Ok, I just finished reading what you have so far, and there’s a very serious problem. It’s full of politics. Politics is the Mind Killer, and politics and rationalism just don’t mix. I’m not saying your politics are wrong, per se, but the way they’re presented isn’t good for rationality. The second comic explicitly promotes an us-vs-them mindset, rather than a problem-solving mindset. It invents a fictional, innately evil enemy (“oligarchs”) upon which to pin the world’s problems. Then you present a “libertarian compact”, which sounds good but is mostly meaningless, so that people can feel good about not having infringed on anyone’s rights without having to actually improve the world.
The real enemies of rationality are not evil, or selfish, but merely confused people, doing what they think is right in spite of the fact that it isn’t. Portraying that sort of villain takes skill and subtlety, because they can save orphans with one hand while destroying the world with the other.
The real enemies of rationality are not evil, or selfish, but merely confused people, doing
what they think is right in spite of the fact that it isn’t.
I notice that I am confused.
I have a reasonably firm belief that there are at least some people who /are/ evil and selfish, acting to benefit themselves in ways that cause harm to large numbers of other people; people who act as if the universe were either a zero-sum or negative-sum game rather than a positive-sum game; and that such people tend to seek power over others, including political and economic power. But I can’t think of any evidence that would be reasonably persuasive to someone who believed such people don’t exist. And I’m not sure what it would take to convince me that such people don’t exist.
I sense that I’m failing at being a rationalist somehow, but I can’t quite figure out the nature of that failure or how to fix it.
Eliezer’s Politics is the Mind Killer sequence (named after but larger than the article by that name) is relevant, particularly Are Your Enemies Innately Evil. While people deliberately choosing evil over good does happen, it is very, very rare. Much more common is evil that’s shrouded in muddled thinking, and misperception of people as evil due to correspondence bias and tribalism.
I’m going to have to re-absorb that sequence, and see if I can teach myself to understand on a deep gut level what practical differences there are between “how to deal with people who want to do things to you you don’t like because they want to help you” and “how to deal with people who want to do things to you you don’t like because they want to help themselves”.
“Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence”
“how to deal with people who want to do things to you you don’t like because they want to help themselves”
Another issue is that while they may have done whatever out of self-interest, they aren’t necessarily trying to do damage to you.
What’s probably much much more common in bad outcomes is people doing something and not knowing its impact on other things, not thinking about it at all, or just thinking that it was in fact a good idea in the first place.
Every revolutionary thinks that they’re right, and most people in power think that they’re exercising it for the good of the people, and act in ways that they think will actually help.
That’s a plausible approach, but I don’t think it’s what’s going on here. The comics, especially the second, read more as rationalist (note suffix) arguments for libertarianism than as libertarian arguments for rationality.
Ok, I just finished reading what you have so far, and there’s a very serious problem. It’s full of politics. Politics is the Mind Killer, and politics and rationalism just don’t mix. I’m not saying your politics are wrong, per se, but the way they’re presented isn’t good for rationality. The second comic explicitly promotes an us-vs-them mindset, rather than a problem-solving mindset. It invents a fictional, innately evil enemy (“oligarchs”) upon which to pin the world’s problems. Then you present a “libertarian compact”, which sounds good but is mostly meaningless, so that people can feel good about not having infringed on anyone’s rights without having to actually improve the world.
The real enemies of rationality are not evil, or selfish, but merely confused people, doing what they think is right in spite of the fact that it isn’t. Portraying that sort of villain takes skill and subtlety, because they can save orphans with one hand while destroying the world with the other.
I notice that I am confused.
I have a reasonably firm belief that there are at least some people who /are/ evil and selfish, acting to benefit themselves in ways that cause harm to large numbers of other people; people who act as if the universe were either a zero-sum or negative-sum game rather than a positive-sum game; and that such people tend to seek power over others, including political and economic power. But I can’t think of any evidence that would be reasonably persuasive to someone who believed such people don’t exist. And I’m not sure what it would take to convince me that such people don’t exist.
I sense that I’m failing at being a rationalist somehow, but I can’t quite figure out the nature of that failure or how to fix it.
Eliezer’s Politics is the Mind Killer sequence (named after but larger than the article by that name) is relevant, particularly Are Your Enemies Innately Evil. While people deliberately choosing evil over good does happen, it is very, very rare. Much more common is evil that’s shrouded in muddled thinking, and misperception of people as evil due to correspondence bias and tribalism.
I’m going to have to re-absorb that sequence, and see if I can teach myself to understand on a deep gut level what practical differences there are between “how to deal with people who want to do things to you you don’t like because they want to help you” and “how to deal with people who want to do things to you you don’t like because they want to help themselves”.
“Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence”
Another issue is that while they may have done whatever out of self-interest, they aren’t necessarily trying to do damage to you.
What’s probably much much more common in bad outcomes is people doing something and not knowing its impact on other things, not thinking about it at all, or just thinking that it was in fact a good idea in the first place.
Every revolutionary thinks that they’re right, and most people in power think that they’re exercising it for the good of the people, and act in ways that they think will actually help.
One issue in the comic is jumping from “some people are selfish” to “we need to follow a libertarian compact”.
I assumed this was a necessary ill, applause lights to keep the demographic reading and not part of the actual content.
That’s a plausible approach, but I don’t think it’s what’s going on here. The comics, especially the second, read more as rationalist (note suffix) arguments for libertarianism than as libertarian arguments for rationality.