It’s unfortunate that monetary incentives are notoriously vulnerable to being Goodharted into uselessness or worse. You try to offer a bounty on X [undesirable thing], people start [building/breeding] more of them and making a killing.
This is not to say incentives and/or subsidies can never work, only that implementing them effectively is a non-trivial task.
ErioirE
Karma: 104
While they don’t expect to literally see Jesus in person, there’s a lot of emphasis on ‘personal revelation’ which is for the most part just conditioning to get believers to interpret their own regular ol’ intuition/emotions as communication from the Holy Spirit. If someone believes that strongly enough, the brain provides whatever thoughts/feelings they subconsciously expect to ‘receive’. It’s both impressive and disturbing how well this cycle can work. Anticipation can easily function as a self-fulfilling prophecy as long as the anticipated experience is fully mental and emotional.
And because this ‘evidence’ has been accepted by them, they also expect their prayers to be able to miraculously heal sickness/disease (except for when it doesn’t of course; “God’s will” etc etc.)
I think they are genuinely unvaccinated. They believe (or profess to believe) in tons of quack medicine but AFAIK they don’t spend loads of money on it. If they had a health emergency they’d still go to an ER, so they’re not completely in denial of modern medicine.
Thanks for that! You’re fortunate you got out before going on a mission. I lasted only a few months before I became bored out of my mind and couldn’t do it any more.
I’m not even going to attempt to convince my parents. I know them well enough that if I prepared a good enough strategy I’d estimate a >40% chance of convincing at least one of them, but their lives and personalities are so enmeshed with the church that losing it would likely do them more harm than good at this point.
How did you approach dating after leaving? I don’t have much of a friend group now (not specifically because I left, I just drifted away from my friends from HS after a few years) so it’s really tough to meet women.
That’s neat! In my case I didn’t leave because of HPMOR specifically, although it certainly didn’t hurt.
I’m doing decently well, thanks for asking!
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I don’t think any but the most rational/educated theists think in terms of probability to that degree. Many feel they are certain in their beliefs.
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It doesn’t make a huge difference. I know several Mormons who are likely smarter than I am (mathematicians & engineers, etc). Shaking off an entire upbringing of brainwashing is a test of critical thinking, not general intelligence. Intelligence only helps to solve problems once you apply it to the situation. Once you compartmentalize religion and surround it with mental caution tape, no amount of brilliance is likely to help unless you allow the tape to be removed.
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I think one of the most important steps to being able to walk away was realizing that I could take the things I thought were good with me, while leaving out the things that I thought were false or wrong.
I second this, thanks!
I would say it’s possible, just at a lower probability proportional to the difference in intelligence. More intelligence will still correspond to better ideas on average.
That said, it was not acclaimed scientists or ivy-league research teams that invented the airplane. It was two random high-school dropouts in Ohio. This is not to say that education or prestige are the same thing as intelligence[1], simply that brilliant innovations can sometimes be made by the little guy who’s not afraid to dream big.- ^
By all accounts the Wright Brothers were intelligent
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To clarify, I was allowed to read fiction[1], just not on Sundays. Although my mom did disapprove of Harry Potter for a long while because ‘something something glorifies occult beliefs something something’.
A couple of my own hypothesis to take with a grain of salt:One big part of the problem is the tendency of some to vastly underestimate how difficult it is to cover up anything that a lot of people know. Also a lack of fact checking. (My friend/relative/trusted neighbor told me this, therefore it must be true)
I think QAnon theories appeal to much of the same crowd as cults. If someone is willing to believe <small niche group> has secret knowledge that has
failed peer reviewbeen suppressed by <Big Government/Forces of Ambiguous Evil>, they are more likely to accept the plausibility of other claims with similar appeal. So 911 conspiracy people are more likely to also believe that vaccines cause autism or <snake oil/homeopathy/fad treatment of the week> cures cancer but Big Pharma is keeping it secret, etc.
I wonder if there’s any good data tracking the relative frequency of this sort of thing?
In a similar vein, Utah has more MLM schemes per capita than any other state.[2]
At least nobody I know believes in Flat Earth...as far as I know.
When you grow up knowing nothing else, it just feels normal[1] (except for occasional twinge of cognitive dissonance when evidence contradicts something you believe[2])
A culture of strong neighborhood communities and tight-knit extended families which provide a social support system and financial and physical safety net. Growing up, if my family had a crisis[3] or even some mundane need like running out of eggs for a recipe[4] we knew 10+ people living on the same block we could call or walk over to on a moments notice.
Despite my disenfranchisement with the LDS church as a whole, individual members and local leaders are generally nice[5] people who fulfill useful and productive roles in society.
There’s also a admirable emphasis on education for the sake of becoming better/more effective as opposed to education for it’s own sake[6].- ^
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assuming it wasn’t the type of emergency to necessitate calling 911
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which can become a particularly serious problem if you don’t believe in shopping on Sunday
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As with many things, mileage may vary. Some Mormons are more insular than others. A few years ago a General Authority (Basically somebody who’s high up in the leadership of the entire church) chastised “members of the church who forbid their kids from playing with the children of non-members”[paraphrased]
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As with most metrics, it’s easy to Goodhart.
On a completely unrelated note, footnotes can be used to enhance communication, so why shouldn’t I start evaluating my comments by how many footnotes I can cram in?
It was a gradual process over several years. Eventually one or two relatively small things became the metaphorical straws that broke the camel’s back.
Especially after beginning to study science and statistics in earnest, I became increasingly aware of how inconsistent it was to have different standards of evidence for religion vs science. Once I could no longer fool myself into arbitrarily moving the goalposts my beliefs collapsed very quickly.
Something else that helped me was the good ol’ Sagan standard of “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”.
About the same way many non-religious people rate the bible: It has many consistency and continuity issues, with a few potentially insightful things mixed in that you could find elsewhere more efficiently.
Growing up being expected to read every day to search for ‘personal revelation’ somewhat puts a sour taste in my mouth when I think about it now. I certainly have better things to read when I have a choice in the matter.
My favorite part these days is the amusingly flagrant disregard of archeological plausibility. (A civilization called the ‘Jaredites’ allegedly numbered in the millions on the American continents before wiping themselves out in a series of wars. Archaeological evidence? Very little if any.
e.g. “practically how do you explore alcohol in a way that isn’t dangerous”)
Yeah, that’s the sort of thing that could be useful. I still have never tried alcohol. I know in theory it would be fine when used responsibly and in moderation, but lack of knowledge/deep conditioning are hard to overcome. I could go to a bar, but I wouldn’t even know the approximate ‘strength’ of various types of drinks or how fast alcohol takes effect/wears off/how soon it would be safe to drive again.
Not to mention I don’t have any idea how sensitive I am personally to alcohol, so I wouldn’t go try a drink without a trusted friend with me to stop me from doing anything really stupid.explicitly avoiding a permanent state of having an “ex-mormon” identity, which strikes me as healthy
Yeah, I agree. I avoid dedicated ex-mormon communities. In my answer to Joseph_C I said:
”...r/exmormon is quite a bad environment IMHO. While there are some nice and reasonable folks, they seem to be either a minority or simply less vocal than those who are not. A significant portion of those who frequent exmo-specific groups (or at least post often) tend to be those who are angry and bitter. As far as I can tell some of them still blame the church for everything bad in their life even decades after leaving.
Those with a more healthy outlook tend to move on and find better things to do.”NB: I have a casual interest in high-demand religions, but have never been a part of one (with the arguable exception of the rationality/EA community).
From what I can tell, the rationality/EA community is lacking many ‘tells’ that tend to be present in high demand religions. For example:
There’s no taboo against criticizing leadership
There’s no intrusive way to extort monetary contributions (occasional requests for donations are a lot less intrusive than “pay your tithing or lose out on privileges/go on guilt trip”
Ideas are just ideas, not some unified one-size-fits-all this-is-how-to-live-your-life-or-consequences (social or otherwise).
This seems like bait but I’m answering anyway.
No, I think it’s still a bad thing because (as with most religions) it fuels beliefs that prevent people from even considering trying to solve problems like aging and death because “heaven will be better than mortality”, “God will make everything better”, etc.
In addition, even while they have more children than the general population there’s an estimated 46-60% retention rate of young adults staying in the church. If you factor that in, even assuming 60% retention the overall birthrate of ~3.4 * 0.6 = 2.04 birthrate of those who stay Mormon[1], and so by that metric they are disappearing just like the majority of the developed world (this is not taking new converts into account).
That being said, population sustainability is a real economic and practical problem in the long-term. Any rationalist with a sufficiently stable economic situation should seriously consider having kids, if for no other reason so that more humans grow up in an intellectually healthy situation.- ^
Please correct me if this is the wrong way to estimate this.
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I found LessWrong via HPMoR. I found HPMoR because it was mentioned offhand on an unrelated article as an example of a piece of fan-fiction that was actually good...and it was.
Many of my friends and most of my immediate and extended family are Mormon. I’ll happily discuss my opinions to any who seem like they want help/are searching for answers, but I’m not in the habit of proactively questioning their beliefs since bringing up info directly critical of the Church tends to make True Believers instantly defensive and suspicious. Social ‘immune systems’ are incredible in how they defend existing beliefs.
I do try to indirectly raise the sanity waterline in the hope that others will find their own way out of their own volition.
I’m more or less resigned to leave those who are content alone, it seems quite futile to try to rescue someone who doesn’t want to be rescued, and they might not appreciate it even if the ‘brute force logic’ solution did manage to convince them.Anything that can be destroyed by the truth should be. 50 years ago would have been more difficult to find my way out of because the internet didn’t exist.
Even between households there’s a lot of variation in how certain rules and interpreted. My family was more on the extreme end of the Sabbath Observance spectrum, while most other kids I knew were allowed to play video games and generally do what they wanted on Sunday. It was very difficult to grow up dreading every Sunday, and even though I wasn’t all that ‘rebellious’ of a teenager necessity caused me to find a quiet spot to read sci-fi/fantasy novels or play video games when my parents weren’t looking.
Some other things my parents didn’t allow:No Pg-13 movies, mostly because anything remotely sexually suggestive was considered ‘inappropriate’. This essentially was enforced only at home. They acknowledged there was nothing stopping us from watching whatever movies at our friends houses and they wouldn’t try to stop us, but they would passively disapprove. Most other Mormon families were far more lax about this and less prudish about media in general.
They discouraged caffeine, although that was more relaxed. I know there are some Mormon communities that consider ALL caffeinated drinks taboo instead of just Tea and Coffee.
Teenagers were not allowed to date at all until age 16 or older. Being a socially awkward early-teen boy this had the unfortunate consequence of me reasoning that “since I can’t date anyway what’s the point of getting to know girls?”...Which I would realize later was just an excuse to avoid doing things out of my comfort zone and I should have used that important time to develop my social skills in a safe environment.
I had a decent amount of internet access and quickly became better at computers than both of my parents. I taught myself coding by learning to mod games, and my skill with code eventually turned into a career. There wasn’t total isolation from current events, although everything I heard was filtered through the highly-conservative lens of the adults around me. (A few of my relatives are also members of the JBS and believe that 911 was an ‘inside job’ and similar things from the Q-Anon bingo chart.) My parents were very opposed to all attempts to build high-density housing[1] nearby because of traffic/infrastructure concerns.
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(i.e. anything more dense than 1⁄3 acre lots with a yard)
Strong neighborhood communities called “wards” are a very nice thing to have. The one where I grew up was full of nice people who would watch out for each other, help elderly people with yard maintenance, etc. IIRC Cities in Utah county have some of the lowest crime rates in the USA, despite having a moderate (~600k within 5,550 sq.km) population.
Not all Mormon neighborhoods are equal, but the good ones are excellent places to live. I definitely miss the instant community connection that (good) wards have. (They don’t exclude non-members from neighborhood events, but a lot of the ‘structural’ social interaction happens at church and church-related activities)
I do still live in Utah. I haven’t told my family yet. One of my siblings already left the church and my family didn’t cut them off, and I’m confident they wouldn’t cut me off either.
On the other hand, my sibling leaving broke my mom’s heart so I don’t see any reason to do that any sooner than I have to. In this case, what she doesn’t know can actually hurt her once she does. In her perspective she sees a personal failure on her part if her children lose faith, which is obviously irrational and unfair to both herself and us.
r/exmormon is quite a bad environment IMHO. While there are some nice and reasonable folks, they seem to be either a minority or simply less vocal than those who are not. A significant portion of those who frequent exmo-specific groups (or at least post often) tend to be those who are angry and bitter. As far as I can tell some of them still blame the church for everything bad in their life even decades after leaving.
Those with a more healthy outlook tend to move on and find better things to do.Back when I was a questioning-but-not-yet-disenfranchised member, encountering exmo groups was counter-productive because it only served to feed the confirmation bias of “wow, all these ex-mormons sure are miserable, just like I’ve been told!”
I was raised by devout Mormons, AMA [&|] Soliciting Advice
This makes me grateful that I work for a small company. I was the 13th employee when I started a few years ago. I estimate we have ~70 now. There are at most 3 levels of management, and in many cases only 2. Every department leader personally knows every person working under them.
One thing that I think keeps my org low-maze is that there is nobody who’s job is solely ‘managing other people’. The CEO and department heads all spend a significant amount of time doing object-level tasks. This type of model requires a high bar of individual competency, as there is much less micromanagement than in many industries. The management responsibilities are mostly to divvy out tasks among their team and serve as a knowledgeable person to ask questions. They are still part of the team and working alongside them.
IMO, organizations are healthier if they can stay under Dunbar’s number. Grow bigger than that and ‘Mazification’ is only a matter of time.
Unfortunately that only helps for those with the necessary experience to discern good work, and also the time and desire to inspect it.