Are committed truthseekers lonelier?
People of a truthseeking bent—rationalists, unbiased scientists, inquisitive non-ideologues—are these types of people likely to be lonelier on average? Those who hold a particular set of positions, tastes, perspectives, worldviews, or preferences to be part of a group, rather than the other way around (being considered part of some group because they hold a particular set of positions) seem like they are at a significant advantage when it comes to the ability to make and keep friends, or at least find tolerant acquaintances compared to the typical truthseeker.
The truthseeker, by virtue of their ability to find, to a particular group they are currently part of or interacting with, uncomfortable truths, seems to put them in the unenviable position of, once they’ve found a particular uncomfortable truth, having to either keep quiet and have less-than-completely honest or more limited interactions, or speaking their mind and getting ostracized. Along with this, they’re far less likely to engage in “false flattery”, are more likely to focus on details and nuance (and hence be perceived negatively, due to an aversion to pedantry on certain subjects by some), far more likely to voice disagreement, and far more likely to wind up being a person to defend something considered objectionable by the group (they’d defend the proverbial idiot who says the sun will rise tomorrow—since it will, regardless of the fact that an idiot says it.)
The truthseeker may also confuse their interlocutors, due to what may be perceived as “holding contradictory views” (“how can you think THAT if you also think THIS? You don’t know what you’re talking about”); they may be accused of being a “plant” from the “other side” (“if you think that particular thing, you must secretly be an X, so all that other stuff you said that I agree with must be a lie”); they may be thought of as a troll or prankster (“you’re just saying that thing I consider objectionable to get a negative reaction out of me, but I know you really agree with me on that the way you [honestly] agree with me on all that other stuff”), or that you’re playing devil’s advocate for its own sake. These things all happen, but due to the (current) inability to know for sure another’s motives, it may be easy to confuse the truthseeker with the idiot, the confused/self-contradictory, the plant, the troll, or the advocate, even though the truthseeker’s ideas and motives have nothing to do with any of those.
Based on limited observations coupled with a little speculation, I’d say that yes, truthseekers are likely to be lonelier on average. They’re likely much rarer, so finding other committed truthseekers would be tough, and there’s no guarantee they’d even like each other (for non-truthseeking-related reasons—like not liking the same subjective things (music, fashion, food, etc.)) My personal experience says that one can be professionally and personal well respected, considered extremely friendly, and still have no “real” friends; truthseekers are easy to love, but considered difficult to like.
Perhaps a simpler reason (in the typical case) is that the truthseeker is simply perceived by your typical person as a whole lot less fun.
I don’t see why truth seekers should have any extra difficulty attracting friends. Truth speakers are a different story.
Humans are often blabbermouths—and make poor liars.
Trouble is, it’s very hard to prevent these things from influencing one another.
Then perhaps learning to separate the two should become one of the core skills of the instrumental rationalist.
Actually, I’m being glib here. The core skill I myself would advocate developing would be learning when to separate the two.
I would be interested in reading an article that addressed the “when” question.
Well, I’m not the person to write that article. I don’t even understand why people need to be reminded not to ‘shoot the messenger’. It is because receiving the message is painful? Because the message is not believed?
Perhaps you have conflated correlation and causation. It is possible that loners, or people who are less concerned with group conformity simply have more time and resources to devote to their rationality.
I don’t believe I’ve conflated anything. It’s posed as a question because I don’t know the answer; I’m giving my view and some speculation based on a nagging feeling/set of thoughts. I’m looking for the views and experiences of others who may have observed/felt something similar.
I certainly agree that it can seem that rationalists are lonelier, I’m just posing an alternate reason why. Though, perhaps your post deserves a more thoughtful reply than I gave.
Unfortunately, the question seems to be a difficult one to answer. First, we need to find a way to determine whether or not rationalists truly are more lonely. Loneliness seems like a tricky variable to quantify. Some ideas that spring to mind: You could measure the size of social circles using social network data or self-report surveys. Simply measure self-reported loneliness. Measure loneliness with some sort of psychological screening like you would measure introvertedness or conscientiousness. Record how often someone goes out with friends. Rationality might be easier to measure, except that I think self-report data would be unreliable, as it seems likely that like intelligence or competence at a given task, rationality would be underrated by those that have it and overrated by those who don’t, but I’m sure the folks here at less wrong or elsewhere could write up a survey that measures it fairly well.
Then only once these variables are quantified, would we be able to see if there even is a correlation to begin with. Though it could be explained a number of ways. Rational people are attracted mainly to other rational people, and there are fewer rationalists than non-rationalists. Human social ques are emotionally rather than logically based. Rational people are more likely to be candid about sensitive topics, scaring away non-rationalists. People with psychological traits such as placement on the Asperger’s scale or high introversion could be conducive to rationality and not conducive to social aptitude. Or a combination of any of these. it’s an interesting topic, but I think we are a long way from being able to draw any big rational conclusions about it yet.
An alternative (albeit cynical) interpretation is that people who are already lonely have less to loose by believing things that send bad signals, that say very sociable people, since they have to cover up such beliefs less often as well as derive their sense of self wroth from things other than social interactions and their public image.
Incidentally, I’ve lost many friends over the years because I’m far more interested in being rigorous about beliefs and evidence than they are comfortable with.
(This isn’t the same thing as seeking truth; I’m usually far more interested in working out what follows from a belief in X than in working out whether a belief in X follows from observable data.)
I’ve also lost friends because of activities they’re really interested in that bore me to tears. These things happen.
But I’ve also made a great many friends for whom this aspect of my personality is a large part of what they like about me. And I don’t regret the trade for a moment.
So when I find myself feeling like I have to choose between being true to myself and having friends, I generally conclude that my best bet is to seek out better friends.
Without resorting to psychology, it seems like one obvious reason why “committed truthseekers” would be lonelier is that committed truthseeking is a time-consuming, often solitary, and rather unpopular activity. Unless you have fairly particular circumstances that permit you to meet other similar minds (e.g. you’re in academia or the sciences) your truthseeking time is probably taking away from your socializing time.
Sure; comparative advantage (and sometimes just the belief in comparative advantage) creates polymorphism.
That is, if I identify as a dedicated truthseeker for whom social concerns are a mere distraction, I won’t learn social skills or practice them. If I identify as a dedicated socializer for whom the truth is irrelevant, I won’t learn rational skills or practice them. That sort of polarizing identification will create the kinds of socially incompetent truthseekers you describe.
But IME an epistemic predisposition for truth over falsehoods (which generally entails such virtues as curiosity and rigor and a willingness to question and so forth) sorts pretty independently with a social predisposition for respecting other people’s preferences (which generally entails such virtues as kindness and civility and a willingness to cooperate and so forth).
That is, I know plenty of people like you describe, who have the epistemic predisposition but lack the social one, and therefore end up asserting truths and challenging falsehoods without any consideration for other people’s preferences. And you’re right, as long as they keep doing that, they don’t make many friends.
But I also know plenty of people who lack both, and quite a few people who have the social but not the epistemic, and a few people who have both.
So I am not convinced that people with the epistemic predisposition (“truthseekers”) are any less likely to be socially successful than the general population, any more than attractive people are any less likely to be intelligent (or vice versa), any more than if I randomly choose a ball and a stick from two piles of 80 white items and 20 red ones, having a red ball makes me less likely to get a red stick.
That said, there seems to be a strong bias in popular culture towards assuming that they are (in all three cases, and many others)… a kind of belief in the conservation of luck, or something, where doing well in one lottery makes you somehow less likely to do well in others. (This is compensated for by a belief in “winning streaks,” but that’s less relevant when talking about genetic lotteries.)
Interesting question. I think there’s something to this in at least one subset of the phenomenon you discuss: when one’s environment is filled with believers in X and “truthseeking” leads one to conclude that belief in X is likely false… loneliness ensues, especially if X is a “hot topic” like a political stance or religion. This has been my experience having all-but-deconverted from Catholicism.
Part of the entire reason I want to try for a meetup in Minnesota, as I said to my brother the other day, is that I need some new friends.
A related hypothesis that came up in the discussion with my brother focused on the difference between Myers-Briggs S vs. N types. N’s tend to be open to possibilities, “what ifs” and change, and S’s a bit less so—what I see/know is so, deference to authority figures, etc.. I have no idea if “truthseekers” are of a high N component, but it would interesting to know. Perhaps the loneliness only comes about when the surrounding environment is more rigid, unwilling to update given new evidence, or something similar.
If everyone were happy to examine one’s case, discuss the available evidence and related probabilistic reliabilities associated… it would seem that there would be no source for divisiveness and therefore no source for loneliness.
I think it’s just as possible to feel alienated when I’m strongly committed to a particular view and my environment is more “open to possibilities.”
I wish you success in finding a new social community that works for you.
An excellent point I was definitely not considering!
Personally, I haven’t found it too difficult to maintain a group of friends, even while fitting many of the descriptions you gave. I am somewhat unusual in that I’ve had the same group of friends since I was 8 years old. There have been additions to the group, of course, and the degree of closeness between any two of us has varied over the years. In general, though, having such a long history together helps us to be able to interact honestly with each other despite our various different behaviors and preferences (political, religious, academic, etc.).
I have found it difficult to find a romantic partner, though there are confounding factors in that problem (going to a school which is only ~30% female).
May I just enquire how long you have had this group of friends? I have found that very young people can actually be pretty tolerant of differing opinions and ideologies as long as conformity on other axis is high.
This is a very interesting questions. Sexual relationships and those of strong emotional bonds operate on, I would claim, different principles than regular friendships.
On the one hand some uncomfortable truths send bad signals and definitely lower perceived value as a mate, on the other some uncomfortable truths about the sexes seem to have potential practical value.
I’m 22 now, so it’s been close to two-thirds of my life for many of my friends in that group. We all share higher-than-average intelligence and academic achievement, though in many different areas.
That’s how I feel about them. A friendship can have a limited scope and still be successful and fulfilling, but I don’t think I would be able to have the emotional intimacy I desire from a romantic relationship with someone who didn’t embrace a rational worldview.