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RationalWiki should also be taken with a heavy dose of scepticism!

• gerikson 6y ago
  The skepticism is included in RationalWiki.
  • NateEag 6y ago
    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 formal reasoning is not always the best approach to thinking. Don't get me wrong - I think logic is an invaluable tool, and I believe we should try to understand things beyond our current limits. I just also believe we need to admit what those limits are, and always remember our fallibility.
    • dash2 6y ago
      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 https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Chesterton%27s_Fence
      • NateEag 6y ago
        It may be unfair. 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.