I agree: this post felt like a self-congratulatory collection of applause lights. (I wonder if the habit of linking to previous posts every other word is an indicator of this. Most people aren’t going to follow those links, they’re just going to think, “Ah yes, a link to a Sequence post. That must be an accepted thing!”)
I also think there’s a worrying tendency towards ideology here. Luke suggests that “levelling up” in rationality led him to a bunch of beliefs, which are, coincidentally, fairly widely accepted views around here. Cue a round of back-slapping as we all congratulate ourselves on how rational we are.
But rationality doesn’t necessarily lead you anywhere: the evidence should do that. And if the evidence starts pointing somewhere else, you should move. And so I’m a bit wary of the tendency to draw too close a link between any particular beliefs and rationality. You never want to be in the situation where you’re trying to persuade someone of your views and you find yourself saying “But it’s the rational thing to believe!” instead of presenting the evidence.
Also: hints of the No True Scotsman fallacy.
When genuine curiosity tore down those walls, it didn’t take long for the implications of my atheism to propagate.
Woe betide you who don’t come to the same conclusions as Luke: your curiousity clearly isn’t genuine!
Now this may all sound a bit harsh, but frankly I really wish Luke would stop writing posts like this and start doing some hard-headed thinking about some actual problems.
I do agree with some of your points, especially with the fact that this post is annoyingly self-congratulating in places (though I know I have a bias to find that annoying, and so I don’t necessary think my annoyance means much. However, I don’t think this post is content-less...in fact, content is a lot of what you’re disagreeing with, i.e. that specific
Less Wrong beliefs are associated with being rational.
I do think it is good to have some inspirational posts here than don’t rely that much on actual argumentation but rather paint an example picture where you could be when using rationality, what rationality could look like. There are dangers to that, but still, I like these.
I agree: this post felt like a self-congratulatory collection of applause lights. (I wonder if the habit of linking to previous posts every other word is an indicator of this. Most people aren’t going to follow those links, they’re just going to think, “Ah yes, a link to a Sequence post. That must be an accepted thing!”)
I also think there’s a worrying tendency towards ideology here. Luke suggests that “levelling up” in rationality led him to a bunch of beliefs, which are, coincidentally, fairly widely accepted views around here. Cue a round of back-slapping as we all congratulate ourselves on how rational we are.
But rationality doesn’t necessarily lead you anywhere: the evidence should do that. And if the evidence starts pointing somewhere else, you should move. And so I’m a bit wary of the tendency to draw too close a link between any particular beliefs and rationality. You never want to be in the situation where you’re trying to persuade someone of your views and you find yourself saying “But it’s the rational thing to believe!” instead of presenting the evidence.
Also: hints of the No True Scotsman fallacy.
Woe betide you who don’t come to the same conclusions as Luke: your curiousity clearly isn’t genuine!
Now this may all sound a bit harsh, but frankly I really wish Luke would stop writing posts like this and start doing some hard-headed thinking about some actual problems.
I do agree with some of your points, especially with the fact that this post is annoyingly self-congratulating in places (though I know I have a bias to find that annoying, and so I don’t necessary think my annoyance means much. However, I don’t think this post is content-less...in fact, content is a lot of what you’re disagreeing with, i.e. that specific Less Wrong beliefs are associated with being rational.
I do think it is good to have some inspirational posts here than don’t rely that much on actual argumentation but rather paint an example picture where you could be when using rationality, what rationality could look like. There are dangers to that, but still, I like these.