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I was wondering if it's relevant that so many of them are young people with "data science" degrees and they call themselves "rationalists". Sounds like they ha
by snickerbockers 2y ago
I was wondering if it's relevant that so many of them are young people with "data science" degrees and they call themselves "rationalists". Sounds like they have some sort of superiority complex that might make them more susceptible to justifying acts of violence when it's "rational".
- zozbot234 2y ago> "rationalists". Sounds like they have some sort of superiority complex Oh yes, this is totally a thing. They're also weirdly obsessed with I.Q. comparisons. They're the kind of community where you might actually witness someone talking about "High I.Q." and "Low I.Q." individuals - and making a claim like "my I.Q. is one of the highest", way before someone else made that cool.
- mcguire 2y agoSo, like Hacker News?
- adastra22 2y agoNever seen that happen here.
- A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 2y agoIt happens, but in a more subtle way. Usually direct comparison's don't happen, but rather is expected to be inferred by the quality of arguments, whether they can prevail with their line of thinking and so on. In a sense, that variant of 'rationalist' is rather crude in comparison. I am trying to think of an appropriate example, but I am struggling a little. Make no mistake, there are egos at play here too.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- saagarjha 2y agoDid you win the Putnam though?
- FeepingCreature 2y agoYeah well I've never seen violence happen in the rationalist community, but I'm sure if I keep looking I'll find instances of Hacker News posters committing murder too.
- snickerbockers 2y agoI feel like it's reasonable to assume Hans Reiser would have been on hackernews if it had existed before he murdered his wife.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- plagiarist 2y ago[flagged]
- snapetom 2y agoReddit ;)
- kelseyfrog 2y agoPerhaps. Rationalists are also known for updating[changing] their beliefs. They do this under the guise of "doing" Bayesian reasoning. It may be that susceptibility to cults is an edge case of this meta-congnitive position. Or in other words, stubbornness of beliefs may be a defense mechanism against cults.
- adastra22 2y agoThey are known for “updating” their beliefs to crazy things, and discounting evidence in front of their face based on abstract arguments.
- subsistence234 2y agolet's stigmatize admitting when you were wrong. never changing your mind is the only way to avoid joining a murder cult!
- adastra22 2y agoThat’s what “rationalist” should mean. It is not what they do in practice.
- username332211 2y agoAt the same time, if psychological research proves there's a class of people who are only prevented from joining a murder cult by their unthinking devotion towards conformist beliefs, would you be surprised?
- kelseyfrog 2y agoPointing out a tradeoff isn’t the same as arguing for the other extreme. That’s splitting[1], a well-documented cognitive distortion. A bit of therapy can be great for catching these patterns—sharpening your reasoning toolkit, so to speak. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Splitting_(psychology) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Splitting_(psychology)
- tbrownaw 2y agoTrying to reason everything out from first principles can lead to some seriously bizarre conclusions if there's even a little bit you missed or got slightly wrong. It can be a fun exercise if you make sure to constantly look for predictions to check against observable reality, but if you're young and naive and take it too seriously without doing that...