Fight the restoring force with leverage. Make friends with the local priest and affect the congregation through him. Most instrumental rationality techniques are compatible with religion. You can consider your options once you gain status.
Was I overly hyperbolic, or completely orthogonal to your point? Was I reading in an implication that such things would be (somewhat) trivial that isn’t there? (I’ve noticed quite a few comments that leave me wanting to reply this way can be read as trivializing something decidedly non-trivial, and I suspect that if I called out the commenters the response would be that they meant otherwise.)
My point was that you can befriend the person(s) with leverage in the community without having to become their “trusted advisor”. Here is one scenario. Befriending a priest is indeed easy: if you come across as a friendly and curious non-believer, it is in his job description to attempt to win you over. If you cheerfully volunteer in the (non-religious) community events organized by the church, you win people’s respect and eventually their sympathetic ear. If you know some useful stuff about instrumental rationality people can benefit from, that might be the time to share. Eventually you can start discussing religious beliefs and tenets in a respectful and friendly manner.
Fight the restoring force with leverage. Make friends with the local priest and affect the congregation through him. Most instrumental rationality techniques are compatible with religion. You can consider your options once you gain status.
I read this as “become the king’s most trusted adviser; it’s easy.”
You can misread it any way you like, that’s not what I wrote.
Was I overly hyperbolic, or completely orthogonal to your point? Was I reading in an implication that such things would be (somewhat) trivial that isn’t there? (I’ve noticed quite a few comments that leave me wanting to reply this way can be read as trivializing something decidedly non-trivial, and I suspect that if I called out the commenters the response would be that they meant otherwise.)
My point was that you can befriend the person(s) with leverage in the community without having to become their “trusted advisor”. Here is one scenario. Befriending a priest is indeed easy: if you come across as a friendly and curious non-believer, it is in his job description to attempt to win you over. If you cheerfully volunteer in the (non-religious) community events organized by the church, you win people’s respect and eventually their sympathetic ear. If you know some useful stuff about instrumental rationality people can benefit from, that might be the time to share. Eventually you can start discussing religious beliefs and tenets in a respectful and friendly manner.