Can you imagine a human being saying “I’m sorry, I’m too low-level to participate in this discussion”? There may be a tiny handful of people wise enough to try it.
This is precisely why people should be encouraged to do it more. I’ve found that the more you admit to a lack of ability where you don’t have the ability, the more people are willing to listen to you where you do.
I also see interesting parallels to the relationship between skeptics and pseudoscience, where we replace skeptics → rationalists, pseudoscience → religion. Namely, “things that look like politics are the mindkiller” works as “things that look like pseudoscience are obviously dumb”. It provides an opportunity to view yourself as smarter than other people without thinking too hard about the issue.
This is precisely why people should be encouraged to do it more. I’ve found that the more you admit to a lack of ability where you don’t have the ability, the more people are willing to listen to you where you do.
I also see interesting parallels to the relationship between skeptics and pseudoscience, where we replace skeptics → rationalists, pseudoscience → religion. Namely, “things that look like politics are the mindkiller” works as “things that look like pseudoscience are obviously dumb”. It provides an opportunity to view yourself as smarter than other people without thinking too hard about the issue.