FWIW, the New Atheists were and are important to me and my friends who grew up and went to school in the South. I get that you might be tired of hearing their “obvious” schtick if you live in San Francisco, but for a young person in epistically hostile territory, it can be very valuable to hear somebody loudly and clearly speaking common sense from far away.
Also, Sam Harris’ podcast is quite popular (#93 on iTunes at this moment), and his Patreon is one of the most lucrative. His books sell pretty well. I don’t think it’s accurate to cast him as a thinker who has been rejected by the mainstream. I suspect there are a lot of people who listen to his podcast but worry about broadcasting that fact.
Or a lot of people who listen to his podcast and don’t pay much attention to what the Baffler has to say about things. I have literally never heard of the Baffler before this. They describe themselves as writing articles about “Silicon Valley snake-oil, the deadening weight of consumer capitalism, our faithless media, and the redemptive promise of people claiming control of their own lives”, so I imagine the average Sam Harris fan has never heard of them either.
Like, “there exists at least one magazine in which people are publishing negative articles about New Atheists” does not mean that society has rejected a particular viewpoint; there exists at least one magazine in which people are publishing negative articles about literally every ideological group. You might as well assume that feminists are rejected by all of society because Christina Hoff Sommers exists.
I’m putting it here, because the insight clicked when reading this article: perhaps one of the most important of “our” characteristics is simply being bad at compartmentalization?
“The New Atheists contend that the beliefs we hold have consequences for our conduct.”—Let’s assume this view is basically typical mind fallacious, and the majority mostly compartmentalize away their religious beliefs. (Beliefs-as-attire, to be worn in the appropriate context only.) What would happen to those people who don’t natively do this?
When in Rome, they would behave in much the same way as when in Carthage. (“Wearing the same be-/alief-attire to the office and to the beach.”) They would have difficulties with navigating social situations.
I haven’t yet fully read the article, since it turned out to be a bit longer than expected, but from the 10 minutes I’ve read so far, I am worried that it’s too culture-war flavored for the frontpage. I.e. I would have also moved Scott’s original post off the frontpage and onto his personal blog (and this is also the reason why Scott didn’t decide to crosspost it at all to LessWrong). Moving it off the frontpage for now, but happy to discuss in the comments, or wherever else is convenient.
Mm, the About page is down for a re-write in the coming months. For now I’ve changed it to this, which I think is more accurate and informative:
Our goal with the frontpage is to have a place where you can read the best content produced by the rationality community (subject to our moderation guidelines).
FWIW, the New Atheists were and are important to me and my friends who grew up and went to school in the South. I get that you might be tired of hearing their “obvious” schtick if you live in San Francisco, but for a young person in epistically hostile territory, it can be very valuable to hear somebody loudly and clearly speaking common sense from far away.
Also, Sam Harris’ podcast is quite popular (#93 on iTunes at this moment), and his Patreon is one of the most lucrative. His books sell pretty well. I don’t think it’s accurate to cast him as a thinker who has been rejected by the mainstream. I suspect there are a lot of people who listen to his podcast but worry about broadcasting that fact.
Or a lot of people who listen to his podcast and don’t pay much attention to what the Baffler has to say about things. I have literally never heard of the Baffler before this. They describe themselves as writing articles about “Silicon Valley snake-oil, the deadening weight of consumer capitalism, our faithless media, and the redemptive promise of people claiming control of their own lives”, so I imagine the average Sam Harris fan has never heard of them either.
Like, “there exists at least one magazine in which people are publishing negative articles about New Atheists” does not mean that society has rejected a particular viewpoint; there exists at least one magazine in which people are publishing negative articles about literally every ideological group. You might as well assume that feminists are rejected by all of society because Christina Hoff Sommers exists.
I’m putting it here, because the insight clicked when reading this article: perhaps one of the most important of “our” characteristics is simply being bad at compartmentalization?
“The New Atheists contend that the beliefs we hold have consequences for our conduct.”—Let’s assume this view is basically typical mind fallacious, and the majority mostly compartmentalize away their religious beliefs. (Beliefs-as-attire, to be worn in the appropriate context only.) What would happen to those people who don’t natively do this?
When in Rome, they would behave in much the same way as when in Carthage. (“Wearing the same be-/alief-attire to the office and to the beach.”) They would have difficulties with navigating social situations.
They would conflate the contexts of “stuff written in the Holy Book and to be professed” with “things to do in everyday life”, a.k.a. religious literalism. (https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/04/04/the-ideology-is-not-the-movement/)
They would keep finding points where in different “contexts”, related phenomena are explained in incompatible ways. (https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/10/23/kolmogorov-complicity-and-the-parable-of-lightning/) Even when not censored, the majority, not finding the issue salient, would call this pedantry or nitpicking.
They would be less liable to judge ideas based on what “context” / literary genre they associate to. (2nd-last paragraph: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/4Bwr6s9dofvqPWakn/science-as-attire)
Stretching somewhat: perhaps they would appreciate explanations applicable to many domains/contexts more than the average person.
I feel like Nerst’s concept of “decoupling” is relevant to this https://everythingstudies.com/tag/decoupling/
To the decoupler, the claim is not read in light of its context, it stands alone in the root context along with everything else.
I haven’t yet fully read the article, since it turned out to be a bit longer than expected, but from the 10 minutes I’ve read so far, I am worried that it’s too culture-war flavored for the frontpage. I.e. I would have also moved Scott’s original post off the frontpage and onto his personal blog (and this is also the reason why Scott didn’t decide to crosspost it at all to LessWrong). Moving it off the frontpage for now, but happy to discuss in the comments, or wherever else is convenient.
Seems like the about page should be corrected, then.
Why?
Seems like it should say some of the best content, given the additional constraints being applied—and should maybe indicate the constraints.
Huh, yeah, that seems like a good point, that sentence is way too broad. Thanks!
I imagine I was thinking about the Sequences / Codex when I wrote that, but still, that’s much too strong a claim.
Edited it to read “The frontpage is a place where you can read some of the best content produced by the rationality community.”
Constraints are linked to at the end of the post, three paragraphs below.
Mm, the About page is down for a re-write in the coming months. For now I’ve changed it to this, which I think is more accurate and informative: