“Buddhism has been damaging to the epistemics of everyone in this sphere. Buddhism was only ever privileged as a hypothesis due to background SF/Bay-Area spiritualism rather than real merit.
Buddhist materials are explicitly selected for reshaping how you think within their frames. This makes it like joining a minor cult to learn their social skills. Some can extract the useful parts without buying in, but they are notably underrepresented in any discussion (some selection effects of course). The default assumption should be that you won’t, especially as the topic is treated without notable suspicion.
Most other religions are massively safer to practice for a few years, though not without their risks, as they have more ritual rather than mental molding, and more argumentation for their Rightness. You’re already primed to notice flaws in arguments. Buddhism operates more directly on your mindset, framing, and probably even values as humans are not idealized agents where those are separate.
Meditation is useful, and probably doesn’t result in a lot of the central and surrounding Buddhist thought. However just like joining a cult, or playing a gacha game, you should be skeptical of Buddhism similarly as they are all Out to Get You.
My less strongly held opinion is that Buddhism’s likely endpoints are incompatible with human values and often truth-seeking. This would matter less if it was treated with suspicion, just as we rightly view most religions with skepticism even while openly discussing them, but it is a gaping hole in our mental defenses.”
(I agree with Ryan Greenblatt that most basically decent posts wouldn’t end up with negative karma for very long though; but I’d expect this to be decently unpopular)
I’d like to see the full post carefully argued. Right now, I think I have one specific kind of thing about buddhism I disapprove of (which is that I believe acceptance can be bad actually and not having desires isn’t an inherent virtue) and would back my reason for arguing a similar thing, and otherwise don’t agree and you’d have to convince me.
I remember a Scot Alexander post a while ago about Bhudism and suffering, I beleive he was asking Isur about some aspect of it. His phrasing implied that the idea that Bhudism has something important to teach us, some kind of magic juice, was to be taken very seriously. I imagine an equivalent post about Hinduism or Islam, or even Kabalistic stuff, would have used more detached ‘they beleive this stuff’ phrasing.
I dont agree that Bhudism is somehow uniquely unhealthy to people. I do find it interesting how it seems to provoke different instinctive reactions than other religions.
“Buddhism has been damaging to the epistemics of everyone in this sphere. Buddhism was only ever privileged as a hypothesis due to background SF/Bay-Area spiritualism rather than real merit.
Buddhist materials are explicitly selected for reshaping how you think within their frames. This makes it like joining a minor cult to learn their social skills. Some can extract the useful parts without buying in, but they are notably underrepresented in any discussion (some selection effects of course). The default assumption should be that you won’t, especially as the topic is treated without notable suspicion. Most other religions are massively safer to practice for a few years, though not without their risks, as they have more ritual rather than mental molding, and more argumentation for their Rightness. You’re already primed to notice flaws in arguments. Buddhism operates more directly on your mindset, framing, and probably even values as humans are not idealized agents where those are separate.
Meditation is useful, and probably doesn’t result in a lot of the central and surrounding Buddhist thought. However just like joining a cult, or playing a gacha game, you should be skeptical of Buddhism similarly as they are all Out to Get You.
My less strongly held opinion is that Buddhism’s likely endpoints are incompatible with human values and often truth-seeking. This would matter less if it was treated with suspicion, just as we rightly view most religions with skepticism even while openly discussing them, but it is a gaping hole in our mental defenses.”
(I agree with Ryan Greenblatt that most basically decent posts wouldn’t end up with negative karma for very long though; but I’d expect this to be decently unpopular)
I’d like to see the full post carefully argued. Right now, I think I have one specific kind of thing about buddhism I disapprove of (which is that I believe acceptance can be bad actually and not having desires isn’t an inherent virtue) and would back my reason for arguing a similar thing, and otherwise don’t agree and you’d have to convince me.
I remember a Scot Alexander post a while ago about Bhudism and suffering, I beleive he was asking Isur about some aspect of it. His phrasing implied that the idea that Bhudism has something important to teach us, some kind of magic juice, was to be taken very seriously. I imagine an equivalent post about Hinduism or Islam, or even Kabalistic stuff, would have used more detached ‘they beleive this stuff’ phrasing.
I dont agree that Bhudism is somehow uniquely unhealthy to people. I do find it interesting how it seems to provoke different instinctive reactions than other religions.