You should worry when you say something that doesn’t advance your argument if you take out the snide—I have to guard against this myself. It’s not that we are “so much more advanced” at being Bayesian rationalists—it’s that we are applying those techniques to a domain that they compartmentalised away.
It’s not because we’re meanies, or self-congratulatory, that theists are extremely irrational about something that touches on many parts of their thinking—it’s a fact that we have to live with. There’s just no way that someone can be religious and on board with what we are trying to do here, because being on board would inevitably mean opening the compartment, breaking the spell, and losing those beliefs.
What I was trying to get at is that it seems likely to me that most of us here probably have at least one irrational belief, and that there’s a fine line between “we agree that this is irrational” and “you must reject this belief to participate here”. The latter is harmful even if the belief is factually incorrect.
That is to say, the only reason we should want theists to avoid this site is because they’ve observed that other theists participating here deconvert suspiciously often.
EDIT: Fixed some tpyos that seriously screwed up a point I was making.
I know one theist who deconverted at least in part because of OB, and there are others who have posted here to say the same. That’s pretty strong testimony that we’ve got some good stuff here, although it could plausibly be sampling bias.
And religious message boards often have a few converts they can trot out to demonstrate the power of their content.
If you’re trying to be a rationalist, why reach a conclusion about the effectiveness of OB’s content to induce deconversion if you don’t know how many theists have come across it and failed to deconvert? You’re not in possession of the information needed to reach a rational conclusion.
You should worry when you say something that doesn’t advance your argument if you take out the snide—I have to guard against this myself. It’s not that we are “so much more advanced” at being Bayesian rationalists—it’s that we are applying those techniques to a domain that they compartmentalised away.
It’s not because we’re meanies, or self-congratulatory, that theists are extremely irrational about something that touches on many parts of their thinking—it’s a fact that we have to live with. There’s just no way that someone can be religious and on board with what we are trying to do here, because being on board would inevitably mean opening the compartment, breaking the spell, and losing those beliefs.
I agree, on the whole.
What I was trying to get at is that it seems likely to me that most of us here probably have at least one irrational belief, and that there’s a fine line between “we agree that this is irrational” and “you must reject this belief to participate here”. The latter is harmful even if the belief is factually incorrect.
That is to say, the only reason we should want theists to avoid this site is because they’ve observed that other theists participating here deconvert suspiciously often.
EDIT: Fixed some tpyos that seriously screwed up a point I was making.
I know one theist who deconverted at least in part because of OB, and there are others who have posted here to say the same. That’s pretty strong testimony that we’ve got some good stuff here, although it could plausibly be sampling bias.
And religious message boards often have a few converts they can trot out to demonstrate the power of their content.
If you’re trying to be a rationalist, why reach a conclusion about the effectiveness of OB’s content to induce deconversion if you don’t know how many theists have come across it and failed to deconvert? You’re not in possession of the information needed to reach a rational conclusion.
I agree in regards to OB.
I am concerned that LW will fail to maintain that standard.
Does anyone here think otherwise?