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But that's not my question. My question was between defence of genocide and false accusations of genocide. (Of course actual genocide is "shittier" -- in fact that's a breathtaking understatement!)
These 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.
A single failed prediction should revoke the label.
The ideal rational person should be pyrrhonian skeptic, or at a minimum a bayesian epistemologist.
> “You’re [X]?! The quantum physicist who’s always getting into arguments on the Internet, and who’s essentially always right, but who sustains an unreasonable amount of psychic damage in the process?” > “Yes,” I replied, not bothering to correct the “physicist” part. Didn't read much beyond that part. He'll fit right in with the rationalist crowd...
I got to that part, thought it was a joke, and then... it wasn't. Stopped reading thereafter. Nobody speaking like this will have anything I want to hear.
GRRM famously written some pretty awkward sentences but it'd be a shame if someone turned down his work for that alone.
The 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 considere…
My main problem with the movement is their emphasis on Bayesianism in conjunction with an almost total neglect of Popperian epistemology. In my opinion, there can’t be a meaningful distinction made between rational and irrational without Popper. Popper injects an epistemic humility that Bayesianism, taken alone, can miss. I think that aligns well with your observation.
I'm currently reading Yudkowsky's "Rationality: from AI to zombies". Not my first try, since the book is just a collection of blog posts and I found it a bit hard to swallow due its repetitiveness, so I gave up after the first 50 "chapters" the first time I tried. Now I'm enjoying it way more, probably because I'm more interested in the topic now. For those who haven't delved(ha!) into his work or have been pushed ba…
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Reducibility is usually a goal of intellectual pursuits? I don't see that as a fault.
"Reductionist" is usually used as an insult. Many people engaged in intellectual pursuits believe that reductionism is not a useful approach to studying various topics. You may argue otherwise, but then you are on a slippery slope towards politics and culture wars.
Examples that come to mind: statistical modelling (reduction to nonparametric models), protein folding (reduction to quantum chemistry), climate/weather prediction (reduction to fluid physics), human language translation (reduction to neural networks).
Reductionism is not that useful as a theory building tool, but reductionist approaches have a lot of practical value.
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What the person you are replying to is saying that some things are not reducible, i.e. the the vast array of complexity and detail is all relevant.
That's a really hard belief to justify. And what implications would that position have? Should biologists give up?
I'm currently reading Yudkowsky's "Rationality: from AI to zombies". Not my first try, since the book is just a collection of blog posts and I found it a bit hard to swallow due its repetitiveness, so I gave up after the first 50 "chapters" the first time I tried. Now I'm enjoying it way more, probably because I'm more interested in the topic now. For those who haven't delved(ha!) into his work or have been pushed ba…
But the tools of thought that the literature describes are invaluable with one very important caveat.
The moment you think something like "I am more correct than this other person because I am a rationalist" is the moment you fail as a rationalist.
It is an incredibly easy mistake to make. To make effective use of the tools, you need to become more humble than before you were using them or you just turn into an asshole who can't be reasoned with.
If you're saying "well actually, I'm right" more often than "oh wow, maybe I'm wrong", you've failed as a rationalist.