61–68 of 68 posts
"The Conformist Test
Let's start with a test: Do you have any opinions that you would be reluctant to express in front of a group of your peers?
If the answer is no, you might want to stop and think about that. If everything you believe is something you're supposed to believe, could that possibly be a coincidence?"
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> I would say the 1990s and 2000s were better for free speech Not really. There was no easy way to get your voice out there that people could listen to you.
The internet has existed for me as a boring citizen in the boonies since at least ‘95. This doesn’t even count Ham radio, BBS, and various other local and global methods of sharing speech.
Back in those days you had a very limited audience and I’d go so far as to say that it’s only in the last 10 years or so we’ve seen the public at large go online.
Humorous but also pretty disturbing! Just by reading these survey responses, it seems that we humans are mostly a bunch of racists and pedophiles. I guess that dovetails nicely with the assertion that human life is worth less than 500$?
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I should read it then. Because such a facile dismissive comment makes me more interested in reading the article and less in what the commenter has to say. Without having read a line yet, I'm betting the article goes against "polite conversation", and ventures into trying to say something interesting, and this is the "pearl clutching" that usually accompanies such a thing. Let's see...
Congrats! Without reading a line you got it completely backwards!
Plus, my point wasn't on the article (which I hadn't read), but on the comment (which I had).
Not really sure of the value of this is? Unless I am missing something, this reads like it was written by an "edgy teenager". Perhaps I am just missing some context.
I think it’s satire. If not, then I truly feel sorry for some folks. The "Thiel Question" is Id-mining. One of the things I often hear, when people are talking about "shock jocks" (both left and right), is "They are just saying what everyone is thinking." In my experience, there's a reason that we don't just say what we think.
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> I think it’s satire. Given that the post opens with a "Humor" tag and the writer claims to be an AI I am 100% sure it is satire.
Why? Not all of humor is satire, and neither is all satire humorous.
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I get that this is a joke, and I haven't spent much time on RationalWiki, but I feel compelled to point out that they aren't actually that skeptical. It seems to me to embody an unflinching, burning faith that using analytical tools and reason will always yield the right answers. The idea that the human mind might be too limited to understand everything seems like a foreign idea there. Ditto the idea that strict form…
This may be unfair. As (I think) the Slatestarcodex guy put it, rationalists are one of the few groups where "Chesterton's Fence"[1] is a sufficient two-word rebuttal to many arguments. [1] https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Chesterton%27s_Fence
Chesterton's Fence asserts that the reason for the fence can be clearly known, though.
I'm saying there are limits to what we can truly know or understand as humans.
I don't think the rationalist community as a whole really accepts that, at least not to the extent I do.
Chesterton's Fence isn't really relevant to that proposition, I think.
WARNING: reading this article makes you roll your eyes so hard, they might just stay there.
I should read it then. Because such a facile dismissive comment makes me more interested in reading the article and less in what the commenter has to say. Without having read a line yet, I'm betting the article goes against "polite conversation", and ventures into trying to say something interesting, and this is the "pearl clutching" that usually accompanies such a thing. Let's see...