Not only that, often people’s goals require irrational thinking. If you’re hoping to find a mate in a religious community, or if you’re a businessman bringing the free market to the boonies there’s an obvious rational incentive to believe irrational things.
alvarojabril
Karma: 22
Just read over that for the first time and it seems to me that Eliezer’s argument relies heavily on the anthropic principle, that is, it underestimates the amount of resources it has taken the universe to produce a very small amount of life, so far as we know.
Could you elucidate what you intend with this gem?
“The Master of the Way treats people as straw dogs.”
I also think we can think of “prejudices” or pre-judgments common in popular media which aren’t necessarily bad. Star Trek, for instances propagates prejudices toward tolerance, rationality, exploration, etc. So I think there’s a lot of popular media which is also “good.” I guess I may have misread your point—I’m talking instrumentally and you mean aesthetically.
You’ve never thought about it that way before because it’s completely silly. How on earth does Annoyance make these judgments? I’m not nearly prideful enough to think I can know others’ minds to the extent Annoyance can, or, in other words, I imagine there are circumstances which could change most people in profound ways, both for ill and good. So the only thing judging people in this manner does is reinforce one’s social prejudices. Writing off people who seem resistant to reason only encourages their ignorance, and remedying their condition is both an exercise and example of reason’s power, which, incidentally, is why I’m trying so hard with Annoyance!
Annoyance, your argument has devolved into inanity. If you don’t want to popularly cultivate rationality then you disagree with one of the core tenets of this community. It’s in the second paragraph of the “about” page:
“Less Wrong is devoted to refining the art of human rationality—the art of thinking. The new math and science deserves to be applied to our daily lives, and heard in our public voices.”
Your circular word games do no good for this community.
Someone should document and categorize the most common signaling tropes of this community. Maybe once I get up to 40 or whatever.
Why are we assuming these categories are mutually exclusive? Like Will points out, if we just accept that altruism and status-seeking are inextricable then we can design societies where altruistic behavior has high status returns. I guess I don’t get the usefulness of the distinction.
Annoyance, you’re still dodging the question. Joe didn’t ask whether or not in your opinion everyone is a useless prole, he asked why it’s useful to make people feel like that. Your notion that “social cohesion is the enemy of rationality” was best debunked, I think by pjeby’s point here:
http://lesswrong.com/lw/za/a_social_norm_against_unjustified_opinions/rrk
more flies with honey and all that.
So you tell me what you think they’re for, then.
It’s demonstrated by the fact that you can up/down vote and report anyone’s posts, and that you need a certain number of upvotes to write articles. This is a method of policing the discourse on the site so that social cohesion doesn’t break down to an extent which impairs our discussion. These mechanisms “reinforce correctness,” in your terms. So I’ll ask again, can we do away with them?
I don’t think humanity follows obviously from rationality, which is what I meant about rationality being a means rather than an end.
Thank you. An opinion is a thought. What does it mean to say that you are not entitled to a thought?
“teach them that they have no right to an opinion.”
I know people throw the term around (I try not to), but this is maybe the most fascist thing I’ve seen on this board. They have no right to an opinion? You might want to rephrase this, as many of my opinions are somewhat involuntary.
Could be a pretty wild dystopia for the people who aren’t hooked up—elites constantly disappearing and the clocks are all wrong. Come to think of it, did I say DYStopia?
Yes, and most of what I said reduces to “Annoyance is not practicing rationality with statements like “‘social cohesion is one of the enemies of rationality.’” You said you had a “problem” with my contention and then I pointed out that Annoyance had made a qualitatively similar claim that hadn’t bothered you. Aside from our apparent disagreement on the point I don’t get how my claim could be a problem for you.
I think I’ve made myself clear and this is getting tiresome so I’ll invite you to have the last word.
Look, this whole thread started because of Annoyance’s judgment of people who have higher priorities than rationality, right? Did you have a problem with that?
All I’m saying is that this community in general gives way too short shrift to the utility of social cohesion. Sorry if that bothers you.
“When it happens to reinforce correctness, it’s not needed”
Can you elaborate?
I’ll note that rationality isn’t an end. My ideal world state would involve a healthy serving of both rationality and social cohesion. There are many situations in which these forces work in tandem and many where they’re at odds.
A perfect example is this site. There are rules the community follows to maintain a certain level of social cohesion, which in turn aides us in the pursuit of rationality. Or are the rules not needed?
Right, I get that people fare differently when it comes to this stuff, but I do think it’s a matter of practice and attention more than innate ability (for most people). And this is really my point, that the sort of monastic rationality frequently espoused on these boards can have politically antirational effects. It’s way easier to influence others if you first establish a decent rapport with them.
The problems you cite in bullets are only nontrivial if you don’t sufficiently value social cohesion. My biggest faux pas have sufficiently conditioned me to make them less often because I put a high premium on that cohesion. So I think it’s less a question of social intelligence and more one of priorities. I don’t have to keep “constant focus”—after a few faux pas it becomes plainly apparent which subjects are controversial and which aren’t, and when we do come around to touchy ones I watch myself a little more.
Two links that might foster discussion:
http://www.philosophersnet.com/games/
Fun online rationality and anti-bias oriented games. I particularly enjoyed “Staying Alive” (testing conceptions of selfhood). And
http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/20086
Great discussion, I hadn’t seen Gendler before but Bloom is always good. Reminded me a little of the IAT discussion here a few months ago.