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> For the uninitiated, what sort of content is Slate Star Codex known for? IIRC, it's a blog that's very influential in the "rationalist" community, which I th

by ardy42 6y ago

> For the uninitiated, what sort of content is Slate Star Codex known for? IIRC, it's a blog that's very influential in the "rationalist" community, which I think spun out of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LessWrong https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LessWrong. So very long-winded posts on miscellaneous topics.

malandrew 6y ago
Why put the word rationalist in quotes?
- tptacek 6y ago
  Because the word has multiple meanings, some of them subtextual. The quotes don't need to be derisive.
- zepto 6y ago
  Because it’s a label rather than a descriptor.
- mkr-hn 6y ago
  I don't know about them, but I've found the community around it both intelligent and accepting. That's not what I've come to expect from the word rationalist.
  - mrec 6y ago
    Agreed. Much less of a Mensa syndrome going on. I remember at the peak of the 2016 post-election meltdown the SSC subreddit hosted a sort of "ask Trump supporters anything" thread. Despite the absolute insanity of the time and only a minuscule fraction of the sub's readership supporting Trump, the conversation was interesting, calm and uniformly civil. There were a few Social Justice types that used to comment there too; again, all very civil, although there was sometimes the sense that they were regarded as an interesting zoo exhibit.
- istorical 6y ago
  Probably because self-ascribed 'rationalism' can potentially come across a bit self-aggrandizing. Like calling oneself part of the 'patriot' party (which implicitly implies members of other political groups aren't patriotic). Not that I have a problem with SSC, I think it's a cool blog.
  - kortilla 6y ago
    Do you have a problem with the “democrat” party implying that other parties aren’t democratic?
    - traverseda 6y ago
      At this point it's pretty common for self-identifying lesswrong-style rationalists to use quote marks, or add a bunch of qualifiers. Weird nerdy people get a lot of hate, there are whole subreddits devoted to hating on "rationalists" for a variety of reasons. Adding quotes tends to calm those people down, and make them a bit less hateful. Really it's not derisive, it's self defense.
    - dragonwriter 6y ago
      > Do you have a problem with the “democrat” party Its called the “Democratic Party”, and it is a proper noun, which distinguishes it visiually form the common use of “democratic”.
      - wmil 6y ago
        While some people get upset about it, "Democrat" is useful to differentiate the two verbally. Obviously capitalization isn't possible. Obama's team launched https://democrats.org/ https://democrats.org/ in 2009 or so. I really think people shouldn't get upset over "Democrat".
        dragonwriter 6y ago
        “Democrat” is the singular noun form, “Democrats” is the plural noun form, “Democratic” is the adjective form, and “Democrat”-as-adjective is the “signal that the speaker is a hostile partisan" form. They are all useful distinctions.
- dfabulich 6y ago
  Some members of the LessWrong online community call themselves "the rationalist community," but there are plenty of people who self-ascribe as rationalist who don't affiliate with that community. Here, the term means the LessWrong rationalists, not all rationalists everywhere.
- rodgerd 6y ago
  Humans aren't rational. Anyone who claims they are, doesn't understand enough about the human condition to offer you any advice that you should care about.
  - Tarq0n 6y ago
    The whole point of rationalism is understanding our biases and cognitive flaws, not to pretend they don't affect us.
    - bnralt 6y ago
      I think that's part of the problem. The stated goal is to understand our biases and flaws, and to become "less wrong." But it's easy to fall into a trap where one claims to get better at such biases, therefore making them more rational than people who haven't, therefore making their position superior - hence re-enforcing their biases. A lot of the public declarations coming from "rationalist" communities remind me of public declarations of sin coming from certain religious groups. Though it presents itself as self-effacing, it ends up being affirming. You rarely see the thought extend to "therefore, outgroups that I've been deriding perhaps know better than my ingroup." Particularly interesting when there are biases that have almost become dogma in certain "rationalist" circles, such as the preoccupation with godlike artificial superintelligence.
- myhf 6y ago
  They call themselves "rationalists". "Rationalizers" might be more accurate.
- voidhorse 6y ago
  https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rationality-instrumental/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rationality-instrumental/ It's because rationality that's committed to a narrow definition of what rationality means typically leads to irrationality at some terminal point. When people describe themselves as "rationalist" they typically mean "instrumental reason" which is a form of reasoning that has its own bias and baked in values (e.g. western modern values, often supremely meritocratic, technocratic, utilitarian values) which are different from the values powering the methods and forms of reasoning of other cultures and other historical periods. There's a tendency for a superiority complex to creep in where one who takes undue pride in one's "reasoning" sees only one mode of reasoning as the one true reasoning (one true value system). Ancient cultures had value systems that were entirely different than ours, this doesn't make our scientific reasoning "better" it makes our reasonings incommensurable until you commit to some system of shared values as the one true system of values (e.g. self-preservation, but there's nothing saying that's what humanity should value and in fact one could argue that one of the important facets of being human is the capability to reject this value).
  - wizzwizz4 6y ago
    > Ancient cultures had value systems that were entirely different than ours, this doesn't make our scientific reasoning "better" It's better at coming to the correct conclusions about objective aspects of the world (better – not perfect, mind you). This is useful if your value system prioritises knowledge, though knowledge is pretty useful for all sorts, so I think science is good unless your value system penalises knowledge-generation.
- AlchemistCamp 6y ago
  Likely because ardy42 isn't a fan of them and the word would otherwise have positive connotations. In general, the quotes in this context signal an ideological opposition.
  - thesteamboat 6y ago
    The quotes might signal opposition, but they also might just signal fuzziness. E.g. This is a word that you're probably familiar with used in a specific jargony way that you cannot deduce merely from the standard definition.
    - AlchemistCamp 6y ago
      Much like the words humanist or intellectual? Would you agree that each of those words can be used in "a specific jargony way" and that putting quotation marks around either very likely signals opposition?
      - drdeca 6y ago
        I'm not familiar with a distinction between a more common usage and a more jargony usage of those two words. Is there one? Actually, I don't think I really understand any usage of the word "humanist" very well.
        AlchemistCamp 6y ago
        With no context, humanism sounds like it's just something pertaining to humans. Also, at least to my perception, the word has a built-in positive valence. But, it has a much more specific meaning: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanism There's a similar dynamic with rationalism: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationalism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationalism
        drdeca 6y ago
        ah, but here "rationalist" isn't being used in that particular way. One of the reasons it is sometimes put in quotes, I think, is to distinguish it from the meaning that you've linked. A rationalist in that sense is someone who holds the philosophical positions described in that article. A rationalist-in-this-other-sense is someone who, uh, generally has beliefs in some other collection of philosophical positions, and is involved in a certain community/social-circle . It is an unfortunate overloading of a term. Some have given a definition of rationalist (or rationalist-adjacent) as : Eliezer Yudkowsky is a rationalist, and anyone who spends a lot of time arguing with rationalists is a rationalist. This is quite a different thing that the sense of the word described in the Wikipedia article. Personally, I'm rather fond of the group, but there are still cases where I find myself using quote marks when describing it.

by ardy42 6y ago

malandrew 6y ago

Why put the word rationalist in quotes?

tptacek 6y ago
Because the word has multiple meanings, some of them subtextual. The quotes don't need to be derisive.
zepto 6y ago
Because it’s a label rather than a descriptor.
mkr-hn 6y ago
I don't know about them, but I've found the community around it both intelligent and accepting. That's not what I've come to expect from the word rationalist.
- mrec 6y ago
  Agreed. Much less of a Mensa syndrome going on. I remember at the peak of the 2016 post-election meltdown the SSC subreddit hosted a sort of "ask Trump supporters anything" thread. Despite the absolute insanity of the time and only a minuscule fraction of the sub's readership supporting Trump, the conversation was interesting, calm and uniformly civil. There were a few Social Justice types that used to comment there too; again, all very civil, although there was sometimes the sense that they were regarded as an interesting zoo exhibit.
istorical 6y ago
Probably because self-ascribed 'rationalism' can potentially come across a bit self-aggrandizing. Like calling oneself part of the 'patriot' party (which implicitly implies members of other political groups aren't patriotic). Not that I have a problem with SSC, I think it's a cool blog.
- kortilla 6y ago
  Do you have a problem with the “democrat” party implying that other parties aren’t democratic?
  - traverseda 6y ago
    At this point it's pretty common for self-identifying lesswrong-style rationalists to use quote marks, or add a bunch of qualifiers. Weird nerdy people get a lot of hate, there are whole subreddits devoted to hating on "rationalists" for a variety of reasons. Adding quotes tends to calm those people down, and make them a bit less hateful. Really it's not derisive, it's self defense.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > Do you have a problem with the “democrat” party Its called the “Democratic Party”, and it is a proper noun, which distinguishes it visiually form the common use of “democratic”.
    - wmil 6y ago
      While some people get upset about it, "Democrat" is useful to differentiate the two verbally. Obviously capitalization isn't possible. Obama's team launched https://democrats.org/ https://democrats.org/ in 2009 or so. I really think people shouldn't get upset over "Democrat".
      - dragonwriter 6y ago
        “Democrat” is the singular noun form, “Democrats” is the plural noun form, “Democratic” is the adjective form, and “Democrat”-as-adjective is the “signal that the speaker is a hostile partisan" form. They are all useful distinctions.
dfabulich 6y ago
Some members of the LessWrong online community call themselves "the rationalist community," but there are plenty of people who self-ascribe as rationalist who don't affiliate with that community. Here, the term means the LessWrong rationalists, not all rationalists everywhere.
rodgerd 6y ago
Humans aren't rational. Anyone who claims they are, doesn't understand enough about the human condition to offer you any advice that you should care about.
- Tarq0n 6y ago
  The whole point of rationalism is understanding our biases and cognitive flaws, not to pretend they don't affect us.
  - bnralt 6y ago
    I think that's part of the problem. The stated goal is to understand our biases and flaws, and to become "less wrong." But it's easy to fall into a trap where one claims to get better at such biases, therefore making them more rational than people who haven't, therefore making their position superior - hence re-enforcing their biases. A lot of the public declarations coming from "rationalist" communities remind me of public declarations of sin coming from certain religious groups. Though it presents itself as self-effacing, it ends up being affirming. You rarely see the thought extend to "therefore, outgroups that I've been deriding perhaps know better than my ingroup." Particularly interesting when there are biases that have almost become dogma in certain "rationalist" circles, such as the preoccupation with godlike artificial superintelligence.
myhf 6y ago
They call themselves "rationalists". "Rationalizers" might be more accurate.
voidhorse 6y ago
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rationality-instrumental/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rationality-instrumental/ It's because rationality that's committed to a narrow definition of what rationality means typically leads to irrationality at some terminal point. When people describe themselves as "rationalist" they typically mean "instrumental reason" which is a form of reasoning that has its own bias and baked in values (e.g. western modern values, often supremely meritocratic, technocratic, utilitarian values) which are different from the values powering the methods and forms of reasoning of other cultures and other historical periods. There's a tendency for a superiority complex to creep in where one who takes undue pride in one's "reasoning" sees only one mode of reasoning as the one true reasoning (one true value system). Ancient cultures had value systems that were entirely different than ours, this doesn't make our scientific reasoning "better" it makes our reasonings incommensurable until you commit to some system of shared values as the one true system of values (e.g. self-preservation, but there's nothing saying that's what humanity should value and in fact one could argue that one of the important facets of being human is the capability to reject this value).
- wizzwizz4 6y ago
  > Ancient cultures had value systems that were entirely different than ours, this doesn't make our scientific reasoning "better" It's better at coming to the correct conclusions about objective aspects of the world (better – not perfect, mind you). This is useful if your value system prioritises knowledge, though knowledge is pretty useful for all sorts, so I think science is good unless your value system penalises knowledge-generation.
AlchemistCamp 6y ago
Likely because ardy42 isn't a fan of them and the word would otherwise have positive connotations. In general, the quotes in this context signal an ideological opposition.
- thesteamboat 6y ago
  The quotes might signal opposition, but they also might just signal fuzziness. E.g. This is a word that you're probably familiar with used in a specific jargony way that you cannot deduce merely from the standard definition.
  - AlchemistCamp 6y ago
    Much like the words humanist or intellectual? Would you agree that each of those words can be used in "a specific jargony way" and that putting quotation marks around either very likely signals opposition?
    - drdeca 6y ago
      I'm not familiar with a distinction between a more common usage and a more jargony usage of those two words. Is there one? Actually, I don't think I really understand any usage of the word "humanist" very well.
      - AlchemistCamp 6y ago
        With no context, humanism sounds like it's just something pertaining to humans. Also, at least to my perception, the word has a built-in positive valence. But, it has a much more specific meaning: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanism There's a similar dynamic with rationalism: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationalism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationalism
        drdeca 6y ago
        ah, but here "rationalist" isn't being used in that particular way. One of the reasons it is sometimes put in quotes, I think, is to distinguish it from the meaning that you've linked. A rationalist in that sense is someone who holds the philosophical positions described in that article. A rationalist-in-this-other-sense is someone who, uh, generally has beliefs in some other collection of philosophical positions, and is involved in a certain community/social-circle . It is an unfortunate overloading of a term. Some have given a definition of rationalist (or rationalist-adjacent) as : Eliezer Yudkowsky is a rationalist, and anyone who spends a lot of time arguing with rationalists is a rationalist. This is quite a different thing that the sense of the word described in the Wikipedia article. Personally, I'm rather fond of the group, but there are still cases where I find myself using quote marks when describing it.