I suspect that many people with rationalist tendencies tend to operate primarily on the fact level and assume others to be doing so as well, which might lead to plenty of frustration.
Even when rationalists realize they aren’t talking about facts they often try to apply their rules and methods for dealing with facts to these other levels (for about the 12th time in the past week I reiterate my objection to calling any value system more rational than another).
In status level, there is a classic trap rationalists (in status level communication is the right term “nerd”?) fall into. In response to a status challenge they respond by explicitly defending themselves with evidence (“I’m not gay, I have a girlfriend.” “I have too kissed a boy.” ) or denial (“I have lots of friends! Ask anyone!”). Maybe people in such cases really do think they are talking about facts, but I suspect it’s more that they’re not used to the strategies at such levels and so revert to the successful strategies they already know. If it isn’t obvious these replies almost always result in losing the status challenge.
Edit: Also, we should probably avoid using “rationalist” when we really mean something like “on the autism spectrum”.
I think we should avoid talking about people as being either on or off the autism spectrum. For the term to be useful, “autism spectrum” should refer to a spectrum that includes everybody. There’s a cluster that we can call neurotypical, and off in one direction we have some people who share a combination of traits called autism, and if you draw an imaginary n-dimensional line between them, you can meaningfully talk about where any particular person is on the autism spectrum.
“Autism spectrum” should refer to the spectrum of variation in the traits that autism affects. The current usage is confusing and doesn’t do much to help us talk about the people who are (as you put it) only about a standard deviation or so from the norm.
Even when rationalists realize they aren’t talking about facts they often try to apply their rules and methods for dealing with facts to these other levels (for about the 12th time in the past week I reiterate my objection to calling any value system more rational than another).
In status level, there is a classic trap rationalists (in status level communication is the right term “nerd”?) fall into. In response to a status challenge they respond by explicitly defending themselves with evidence (“I’m not gay, I have a girlfriend.” “I have too kissed a boy.” ) or denial (“I have lots of friends! Ask anyone!”). Maybe people in such cases really do think they are talking about facts, but I suspect it’s more that they’re not used to the strategies at such levels and so revert to the successful strategies they already know. If it isn’t obvious these replies almost always result in losing the status challenge.
Edit: Also, we should probably avoid using “rationalist” when we really mean something like “on the autism spectrum”.
I think we should avoid using “on the autism spectrum” when we mean something like “about one sigma removed from stereotypical social norms”.
I think we should avoid talking about people as being either on or off the autism spectrum. For the term to be useful, “autism spectrum” should refer to a spectrum that includes everybody. There’s a cluster that we can call neurotypical, and off in one direction we have some people who share a combination of traits called autism, and if you draw an imaginary n-dimensional line between them, you can meaningfully talk about where any particular person is on the autism spectrum.
“Autism spectrum” should refer to the spectrum of variation in the traits that autism affects. The current usage is confusing and doesn’t do much to help us talk about the people who are (as you put it) only about a standard deviation or so from the norm.