Four things every community should do
Yesterday I attended church service in Romania where I had visited my sister and the sermon was about the four things a (christian) community has to follow to persevere and grow.
I first considered just posting the quote from the Acts of the Apostles (reproduced below) in the Rationality Quotes Thread but I fear without explanation the inferential gap of the quote is too large.
The LessWrong Meetups, the EA community and other rationalist communities probably can learn from the experience of long established orders (I once asked for lessons from free masonry).
So I drew the following connections:
According to the the sermon and the below verse the four pillars of a christian community are:
Some canon of scripture which for LW might be compared to the sequences. I’m not clear what the pendant for EA is.
Taking part in a closely knit community. Coming together regularly (weekly I guess is optimal).
Eat together and have rites/customs together (this is also emphasized in the LW Meetup flyer).
Praying together. I think praying could be generalized to talking and thinking about the scripture by oneself and together. Prayer also has a component of daily reflection of achievements, problems, wishes.
Other analogies that I drew from the quote:
Verse 44 describes behaviour also found in communes.
Verse 45 sounds a lot like EA teachings if you generalize it.
Verse 47 the last sentence could be interpreted to indicate exponential growth as a result of these teachings.
The verses also seem to imply some reachout by positive example.
And what I just right now notice is that embedding the rules in the scripture is essentially self-reference. As the scripture is canon this structure perpetuates itself. Clearly a meme that ensures its reproduction.
Does this sound convincing and plausible or did I fell trap to some bias in (over)interpreting the sermon?
I hope this is upvoted for the lessons we might draw from this—despite the quote clearly being theistic in origin.
The Believers Share Life Together42 The believers studied what the apostles taught. They shared life together. They broke bread and ate together. And they prayed.
43 Everyone felt that God was near. The apostles did many wonders and miraculous signs.
44 All the believers were together. They shared everything they had.
45 They sold what they owned. They gave each other everything they needed.
46 Every day they met together in the temple courtyard. In their homes they broke bread and ate together. Their hearts were glad and honest and true.
47 They praised God. They were respected by all the people. Every day the Lord added to their group those who were being saved.
I originally wanted to say that a “canon of scripture” is probably dogmatic and unnecessary, but that was mostly just anti-authoritarian attitudes speaking. After reconsidering, especially comparing to things such as the Western Canon (and the literary criticism, scholastic advancement, and cultural changes its contributed to), I would say, yes, a canon seems helpful. However, I will say that, especially with a community like LW and the rational community as a whole, there should be an important element of change to avoid dogma. No gurus, in other words.
The canon could be a set of books written outside of the community. For example “Thinking, Fast and Slow” would be one of the books in LW canon.
If we had enough books to cover most of the Sequences, we could tell people to read those books instead of reading the Sequences. It would be more pages, but on the other hand it would sound more acceptable to many people.
Maybe even better would be the set of books, plus a small “micro Sequence” explaining how that all fits together for us. To overcome compartmentalization and “guessing the teacher’s password”; to explain in near mode that we are supposed to use that stuff, not only debate it. Also a few topics that we didn’t find in any book, or for which reading the whole book would be an overkill.
Yes. I too think that the canon should contain at least one method to alter it in some ways. Scientific methods wise or something like a plausible idea at least.
I think verses 43 and 47 are the key to a truly successful community. You need that sense of collective purpose and achievement, that momentum is on your side.
However, ordinary Christian communities live in a completely different fashion compared to how the Apostles are described as living. These tenets may be the idealized pillars of a Christian community, but they are emphatically not the pillars that have held up the Christian church for the past 2 millennia. It may be that the Apostles’ style of life, although optimised for short-term success, is not the key to perpetuating communities over much longer periods.
That may be true for firmly established communities.But this sermon was held at a small new community. And I guess whenever new communities e.g. in new municipalities form this process repeats.
I do not think the Apostolic process repeats when new Christian communities are formed. Some of these pillars may be followed, but not all. In particular:
New Christian communities do not normally work on the basis of sharing everything they own and giving each other everything they need, although this has occasionally been tried (e.g. the disastrous results at Plymouth).
New Christian communities do not normally work on the basis of being together always, or meeting every day. This is too intense for most people.
New Christian communities are not necessarily respected by their non-Christian neighbours—indeed, they often draw strength from a sense of adversity.
Essentially, this lifestyle is too demanding and requires too high a level of trust for all but the most committed believers. Some monastic communities manage it (although even there you see failures), but otherwise it’s impractical. Indeed, the strength of Christianity is that although in theory everyone is supposed to pick up their Cross and follow Jesus, in practice it gives space for multiple levels of commitment. So the preacher can urge the community to be more like the apostles, and even point to real examples of Christians living that way, which acts as an ideal for the new community to aspire to. But at the same time, the community doesn’t actually go that far, which would result in their destruction by free-riders.
Step by step to post-rationality.
Building community is primarily around people. If a community is going to go and grow then it has to have the right people in the right places doing the right things. This is a hard thing to balance and even harder to find.
That being said, I think the LW could take some ideas about creating a vibrant, accepting, and advancing community by coming together, having open discussion, and most importantly creating chances for people to advance and to grow themselves. I think the regular discussion of goals and aims is a good idea and I think we need to encourage that.
Out of curiosity, and if you don’t mind my asking, (a) were you raised in a Christian community; (b) if so, did you feel any sense of belonging/identification with it? (I have a couple of observations and am seeking insight on how to frame them)
(a) yes, but in a non-strict baptist one, see also http://lesswrong.com/lw/ii5/baseline_of_my_opinion_on_lw_topics/
(b) no, I guess community service was too seldom/fluctuating. I feel strong belonging to my family though
Do you think that rationalism is becoming a religion, or should become one?
“Religion” means too many different things. To a sociologist, religion is not just a creed, it’s a social behavior; it’s something people do, not only something they believe. People get together and do various things together, which they explain in various terms — a Zen Buddhist meditation session doesn’t look very much like a High Church service, except that both involve a lot of people in a hall together.
Rationalism is a toolset with which to approach problems, not a belief system. If you had a functioning brain, you would know that.
For people like Nassim Taleb religion is also about following a bunch of habits such as praying and going to church every sunday and not centrally about belief.
That’s completely unrelated to my point? How is a habit the same thing as a tool at all? Besides, that’s not even remotely a widely-held definition for religion. I never really understood why anybody upvotes your posts, every single one of them is nonsensical to the point of idiocy.
The idea that religion is primarily about belief is very popular among atheists.
If you don’t have a habit to regularly use a mental tool that tool is worthless. Having the skill to solves Bayes formula is worthless if you don’t have the habit to use it for non-textbook problems.
Exactly. Belief itself is merely an opinion. I may believe the universe was created by a Great Lizard in the sky, but per se that doesn’t mean anything; it only means I have a weird belief.
Some beliefs push people to action. If I believe the Great Lizard will punish me unless I eat a potato every day, I will pay attention to eating potatoes, and perhaps I will even vote for subsidies for potato producers. But that still is not a religion.
Religion is the social behavior connected with the belief system. They are mutually dependent. A part of the behavior is that you should study the belief, debate it with other believers, and maybe even try to convince non-believers. A part of the belief is that you should do the behavior, and make other people in your group do it. This is the central loop; and then there are additional behaviors and beliefs growing from it.
So, back to the original question—even rationality in practice has this loop at its core. To believe rationally, there are some things you need to do, e.g. study, avoid mindkilling, et cetera. And to behave rationally, you have to know what is rational.
Sometimes you are in this loop without being aware of it; without reflecting on it. You were taught rational behavior; you were taught rational beliefs. But there is a risk that something will throw you out of the loop, either by a sudden change, or slowly step by step.
I think that LW rationality is about being in this loop and being aware of it. Not only we happen to be not chronically mindkilled; we also actively try to avoid mindkilling; and we know that we are doing that to keep ourselves in the rationality loop. Not only do we happen to have relatively correct beliefs about physical universe and humans; we also actively try to understand it better; and we know that we are doing that to keep ourselves in the rationality loop. Shortly, it’s not just that we happen to be rational at this moment, but we are also trying to remain rational, and preferebly become even more rational.
Similarly to religions, reflective rationality is a self-preserving set of behaviors and beliefs. If you believe that X is good, you probably also believe that preserving X is good, therefore yes, I support attempts to make rationality self-preserving.
And now we are exploring what exactly does it take for a system of behaviors and beliefs to be self-preserving. Both on individual and social levels; not only because we have the goal of “raising the sanity waterline”, but also because these levels interact. We are a social species; the more of us will be rational, the easier it will be for each of us. Because we can discuss our beliefs, help each other with our behaviors, solve common problems, learn from others’ failures, find a company for projects that require cooperation of multiple people.
...for your goals and the situation and other variables not stated. “Rational” is not a function with only one variable, which is why “Rational X” posts are unwelcome.
In fact, treating “rational” as a one-argument function is precisely what would make rationalism appear to be a religion. If anything, one-place functions are what religion is famous for. ;-) Good(thing), Evil(thing), Christian(thing), un-Christian(thing). When we speak as though there exists Rational(thing), we should not be surprised if people think a new religion is being proposed.
Depends on what connotations of relgion you mean. But ensuring ulturally that the scientific process doesn’t stop—and provides value by forming a religion-like commuity around it does sound like a viable way.
Reminds me of the approach proposed for warning of radioactive waste dumps for 10000 years:
Not a good analogy. Something that works and reliably gives its users comparative advantage (such as science) shouldn’t need a mechanism to keep alive an “essential message”. Institutions to teach it, and to keep it clean, yes: but those are universities, not religions.
And universities, once established, also tend to be extremely durable. They just haven’t been around for thousands of years yet. But while they have, many more newly-founded religions than universities have died.
Universities are not a good example of the institutions he was talking about. Durability isn’t the only important factor. One of the main strengths of religious institutions is their sheer pervasiveness; by inserting itself into every facet of life, religion ensures that its disciples can’t stray too far from the path without being reminded of it. Universities, sadly, are not capable of this level of involvement in the lives of communities or individuals.
In this case, rationality should seek to emulate religion by creating institutions and thus a lifestyle that makes its ideas pervasive. For example, if you could attend weekly lectures at your local “rationality church” or have those better at the art of rationality available to guide you the way priests guide Christians, becoming and staying a rationalist would be much easier and thus more accessible to the populace. This already sort of happens through the internet and meetups, but what religion has is a proven formula that builds communities around ideas, and we can definitely learn from it.
That’s called totalitarianism, by the way. Not many people consider it to be a good thing.
Not necessarily. It’s totalitarianism if said institutions do the ensuring through force, and without the consent of the disciples. However, by choosing to belong to a religious community, people choose to have institutions and members of the community remind them of the religious values.
The mark of totalitarianism is not force, but rather complete control over all aspects of life.
“He loved Big Brother”.
I made no mention of control. Simply being present in all aspects of life is not the same as having control over all aspects of life. For example, if you live in a western society it’s extremely probable that marketing and advertising are present in many aspects of your life, but I don’t think either of us would say that the simple fact of their presence gives the marketers control over those aspects of your life.
Well, yes, but I think that in practice living within a religious community imposes a lot of pressure to conform to the religious norms. Some of that pressure is social (from not being invited to the right cocktail parties to outright shunning) and some can be direct and violent. I recall that the haredim are not above throwing stones at cars on a Saturday...
I agree that this is the case in some religious communities, and that this is not necessarily the direction a rationalist community should go. (On the other hand, I have a hard time agreeing with the proposition that social pressure in favor of rationality is a bad thing, but I have yet to reach a definite conclusion on the subject.) However, I happen to be familiar with several religious communities where direct and violent pressure to conform is not the case, and it is those communities I wish to emulate.
I feel that the cohesiveness of a community and its effectiveness at maintaining its norms is directly and strongly correlated to the disincentives that it provides for deviating from these norms. Just presence of symbols is not enough.
Of course things like self-selection and evaporative cooling are major factors as well.
Based on admittedly anecdotal evidence I’m inclined believe this correlation, but I think we’re interpreting its existence differently. In my view, by becoming more “religious” and providing more disincentives for deviating from norms, we can increase our cohesiveness and effectiveness, but this should only be done up to a point, that point being, as far as I can tell, where we as a community can no longer tolerate the disincentives. This view is based on my value judgment that not all disincentives for deviating from norms I find acceptable or admirable are unacceptable, but rather too many disincentives or those that are too extreme are unacceptable.
Be careful about keeping descriptive and normative separate.
The correlation that we are talking about is descriptive and has to do with observable reality. What you think should be done and how is normative and has to do with your value judgments.
You’re right, my apologies.
My value judgment about disincentives still stands, though. Religious communities have a framework for applying social and other disincentives (and incentives) in order to achieve their desired result. That framework could be useful if adapted to the purpose of promoting rationality.
I’m not sure that science ‘itself’ (i.e. without cultural aspects shared with religion) “reliably gives its users comparative advantage”. The advantage for the individual is quite small—if not negative in some cases. It is only by the society embracing science that it gains the society at large a large advantage.
Now that we have science we individuals may find that ‘doing’ science is to our individual disadvatage and abstain from it (freerider-wise).
If on the other hand you see science as a set of cultural rules and customs—and your university example points in that direction—then science already has lots in common with religion. Why not build on that?
I’m not talking about benefits to individuals as much as benefits to companies and societies. I believe that of two otherwise very similar companies and societies, if one does R&D and the other doesn’t, the one that does will very reliably outcompete the other in the long term.
I’m all for developing non-superstitious alternatives to religion, and I do think community-building is a vital part of that. But to be inside that reference class must give rise to many associations, not all of which are fortunate. In particular, it renders the “creed” a matter of subjective belief and feeling. I wouldn’t want the Sequences to be seen that way. The creed your imagined community should center around would have to be something compatible with them, yet distinct from them. Humanism is one of the more obvious possibilities.
Free-riding can happen among societies too. It is quite possible that a society doing little R&D itself but applying R&D results from other societies outcompetes those. I hear this is happening in the form that some asian countries learn from the west without investing as much.
Freerider societies actually outcompeting innovators? Name three.
I wouldn’t call it freerider society but rather copy-cat societies but...
Japan did this at the end of the 19th century:
http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2781050?uid=3737864&uid=2&uid=4&sid=21104386363121
And China did this until recently
http://www.techradar.com/news/computing-components/processors/arm-days-of-china-copying-western-tech-are-ending-1247241
I guess quite a few asian satellites e.g. Taiwan did/do this too.
I don’t know if those examples show ‘outcompeting’. The overall picture of various countries doesn’t show late growers exceeding the absolute wealth of early growers (maybe one would predict this based on cultural/human-capital/institution theories?).
As far as Western industrialization went, the big players in roughly chronological order were the UK, Netherlands, France, USA, & Austria/Germany. It seems fair to call them the ‘innovators’, and you seem to have only East Asian countries in mind, so I’ll look at just China/Taiwan/Korea (South, but not North)/Japan/Hong Kong (which I think is all of them) as ‘imitators’.
Consider their wealth (GDP PPP per capita); in descending order it goes: United States (10), Hong Kong (10), Netherlands/Belgium (13/24), Austria/Germany (16/17), Taiwan (22), France (26), Japan (27), UK (28), South Korea (30), and 60 places way down the list is China (89).
How badly are they outcompeted? Well, South Korea & China beat none of them, Japan just barely edges out the UK (which we might attribute to socialist decay), Taiwan is past France & the UK but is pretty small, and Hong Kong is even more exceptional (tiny & UK-founded). In general, it seems to be better to be an ‘innovator’ than a (successful) ‘imitator’.
If I drop Hong Kong as too tiny and exceptional, the permutations seem to be going in the direction of innovation being better too:
At least, if the East Asians are ‘outcompeting’, it doesn’t look like it’s clearly happened yet.
I find it a very sensible move to go for numbers here, esp. GDP/capita, but I’m not sure that captures the outcompeting/freeriding that was meant.
If you’re talking about copycats reducing the distance they lag behind innovators, at a reduced cost relative to what the innovators invested into building that distance, those are good examples.
For outcompeting, no.
It’s hard to do country comparisons because of all the confounders. But for particular industries, it’s easy to find examples.
The Japanese automobile industry clearly outcompeted the US one during the late 80s and the 90s, for example. Or look at where all the semiconductors are produced.
This is not to say that being a copycat is better than being an innovator—just that the first-mover advantage sometimes is significant and sometimes is not.
On what basis do you consider the Japanese automobile industry not engaging in research and innovation?
For the data I can find Japan had in 1984 62k granted patents while the US had 67k Given that the US had roughly twice the population, Japan might have outcompeted the US because of more innovation.
You twist my words—I said nothing like this.
The Japanese cars gained market share in the US not because they were more technologically advanced. Their primary advantage was that they were more reliable, mostly as a function of better manufacturing practices.
One could consider that to be asign if higher sophistication.
As far as I remember it was more a function of the assembly workers tightening up the nuts with the correct torque and not dropping engine blocks on the floor before installing them. I am not sure better quality control counts as “higher sophistication” in this context.
Reducing the distance they lag behind by copy-catting is outcompeting—in the relative sense. Otherwise they wouldn’t catch up but fall further behind. That they didn’t start out at the same level could be considered more historical chance than missing ability.