Guess I'm a rationalist now
scottaaronson.blog
Guess I'm a rationalist now
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Re: Guess I'm a rationalist now
#2I feel like I'm witnessing something that Adam Curtis would cover in the last part of The Century of Self, in real time.
Re: Guess I'm a rationalist now
#3The irony here is the Rationalist community are made up of the ones who weren't observant enough to pick that "identifying as a Rationalist" is generally not a rational decision.
Re: Guess I'm a rationalist now
#4These kinds of propositions are determined by history, not by declaration.
Espouse your beliefs, participate in certain circles if you want, but avoid labels unless you intend to do ideological battle with other label-bearers.
Re: Guess I'm a rationalist now
#5This is what rationalisme entails: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rationalism-empiricism/
Re: Guess I'm a rationalist now
#6I feel like I'm witnessing something that Adam Curtis would cover in the last part of The Century of Self, in real time.
There was always an underlying Randian impulse to the EA crowd - as if we could solve any issue if we just get the right minds onto tackling the problem. The black-and-white thinking, group think, hero worship and charicaturist literature are all there.
Re: Guess I'm a rationalist now
#7This is what rationalisme entails: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rationalism-empiricism/
For any speed-runners out there: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Dogmas_of_Empiricism
Re: Guess I'm a rationalist now
#8They call themselves rationalist, yet they don't have very rational opinions if you ask them about scientific racism [1]
[1] https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/how-to-stop-worrying-and-le...
Re: Guess I'm a rationalist now
#9The article made me think deeper about what rubs me the wrong way about the whole movement
I think there is some inherent tension btwn being "rational" about things and trying to reason about things from first principle.. And the general absolutist tone of the community. The people involved all seem very... Full of themselves ? They don't really ever show a sense of "hey, I've got a thought, maybe I haven't considered all angles to it, maybe I'm wrong - but here it is". The type of people that would be embarrassed to not have an opinion on a topic or say "I don't know"
In the Pre-AI days this was sort of tolerable, but since then.. The frothing at the mouth convinced of the end of the world.. Just shows a real lack of humility and lack of acknowledgment that maybe we don't have a full grasp of the implications of AI. Maybe it's actually going to be rather benign and more boring than expected
Re: Guess I'm a rationalist now
#10This is what rationalisme entails: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rationalism-empiricism/
That's a different definition of rationalism from what is used here.