Using the martial arts metaphor, at least Mensa appears to be more about having a lot of muscle, not about fighting skills, and there isn’t a strong agenda to improve either.
I agree. Mensa and the AMA aren’t actually avowedly rational, nor do they have any group goals that require the same, but they are weakly rational groups, because they contain a lot of smart people and they have institutional biases against failures of intelligence and opinion.
This keeps out certain types of dysrationalia, which is all I needed for my comparison to more vulnerable groups like the LDS and those Charismatic Protestants.
I’d say they have no better success at rationalism than the Mormons. All they have is a reactive distaste for some of the traditional symptoms of dumb, including the sillier kinds of religion. They are completely undefended against other death spirals, even closely related ones concerning silly but detailed theories with no evidence.
Using the martial arts metaphor, at least Mensa appears to be more about having a lot of muscle, not about fighting skills, and there isn’t a strong agenda to improve either.
I agree. Mensa and the AMA aren’t actually avowedly rational, nor do they have any group goals that require the same, but they are weakly rational groups, because they contain a lot of smart people and they have institutional biases against failures of intelligence and opinion.
This keeps out certain types of dysrationalia, which is all I needed for my comparison to more vulnerable groups like the LDS and those Charismatic Protestants.
I’d say they have no better success at rationalism than the Mormons. All they have is a reactive distaste for some of the traditional symptoms of dumb, including the sillier kinds of religion. They are completely undefended against other death spirals, even closely related ones concerning silly but detailed theories with no evidence.