To begin, the subject reminds of a bumper sticker I occasionally see on a car around here: “Militant Agnostic: I Don’t Know, And You Don’t Either!”* Though there are plenty of examples of irrational religious beliefs leading to bad results, nonetheless I am not convinced that rationality is most useful when applied to (against?) religion. Just off the top of my head, applying it to politics directly (per Caplan’s Myth of the Rational Voter), or even something as mundane as climate (one way or the other), would yield greater dividends, as, absent a religious war among the G-8 (unlikely), improved rationality in these area should help preserve and improve economic growth, which in turn should fuel funding and legal friendliness toward anti-aging research (including cryonics). It’s boring but true—we can worry about religion later.
How to sort people by level of rationality has been on my mind quite a bit lately, because LW has previously discussed the power of rationalist organizations. We probably haven’t identified any way to sort people into various levels of rationality, “at a glance”, without dramatic and extensive testing, if only because such a tool would be immensely powerful. (IIRC, opinions differ.) The question that’s vexing me is: how do you approach a suspected rationalist or semi-rationalist and try to recruit them to a random cause? I’ve so far thought of “have a cause that has a wide appeal,” but, not having buckets of money, am somewhat at a loss as to what this might be. If rationality really is the art of winning, and if a rationalist group ought to do better at achieving its goals, it should be possible to test such ways of rationality-sorting by making groups out of suspected rationalists and having them work on some goal. “Would you like to join my guild in World of Warcraft?” doesn’t seem like it’s going to cut it. Going back to the original topic at hand, if you think that theism or atheism is such a great indicator, why not use it to take over the world? (Well, EY does have a group of about 80% atheists here, so maybe that’s what he DID).
This bring me to my own religious beliefs. Strangely enough, I moved from Catholic to Deist after reading most of the Old Testament (I skipped Song of Solomon and some of the parts where they were going through lineage or inventory or whatever). On a meta-level, although I didn’t realize it at the time, that should not be a possible effect of a substantial portion of the “word of God”. OTOH, I am somewhat surprised that no one else seems to have brought up the concept of the free floating belief.
In turn, this brings me to a what’s already been brought up in some other comments, but I think needs more emphasis: there are different degrees of irrationality in religion. Suppose that God exists and wants to get a message to you. Would it make sense to go through layers and layers of generations and bureaucracy, knowing, as we do, that humans are corrupt and/or biased, and subject to making mistakes in any case? The probability that the message would arrive as intended is low. And we also see conflicting claims of direct divine revelation even in the modern world. This seems, more or less, like Paine’s suggestion that religious claims are “hearsay.” I would very cautiously suggest that the more “applied hearsay” a religion has, the less rational it is.
*Looking it up online, the bumper sticker actually seems to be from a [political] progressive website. Leaving aside modern progressives, I just so happen to be reading The Cult of the Presidency, which depicts early 1900s Progressives as utterly insane, mostly due to religious reasons, believing that they had been appointed by God to… make people better… somehow… and cause wars, both literal and figurative. The book is published by Cato, take that as you may.
Just off the top of my head, applying it to politics directly (per Caplan’s Myth of the Rational Voter), or even something as mundane as climate (one way or the other), would yield greater dividends, as, absent a religious war among the G-8 (unlikely), improved rationality in these area should help preserve and improve economic growth, which in turn should fuel funding and legal friendliness toward anti-aging research (including cryonics).
Religion is the most likely motivating force for biological or nuclear terrorism in the next 25 years. It exacerbates geopolitical tensions that could easily lead to broader conflicts (India-Pakistan, Israel-Arab world). And a large part of why AIDS kills millions of Africans every year, contributing to the near impossibility of building economic infrastructure there, is religious superstition and the inane dogma of the Catholic church. For me at least those issues are somewhat more important than making sure rich people don’t die of old age.
I suppose my overly economical view offended. Sorry.
I would prefer a world where such conflicts and suffering did not exist. However, it still does not follow that this is where the most effort should be expended. You are talking about dramatically changing the religious beliefs of billions over a few decades. I’ve suggested that tweaking the political beliefs of some hundreds of millions, already somewhat educated, roughly over the same time period or perhaps a bit longer, may be more doable.
I’m not offended by your overly economical view. If you have some argument for why anti-aging research will help people more in the long term, great, lets here it. Nor do I doubt applying rationality to politics would have some good effects- for one we could set policies that undermine religion and superstition elsewhere. My objection was just that cryonics and anti-aging aren’t even close to being important enough to be the operating concern here. A Friendly AI, maybe. But if suspect rich-middle class Westerners stop dying of old age I suspect many of the world’s problems would be exacerbated and only one would be solved.
I’ve suggested that tweaking the political beliefs of some hundreds of millions, already somewhat educated, roughly over the same time period or perhaps a bit longer, may be more doable.
No, it is definitely more doable. It just isn’t important enough to do if your only reason is financial and legal support for cryonics.
If you have some argument for why anti-aging research will help people more in the long term, great, lets here it.
Ok: people have value—human capital, if necessary—that compounds with time: knowledge, social ties, personal organization, etc. Currently, this is greatly offset by the physical and mental decline of aging. If we could undo and prevent that decline, people would have the opportunity to be unimaginably productive. The problems that you’ve mentioned are difficult now, but they’d be easier after someone spent a second lifetime dedicated solely to working on them. Furthermore, the management of physical and financial capital across great periods of time is limited—there isn’t anyone that can realistically oversee 300+ year projects and make sure they turn out right. All of this is of value not only to the individual whose life is extended, but to others as well. Admittedly, cryonics doesn’t fall into this story perfectly, although a political environment that’s better for anti-aging in general should also be better for cryonics.
I will also confess that I don’t want to die. You shouldn’t either.
In case anyone misinterprets that last sidenote as a subtle jab: the book also says that many, not all, of these people switched sides roundabout (IIRC) the 50s through 70s, so no, it isn’t.
My apologies in advance for rambling:
To begin, the subject reminds of a bumper sticker I occasionally see on a car around here: “Militant Agnostic: I Don’t Know, And You Don’t Either!”* Though there are plenty of examples of irrational religious beliefs leading to bad results, nonetheless I am not convinced that rationality is most useful when applied to (against?) religion. Just off the top of my head, applying it to politics directly (per Caplan’s Myth of the Rational Voter), or even something as mundane as climate (one way or the other), would yield greater dividends, as, absent a religious war among the G-8 (unlikely), improved rationality in these area should help preserve and improve economic growth, which in turn should fuel funding and legal friendliness toward anti-aging research (including cryonics). It’s boring but true—we can worry about religion later.
How to sort people by level of rationality has been on my mind quite a bit lately, because LW has previously discussed the power of rationalist organizations. We probably haven’t identified any way to sort people into various levels of rationality, “at a glance”, without dramatic and extensive testing, if only because such a tool would be immensely powerful. (IIRC, opinions differ.) The question that’s vexing me is: how do you approach a suspected rationalist or semi-rationalist and try to recruit them to a random cause? I’ve so far thought of “have a cause that has a wide appeal,” but, not having buckets of money, am somewhat at a loss as to what this might be. If rationality really is the art of winning, and if a rationalist group ought to do better at achieving its goals, it should be possible to test such ways of rationality-sorting by making groups out of suspected rationalists and having them work on some goal. “Would you like to join my guild in World of Warcraft?” doesn’t seem like it’s going to cut it. Going back to the original topic at hand, if you think that theism or atheism is such a great indicator, why not use it to take over the world? (Well, EY does have a group of about 80% atheists here, so maybe that’s what he DID).
This bring me to my own religious beliefs. Strangely enough, I moved from Catholic to Deist after reading most of the Old Testament (I skipped Song of Solomon and some of the parts where they were going through lineage or inventory or whatever). On a meta-level, although I didn’t realize it at the time, that should not be a possible effect of a substantial portion of the “word of God”. OTOH, I am somewhat surprised that no one else seems to have brought up the concept of the free floating belief.
In turn, this brings me to a what’s already been brought up in some other comments, but I think needs more emphasis: there are different degrees of irrationality in religion. Suppose that God exists and wants to get a message to you. Would it make sense to go through layers and layers of generations and bureaucracy, knowing, as we do, that humans are corrupt and/or biased, and subject to making mistakes in any case? The probability that the message would arrive as intended is low. And we also see conflicting claims of direct divine revelation even in the modern world. This seems, more or less, like Paine’s suggestion that religious claims are “hearsay.” I would very cautiously suggest that the more “applied hearsay” a religion has, the less rational it is.
*Looking it up online, the bumper sticker actually seems to be from a [political] progressive website. Leaving aside modern progressives, I just so happen to be reading The Cult of the Presidency, which depicts early 1900s Progressives as utterly insane, mostly due to religious reasons, believing that they had been appointed by God to… make people better… somehow… and cause wars, both literal and figurative. The book is published by Cato, take that as you may.
Religion is the most likely motivating force for biological or nuclear terrorism in the next 25 years. It exacerbates geopolitical tensions that could easily lead to broader conflicts (India-Pakistan, Israel-Arab world). And a large part of why AIDS kills millions of Africans every year, contributing to the near impossibility of building economic infrastructure there, is religious superstition and the inane dogma of the Catholic church. For me at least those issues are somewhat more important than making sure rich people don’t die of old age.
I suppose my overly economical view offended. Sorry.
I would prefer a world where such conflicts and suffering did not exist. However, it still does not follow that this is where the most effort should be expended. You are talking about dramatically changing the religious beliefs of billions over a few decades. I’ve suggested that tweaking the political beliefs of some hundreds of millions, already somewhat educated, roughly over the same time period or perhaps a bit longer, may be more doable.
I’m not offended by your overly economical view. If you have some argument for why anti-aging research will help people more in the long term, great, lets here it. Nor do I doubt applying rationality to politics would have some good effects- for one we could set policies that undermine religion and superstition elsewhere. My objection was just that cryonics and anti-aging aren’t even close to being important enough to be the operating concern here. A Friendly AI, maybe. But if suspect rich-middle class Westerners stop dying of old age I suspect many of the world’s problems would be exacerbated and only one would be solved.
No, it is definitely more doable. It just isn’t important enough to do if your only reason is financial and legal support for cryonics.
Ok: people have value—human capital, if necessary—that compounds with time: knowledge, social ties, personal organization, etc. Currently, this is greatly offset by the physical and mental decline of aging. If we could undo and prevent that decline, people would have the opportunity to be unimaginably productive. The problems that you’ve mentioned are difficult now, but they’d be easier after someone spent a second lifetime dedicated solely to working on them. Furthermore, the management of physical and financial capital across great periods of time is limited—there isn’t anyone that can realistically oversee 300+ year projects and make sure they turn out right. All of this is of value not only to the individual whose life is extended, but to others as well. Admittedly, cryonics doesn’t fall into this story perfectly, although a political environment that’s better for anti-aging in general should also be better for cryonics.
I will also confess that I don’t want to die. You shouldn’t either.
In case anyone misinterprets that last sidenote as a subtle jab: the book also says that many, not all, of these people switched sides roundabout (IIRC) the 50s through 70s, so no, it isn’t.