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One thing I like about the rationalist community is they tend to focus on what is factually true, instead of the metadiscussion of what a person's hidden motive

One thing I like about the rationalist community is they tend to focus on what is factually true, instead of the metadiscussion of what a person's hidden motives are which consumes so much of the rest of the internet.

api 6y ago
I agree that there's too much focus on hidden motives. The left has its postmodern deconstruction mindset that looks for hidden racism, etc., and the right has conspiracy theory thinking which is just its own spin on the same thing. In both cases it gets taken too far, with the left seeing phantom racism everywhere and the right seeing phantom "liberal bias" or lately "pedophilia" everywhere. That being said, hidden motives always exist. All human activity is driven by motives that are rooted in the actor's world view and philosophy. It's how our minds work. We are idea-driven teleological beings. Discussing these hidden motives too little just leaves them unexamined, and it's very easy to push hidden agendas through apparently rational discourse by strategically selecting what data to choose and what lines of argument to pursue. It's similar to "how to lie with statistics." I consistently see certain hidden motives throughout the rationalist material. The most common is elitism rooted in a belief that certain people possess biologically innate superior intelligence that makes them effectively "more right" than other people. It's a biological determinist version of the idea that certain people are divinely blessed with special powers that make them superior. This kind of biological intelligence elitism is a superstition. What you believe and how you think matters more than how big your brain is. It's like saying having a bigger engine in a car makes you a better driver. It doesn't. In fact it means that a bad driver can get into a more severe accident more easily. Highly intelligent people with irrational or deluded systems of belief can delude themselves more effectively than less intelligent people. Your average flat-Earther is probably more intelligent than the average person, not less. I personally make a distinction between what I call dumb-dumb and smart-dumb. Dumb-dumb is a lack of intelligence. Smart-dumb is intelligence grossly misused, or coupled with a gross deficiency in emotional intelligence or a lack of self-awareness.

api 6y ago

I agree that there's too much focus on hidden motives. The left has its postmodern deconstruction mindset that looks for hidden racism, etc., and the right has conspiracy theory thinking which is just its own spin on the same thing. In both cases it gets taken too far, with the left seeing phantom racism everywhere and the right seeing phantom "liberal bias" or lately "pedophilia" everywhere. That being said, hidden motives always exist. All human activity is driven by motives that are rooted in the actor's world view and philosophy. It's how our minds work. We are idea-driven teleological beings. Discussing these hidden motives too little just leaves them unexamined, and it's very easy to push hidden agendas through apparently rational discourse by strategically selecting what data to choose and what lines of argument to pursue. It's similar to "how to lie with statistics." I consistently see certain hidden motives throughout the rationalist material. The most common is elitism rooted in a belief that certain people possess biologically innate superior intelligence that makes them effectively "more right" than other people. It's a biological determinist version of the idea that certain people are divinely blessed with special powers that make them superior. This kind of biological intelligence elitism is a superstition. What you believe and how you think matters more than how big your brain is. It's like saying having a bigger engine in a car makes you a better driver. It doesn't. In fact it means that a bad driver can get into a more severe accident more easily. Highly intelligent people with irrational or deluded systems of belief can delude themselves more effectively than less intelligent people. Your average flat-Earther is probably more intelligent than the average person, not less. I personally make a distinction between what I call dumb-dumb and smart-dumb. Dumb-dumb is a lack of intelligence. Smart-dumb is intelligence grossly misused, or coupled with a gross deficiency in emotional intelligence or a lack of self-awareness.