Will you change your mind if I self-identify as a skeptic who has changed their mind? In this earlier comment I listed three examples of recent updates.
I got a bit disappointed, when it seemed to be a group of people that shout basic level cached ideas about religion and new age around. How rational are they actually?
Pretty rational. These are cached thoughts often because they are generally correct. (ETA: Similarly, for example, when people make arguments here about why qualia should matter, fairly basic arguments are often presented about why they aren’t mysterious. Reversed stupidity is not intelligence and all that.)
Indeed, I’ve found that if anything LW is more likely to take for granted simplistic negative views about religion than much of the skeptical movement. For example, see this thread where a user made a trivially wrong claim about Newton’s religion and its impact on his work as a scientist. That claim got voted up to +6. Eliezer spotted that the claim was dubious enough to ask for a citation but didn’t do the minimal thought that was required to correct it, and it took me to actually go through and explain why the claim was complete nonsense. In that regard, the skeptical movement seems similar to LW, incorrect claims that reinforce peoples’ worldview are likely to be accepted uncritically but corrections will be accepted. In this regard, this is a (small) step up from most of the world where claims that support a pre-existing world view once accepted become almost impossible to dislodge.
Will you change your mind if I self-identify as a skeptic who has changed their mind?
Yes. I overgeneralized.
Pretty rational. These are cached thoughts often because they are generally correct.
I sometimes wonder if ‘that is all’, the fight against homeopathy, religion, fortune teller etc. is highly valuable. It sometimes seems to me like boring grunt-work where more would be possible. The picture of sanity plumbers sounds nice.
In that regard, the skeptical movement seems similar to LW, incorrect claims that reinforce peoples worldview are likely to be accepted uncritically but corrections will be accepted. In this regard, this is a (small) step up from most of the world where claims that support a pre-existing world view once accepted become almost impossible to dislodge.
Yes. I fell into this trap quite often, and still do.
Will you change your mind if I self-identify as a skeptic who has changed their mind? In this earlier comment I listed three examples of recent updates.
Pretty rational. These are cached thoughts often because they are generally correct. (ETA: Similarly, for example, when people make arguments here about why qualia should matter, fairly basic arguments are often presented about why they aren’t mysterious. Reversed stupidity is not intelligence and all that.)
Indeed, I’ve found that if anything LW is more likely to take for granted simplistic negative views about religion than much of the skeptical movement. For example, see this thread where a user made a trivially wrong claim about Newton’s religion and its impact on his work as a scientist. That claim got voted up to +6. Eliezer spotted that the claim was dubious enough to ask for a citation but didn’t do the minimal thought that was required to correct it, and it took me to actually go through and explain why the claim was complete nonsense. In that regard, the skeptical movement seems similar to LW, incorrect claims that reinforce peoples’ worldview are likely to be accepted uncritically but corrections will be accepted. In this regard, this is a (small) step up from most of the world where claims that support a pre-existing world view once accepted become almost impossible to dislodge.
Yes. I overgeneralized.
I sometimes wonder if ‘that is all’, the fight against homeopathy, religion, fortune teller etc. is highly valuable. It sometimes seems to me like boring grunt-work where more would be possible. The picture of sanity plumbers sounds nice.
Yes. I fell into this trap quite often, and still do.