Chapman’s entire shtick is pretending to be wise, but even worse he’s good enough that people take his ideas seriously. And then spend months or years of effort building a superstructure of LW-shaped mysterianness on top of it, losing sight of actual ability to distinguish true things from false things and/or accomplish goals.
The basic deal is that it professes to include all the goals and prpose of rationality, while also using other methods. But those other methods are thinly-disguised woo, which are attractive because they’re easy and comfortable, and comfortable because they’re not bound to effectiveness and accuracy. It keeps the style and language of the rationalist community—the bad parts—while pushing the simple view of truth so far back in its priorities that it’s just lip service.
I’ll grant that this isn’t quite the same flavor of anti-truth woo as Chapman. But the difference is unimportant to me.
Chapman’s entire shtick is pretending to be wise, but even worse he’s good enough that people take his ideas seriously. And then spend months or years of effort building a superstructure of LW-shaped mysterianness on top of it, losing sight of actual ability to distinguish true things from false things and/or accomplish goals.
The basic deal is that it professes to include all the goals and prpose of rationality, while also using other methods. But those other methods are thinly-disguised woo, which are attractive because they’re easy and comfortable, and comfortable because they’re not bound to effectiveness and accuracy. It keeps the style and language of the rationalist community—the bad parts—while pushing the simple view of truth so far back in its priorities that it’s just lip service.
I’ll grant that this isn’t quite the same flavor of anti-truth woo as Chapman. But the difference is unimportant to me.