Thanks for writing this up! I shall definitely try to come along to a meetup again soon.
coffeespoons
It’s difficult. I decided to end a friendship recently, due to the friend’s wholehearted embrace of catholic doctrine. I just didn’t want to be around someone with her views on homosexuality, abortion and contraception. Not sure if this was the right decision, but I no longer found her company enjoyable, and I thought I was unlikely to change her mind.
I find it much easier to be friends with more liberal christians. They are wrong, but in a way that I find easier to deal with.
ETA: could someone explain why this has been downvoted twice? I’m quite new to this site, and would like to know how to avoid this.
ETA2: No longer downvoted, so ignore previous question!
She did want to discuss moral issues quite a lot, and yes she did want to convert me back to catholicism. I couldn’t see what could be gained by continuing the friendship.
And I wanted to change her mind, because it’s better not to be a catholic!
As I say below, she did insist on talking about it too muuch :-).
It would be interesting to discuss the utility of choosing your friends based on politics, but I fear we’d be going too far off topic!
I expect that, as an atheist blogger, she will have encountered these arguments before.
I didn’t care too much that she’s never been much of a rationalist. If I decided that I only wanted to be friends with rationalists I would have to end friendships with a lot of people! I found that her views made her annoying to be around! Perhaps if she’d talked less about her views things would have been different.
I’d love to meet more rationalist women, but sadly there’s no way I could visit the US this summer. If any of you are ever in the UK, it would be great to meet you.
I read this post last night. I was in the office late, not because I had a great deal to do, but because I was procrastinating. After reading it, I asked my friend to give me a quick call to say congratulations in a half an hour if I’d finished all the work. It took me 10 minutes to finish! :)
I have made an effort to participate on Less Wrong a bit, despite feeling intimidated! I want to learn more about rationality, and I think that I learn better if I involve myself in discussions about a topic :).
I’d like to second this recommendation. I used to catastrophise to a crippling degree, and I do it far less since my course of CBT. Mind Over Mood is excellent.
Some anti-depressants work pretty well for anxiety too. Are you on any medication?
I’ve found the self-help stuff on here useful, and I was wondering if anyone could recommend any useful online study skills guides? I’m particularly interested in learning to read/take notes and retain information more effectively. At the moment, I can spend hours reading and take very little in!
I also think that LW has provided negative benefit to my life. Since I decided that I wanted my beliefs to be true, rather than pleasing to me, I’ve felt less connected to my friendship group. I used to have certain politcal views that a lot of my friends approved of. Now, I think I was wrong about many things (not totally wrong, but I’m far less confident of the views that I continue to hold). Overall, I’d rather believe true things, but I think so far it’s made me less happy.
1.I would just rather know the right answer!
2.I think believing true things has better consequences than the reverse, for many people. I’m not sure if it will for me.
3.It’s too late. I can’t decide to go back to believing things that aren’t true to make me feel better, because I’d know that’s what I was doing.
Would you not prefer to believe true things?
Here are a couple of other reasons:
4.So, I suppose in some ways, feeling that my beliefs are more accurate has given me some sort of satisfaction. I don’t know it it outweigh’s feeling disconnected socially, though.
5.Altruism. I used to put a lot of energy into UK politics. I gained moral satisfaction and approval from my friends for this, but I’ve come to think that it’s really not a very effective way of improving the world. I would rather learn about more effective ways of making the world better (eg, donating to efficient charity).
Does that make sense? If you did feel that believing true things made you unhappy, would you try to make yourself belief not-true but satisfying things?
Natasha Walter makes the argument that Eliezer refers to in Living Dolls (not really about ev-psych, but about the idea of innate differences between genders in abilities), and I’m sure there are other examples (I haven’t actually read all that much feminist writing). However, I have also encountered people who won’t even discuss the issue with anyone who is pro-ev psych because they think that they’re so morally appalling. Not sure how typical the people I’m encountered are though—I suspect they may be more extreme than most, and the most extreme people are the loudest.
Explanations might be useful for new users (like me—if I got downvoted, it would be good to know what I’d gotten wrong) but if people had to explain every time they downvote a troll it might be a bit of a waste of time. If trollfeeding is already a problem on here, that would surely make it worse...
On Less Wrong, people mostly seem to prefer “discussing things to find out the truth” instead of “arguing to win.” See this post here:
My impression is that people will be more willing to discuss things with you, if you use the discussion style that’s mostly used on this site.
Go on? It seems to be the most approved of/most encouraged way to discuss things, and there seems to be a lot less arguing to win than on other forums.
I’d be very interested in reading it!
Hiya,
I’ve been occasionally reading for a while, and have decided to get a login. I suppose the reason I’m here is that it’s become important in the last 2 years or so that my beliefs are as accurate as possible. I’ve slowly had to let go of some beliefs because the evidence didn’t seem to support them, and while that’s been painful it has been worthwhile.
I’m also a friend of ciphergoth’s—we’ve discussed less wrong a lot! I don’t feel like I know a great deal yet—I still need to read more of the sequences, so I’ll stick to asking questions until I feel I know more :-).
I’m 28, female, and I live in Cambridge, UK. My academic background is in the philosophy/politics/economics area, and I work in accounts.
coffeespoons