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My favourite part about the rationalists is that they are a completely normal community apart from the rationalism. You'd think a group of people devoted to bei

by roenxi 2y ago

My favourite part about the rationalists is that they are a completely normal community apart from the rationalism. You'd think a group of people devoted to being rational would be a group of monk-like beings, cerebral, disconnected from the concerns of the flesh. Instead we get this weird hotbed of fanfiction, cults, wild sex crime allegations, financial schemes so brazen they almost wouldn't qualify as fraud and a vague sense of some sort of group that are capable of any evil. Plus I can't stop laughing at the idea of Aella as "that rationalist hooker" [0] - a combination of words which never fails to make me chuckle. The whole scene really deserves some sort of film, book, video game or something. I can't get a vision out of my head where some straitlaced person realises rationalists are involved and their face twists in horror. Keeping an eye on them over the years the communities that grew up around LessWrong really are as good as any work of fiction. Plus they're doing their best to make the world better and maybe people will learn something about Bayesianism, who knows. [0] https://knowingless.com/about/ https://knowingless.com/about/

williamcotton 2y ago
Oh come on, the vast majority of LW meetups are about as racy as the IRL comment section of HN.
- bordercases 2y ago
  The Berkeley and New York scenes are special in that they lead and guide the community on a whole mainly by example.
- ben_w 2y ago
  Even the completely anonymous 18+ only rationalist telegram groups are only just as racy as the normal non-yiff furry groups.
getnormality 2y ago
I think they're basically secular humanists who decided they wanted a more muscular guiding ideology.
- throw83288 2y ago
  And wound up building a heretical pseudo-Christianity where the messiah is a superintelligence.
tempodox 2y ago
Have you ever seen “Jackie Brown”? There's a scene where a criminal shows his colleague the dead body he has in the trunk of his car and then proceeds to explain, in perfectly rational terms, why the guy in the trunk had to be killed. I'll never forget that lesson. Rationality can be used to justify anything and everything. Invoking rationality as the basis for one's decisions or behavior doesn't mean anything by itself.
- AnimalMuppet 2y ago
  This. Perfect rationality, working from insane premises, has to reach an insane conclusion.
- derbOac 2y ago
  I was immediately reminded of Rope by Hitchcock, although the nature of that rationalization is somewhat different.
  - foldr 2y ago
    I can never quite decide if Jimmy Stuart's outrageous hamming at the end of that movie makes it or ruins it ("Did you think you were God, Brandon?")
- rufus_foreman 2y ago
  "Who's that?" "That's Beaumont." "Who's Beaumont?" "An employee I had to let go." The rest of the perfectly rational explanation will be left out, as it contains strong language not suitable for a website such as this.
- jajko 2y ago
  Rationality without morality is pretty dangerous, thats for sure, its trivial for a skilled smart manipulator to lead folks into pretty dark places while still feeling superior. And then there's a non-trivial amount of properly crazy folks who think they are absolutely fine and behaving very rationally, their own version of reality and universe in their head is impenetrable. Psychiatrists have stories to tell, but either can't share or folks prefer not listening such things (same goes for most doctors, ambulance drivers etc.)
_yb2s 2y ago
> completely normal community apart from the rationalism I don't think widespread polyamory, group homes, radically different social norms around language use and conversation, or reorganizing your entire life around mitigating AI risk are "completely normal."
- zozbot234 2y ago
  > reorganizing your entire life around mitigating AI risk I'll give the rationalists that: they were out talking about AI ethics and risk way before AI risk was cool. Total hipsters.
  - DrJohanson 2y ago
    And crypto, as early as 2009 with people like Hal Finney posting about Bitcoin on LessWrong.
- vasco 2y ago
  I spent years thinking its crazy to get your morals from a random book, but then I read this stuff and I understand the pitfalls of also having it all wide open. This idea we all define our morality works extremely poorly. I used to think it was a product of the old times of almost non existent education and honestly dumb "ancient world" people (lack of nutrition, lead poisoning...). But I don't know, clearly smart and educated people can believe extremely dumb things. The smarter they are the weirder the setups they get themselves into. One almost comes to appreciate the existence of some religions with a history of many centuries to "chill out" and see what works, instead of any of the new age cults.
  - _yb2s 2y ago
    I’m not religious and open minded about new stuff but ultimately decided the ancient Stoics system of morals works perfectly for me- and is more time tested than even Christianity. I think the rationalists decision to use consequentialist morality in regular life is a huge mistake, and impossible to get right in practice. Humans cannot predict the future outcomes of our actions very well, but we can easily remember and follow a simple set of core values.
calibas 2y ago
> You'd think a group of people devoted to being rational would be a group of monk-like beings, cerebral, disconnected from the concerns of the flesh. Human beings are fundamentally irrational, and it's a really great way to deceive oneself to believe otherwise. If you can convince yourself that you're unbiased, objective and "rational", then whatever you happen to believe must be correct! You can rationalize practically anything, so it's no surprise rationalists start getting weird when left to their own devices. “To do evil a human being must first of all believe that what he's doing is good... it is in the nature of the human being to seek a justification for his actions.” -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn “Man is not a rational animal; he is a rationalizing animal.” -Robert A. Heinlein
- slooonz 2y ago
  You know that what you are describing is the central observation of rationalism right ? "Humans rationalize, so you better be skeptical of your own beliefs". You presenting it as a blind spot of rationalists, but that’s precisely the blind spot that rationalism warn about !
  - tm-infringement 2y ago
    Yes, but step 2 is being able to overcome that slight problem with mind kung-fu. So the result is the same.
tm-infringement 2y ago
'Once upon a time in San Francisco', perhaps?
atombender 2y ago
Philip K. Dick would eventually have written this as a darkly comedic novel. A rationalist death cult plans to unleash a mind-altering drug, meanwhile the protagonist discovers a possibly benevolent AI has just come online in a Berkeley campus basement, all set in an alternative California where Nixon is still president and we have mining colonies on Mars. (The drug disables the empathy center of your brain, but also reveals the true nature of Nixon, who turns out to be a simulacrum, as he was actually assassinated in 1963.)
nullc 2y ago
Scandals with sex pests, minors kept in group houses, partnerships with ponzi scammers, orgies, grit sham charities that pocket the money, etc. isn't normal. It happens elsewhere, sure, but it's not normal. It's gonzo. But it's also not new, there are plenty of works of fiction with groups like this in them, perhaps inspired by actual experience with 1960s new wave and prior counterculture groups.

by roenxi 2y ago

williamcotton 2y ago

Oh come on, the vast majority of LW meetups are about as racy as the IRL comment section of HN.

bordercases 2y ago
The Berkeley and New York scenes are special in that they lead and guide the community on a whole mainly by example.
ben_w 2y ago
Even the completely anonymous 18+ only rationalist telegram groups are only just as racy as the normal non-yiff furry groups.

getnormality 2y ago

I think they're basically secular humanists who decided they wanted a more muscular guiding ideology.

throw83288 2y ago
And wound up building a heretical pseudo-Christianity where the messiah is a superintelligence.

tempodox 2y ago

Have you ever seen “Jackie Brown”? There's a scene where a criminal shows his colleague the dead body he has in the trunk of his car and then proceeds to explain, in perfectly rational terms, why the guy in the trunk had to be killed. I'll never forget that lesson. Rationality can be used to justify anything and everything. Invoking rationality as the basis for one's decisions or behavior doesn't mean anything by itself.

AnimalMuppet 2y ago
This. Perfect rationality, working from insane premises, has to reach an insane conclusion.
derbOac 2y ago
I was immediately reminded of Rope by Hitchcock, although the nature of that rationalization is somewhat different.
- foldr 2y ago
  I can never quite decide if Jimmy Stuart's outrageous hamming at the end of that movie makes it or ruins it ("Did you think you were God, Brandon?")
rufus_foreman 2y ago
"Who's that?" "That's Beaumont." "Who's Beaumont?" "An employee I had to let go." The rest of the perfectly rational explanation will be left out, as it contains strong language not suitable for a website such as this.
jajko 2y ago
Rationality without morality is pretty dangerous, thats for sure, its trivial for a skilled smart manipulator to lead folks into pretty dark places while still feeling superior. And then there's a non-trivial amount of properly crazy folks who think they are absolutely fine and behaving very rationally, their own version of reality and universe in their head is impenetrable. Psychiatrists have stories to tell, but either can't share or folks prefer not listening such things (same goes for most doctors, ambulance drivers etc.)

_yb2s 2y ago

> completely normal community apart from the rationalism I don't think widespread polyamory, group homes, radically different social norms around language use and conversation, or reorganizing your entire life around mitigating AI risk are "completely normal."

zozbot234 2y ago
> reorganizing your entire life around mitigating AI risk I'll give the rationalists that: they were out talking about AI ethics and risk way before AI risk was cool. Total hipsters.
- DrJohanson 2y ago
  And crypto, as early as 2009 with people like Hal Finney posting about Bitcoin on LessWrong.
vasco 2y ago
I spent years thinking its crazy to get your morals from a random book, but then I read this stuff and I understand the pitfalls of also having it all wide open. This idea we all define our morality works extremely poorly. I used to think it was a product of the old times of almost non existent education and honestly dumb "ancient world" people (lack of nutrition, lead poisoning...). But I don't know, clearly smart and educated people can believe extremely dumb things. The smarter they are the weirder the setups they get themselves into. One almost comes to appreciate the existence of some religions with a history of many centuries to "chill out" and see what works, instead of any of the new age cults.
- _yb2s 2y ago
  I’m not religious and open minded about new stuff but ultimately decided the ancient Stoics system of morals works perfectly for me- and is more time tested than even Christianity. I think the rationalists decision to use consequentialist morality in regular life is a huge mistake, and impossible to get right in practice. Humans cannot predict the future outcomes of our actions very well, but we can easily remember and follow a simple set of core values.

calibas 2y ago

> You'd think a group of people devoted to being rational would be a group of monk-like beings, cerebral, disconnected from the concerns of the flesh. Human beings are fundamentally irrational, and it's a really great way to deceive oneself to believe otherwise. If you can convince yourself that you're unbiased, objective and "rational", then whatever you happen to believe must be correct! You can rationalize practically anything, so it's no surprise rationalists start getting weird when left to their own devices. “To do evil a human being must first of all believe that what he's doing is good... it is in the nature of the human being to seek a justification for his actions.” -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn “Man is not a rational animal; he is a rationalizing animal.” -Robert A. Heinlein

slooonz 2y ago
You know that what you are describing is the central observation of rationalism right ? "Humans rationalize, so you better be skeptical of your own beliefs". You presenting it as a blind spot of rationalists, but that’s precisely the blind spot that rationalism warn about !
- tm-infringement 2y ago
  Yes, but step 2 is being able to overcome that slight problem with mind kung-fu. So the result is the same.

tm-infringement 2y ago

'Once upon a time in San Francisco', perhaps?

atombender 2y ago

Philip K. Dick would eventually have written this as a darkly comedic novel. A rationalist death cult plans to unleash a mind-altering drug, meanwhile the protagonist discovers a possibly benevolent AI has just come online in a Berkeley campus basement, all set in an alternative California where Nixon is still president and we have mining colonies on Mars. (The drug disables the empathy center of your brain, but also reveals the true nature of Nixon, who turns out to be a simulacrum, as he was actually assassinated in 1963.)

nullc 2y ago

Scandals with sex pests, minors kept in group houses, partnerships with ponzi scammers, orgies, grit sham charities that pocket the money, etc. isn't normal. It happens elsewhere, sure, but it's not normal. It's gonzo. But it's also not new, there are plenty of works of fiction with groups like this in them, perhaps inspired by actual experience with 1960s new wave and prior counterculture groups.