time it’s become a much softer sort of fandom geek thing. Rationalist Tumblr and SlateStarCodex aren’t marginal colonies, they’re the center driving force behind what’s left of the original ‘LessWrong rationality movement’. Naturally, a lot of those old guard members find this abhorrent and have no plans to ever participate in it.
I don’t blame them.
I agree with Raemon that it is unlikely to be productive or appropriate to rehash this argument in the current thread. However, I do have things to say on the matter (in response to this comment of yours in particular), so it may be worthwhile to start another post, or a thread on the latest Open Thread post, on this topic; or you may feel free to ask for my thoughts on the matter via private message.
Note: while this thread is sort of relevant, and I think there are some productive ways for it to continue, I think there are many more unproductive ways to continue than productive ones.
As thread-owner, I’d say: “Feel free to continue this here if you have a specific confusion that needs resolving, that seems resolvable, or an outcome that you think is actually achievable to achieve. But don’t just rehash a 8-year-old-argument without reflecting on your life choices and having some kind of goal. Err on the side of disengaging if you’re not sure if you have a goal.”