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It's pretty understandable "a so called "rationalist" doesn't want to be attached to his own writings, because you know people might attack him" and that would
by Applejinx 6y ago
It's pretty understandable "a so called "rationalist" doesn't want to be attached to his own writings, because you know people might attack him" and that would hurt his aims.
Post early 2000s fascism, I've taken to viewing stuff sort of functionally. Whether it's been through exposure to alt-righters, or exposure to using drug addicts (some of whom have died of it, by now), it strikes me as existentially important that many, many people will brazenly lie about stuff fundamental to their position, for advantage (as defined by them).
As such, the LAST thing you can do is take people at face value and present them your own face value and intentions/needs. People are in conflict over many things, and people are really clever when they're not really childish: it strikes me that the easy ones to read are the ones so childish that they can't even comprehend anything being different from them, and so they lash out and make up ill-conceived demons to rant against. Those folks are easy to spot.
It doesn't take much cognitive development to identify 'this, the other, is different from me' and to imaginatively populate their mental space with your version of their own drives and wishes. And what do you do then? You tailor what you yourself present, to what will get by their filters and produce the effect you want.
And that's why people lie as much as they do.
Almost by definition, rationalists are beyond the primitive level of cognition where everyone is just copies of them: otherwise, other rationalists would argue with them and criticize their position. So we're looking at positions being defended by people who're capable of interpreting the other, and either correctly identifying outside values or making up some 'SJW' phantasm (some of which is likely to actually exist!) that brainlessly lashes out against 'rationality'.
So, practicing rationalists looking to get results will be MORE likely to lie than SJWs and QAnons and the like: and it's the most natural thing in the world to expect a great deal of sketchiness and calculating, in terms of how things are presented.
The bottom line is: does the belief system seek a sort of postmodern coexistence with all manner of conflicting beliefs and scenarios? Or is it a One True System seeking to destroy opposing systems? If it's the latter, it's gonna be cloaked in layers of lies, and we see that in Dark Enlightenment thinking: it would be foolish to present it in starkest form, like the alt-right stuff one has to be 'pilled' into it rather than dumped in at the deep end.