"The River" is just a weird rebranding of the same gray tribe/rationalist (Slate Star Codex) high-rung vs. low-rung/golem (Tim Urban of "Wait But Why") stuff. T

"The River" is just a weird rebranding of the same gray tribe/rationalist (Slate Star Codex) high-rung vs. low-rung/golem (Tim Urban of "Wait But Why") stuff. The late David Graeber put it better than I can: > Normally, they will—like the robber barons of the turn of the last century—insist that they are acting in the name of efficiency, or “rationality.” But in fact this language always turns out to be intentionally vague, even nonsensical. The term “rationality” is an excellent case in point here. A “rational” person is someone who is able to make basic logical connections and assess reality in a non-delusional fashion. In other words, someone who isn’t crazy. Anyone who claims to base their politics on rationality—and this is true on the left as well as on the right—is claiming that anyone who disagrees with them might as well be insane, which is about as arrogant a position as one could possibly take. When you zoom into almost any controversial political opinion, you will find that peoples' arguments are valid but not sound. That is to say that their arguments logically follow from their assumptions, but that you don't share their assumptions. If someone has different assumptions from you, sometimes you're not stupid and they're not stupid. You just have different assumptions. But it certainly feels better to assume that they just messed up their argumentation and are being irrational.