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Every rationalist movement eventually ends up at odds with rational people.

moolcool 2y ago
It always falls down because the end-goal of ones "rationalism" always has to be determined by a set of values. If you want to form a political ideology based on rationality, your very first step will stick you right in the middle of the sticky-icky world of the humanities. 'Hello deontology, my old friend.'
- bumby 2y ago
  Isn’t rationalism (as discussed above) more closely related to utilitarianism? Thus rationalism is more of a consequentialist framework than a deontological one?
  - moolcool 2y ago
    Even definitions there are extremely hazy. "The most good for the most people". Define "good". Happiness? Economic prosperity? Community? And over what time span? Define "most". Percentage of people served? Number of people served? Define "people". Are you counting citizens? Immigrants? Foreigners? Prisoners? People in the future? You know the joke in the sciences about how everything distills down to mathematics? I would argue that we just as often distill down to philosophy. You have to reckon with a lot of questions which a stats degree can't help you much with.
    - bumby 2y ago
      To steal a quote from The Good Place, “This is why everyone hates moral philosophy professors”
TeMPOraL 2y ago
But then, whom are you dissing? Whom is GP dissing? Because it's really unclear. On the one hand, "rational people" keep their views even as they drift apart from a wider "rationalist movement". On the other hand, it's the rationalist communities - the movement - that's much more likely to actually know something "about the foundations of economics or political science". On the grasping hand, such communities can and do get stuck missing forest for the trees. But then on the slapping hand, approximately all criticism of rationalism (particularly LessWrong-associated) I've seen on HN and elsewhere, involves either heresay and lies, or just a legion of strawmen like "zomg Roko's basilisk" or GP's own "arguments" like: > Nobody likes a technocrat, because a technocrat would let a kid who fell down a well die there, since the cost of rescuing them could technically save the lives of 3 others someplace else It's hard to even address something that's just plain bullshit, so in the end, I'm still leaning towards giving rationalists the benefit of doubt. Strange as some conclusions of some people may sometimes be, they at least try to argue it with reason, and not strawmen and ideological rally cries. EDIT: and then there's: > They often re-hash arguments which have been had and settled like 200 years ago Well, somebody has to. It's important for the same reason reproducibility in science is important. I'd be wary of assuming any complex argument has been "settled like 200 years ago". When people say this, they just mean "shut up and accept the uninformed, simplistic opinion". In a sense, this is even worse than blindly following religious dogma, as with organized religions, the core dogmas are actually designed by smart people to achieve some purpose (ill-minded or not); cutting people off with "settled like 200 years ago" is just telling them to accept whatever's the cheapest, worst-quality belief currently on sale on the "marketplace of ideas".
- vinceguidry 2y ago
  Rationalism, and the people who believe in it and promote it, has the problem that the human mind unavoidably decides to act as the arbiter of what is rational or not. This limits your vision to only that which the mind internally 'agrees with' or not, entrenching hidden biases. Fundamentally, it's the mind only engaging with the cognitive, and ignoring the limbic. Engaging with the limbic, with the deep, primal parts of the brain, challenges cognitively-held truths and demands you to support these truths from a broader context. This is why rationalists are more prone to engage with fascist viewpoints, they seek more power for their held beliefs and fascism offers that in spades. You're not thinking about the history of fascist movements and how horrible they all turned out. You're thinking: How can we do it better this time? Just like in math, the rational is a subset of the real, and you need both the rational and the irrational to make reality. Focusing exclusively on rationality is intentionally blinding yourself to messy reality.
  - exoverito 2y ago
    Everyone likes to use fascist to smear their political opponents, yet I'm not seeing a lot of evidence that the "anti-fascists" are any different. They support mass censorship, state propaganda, political violence, forever war, discrimination, debanking, lawfare, lockdowns, and ironically even infringement of bodily autonomy through unconstitutional vaccine mandates.
    - vinceguidry 2y ago
      I hope this "I know you are but what am I" approach to politics falls out of fashion soon. Like listening to children playing cops and robbers.
      - exoverito 2y ago
        It's childish to still not see the Democrats are corrupt corporatists, and that we need real third parties and candidates strong enough to resist the myriad of dirty tactics thrown at them. Say what you will about Trump, but he's about the only person who has the strength and resources to take on an entrenched deep state and corrupt intelligence agencies. They tried to impeach him with a fake Russian collusion hoax, throw him in prison on trumped up non-criminal felonies, and oh yeah multiple assassination attempts which were memory holed a couple weeks later. The Iron Law of Wokeism is projection of the same crimes they commit upon others. We already have massive evidence the Democrats are corrupt and authoritarian, colluding with media, persecuting and assassinating whistleblowers (Assange, Snowden, Seth Rich). They engage in grotesque amounts of graft and inefficiency, as seen with California's High Speed Rail project, Biden's rural broadband and EV charging stations, which have delivered nothing. The Democrats don't even respect their voters choices in primaries, as evident by super delegates, Hillary conspiring against Bernie Sanders, the forced abdication of the obviously senile Biden, appointment of the obviously inept puppet that was Kamala Harris, etc. etc. I hope real civil libertarians become in fashion. The self-described anti-fascists are basically communists who would create an authoritarian nightmare state, per usual. Funnily enough, the Berlin Wall was officially the the Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart, and Putin is engaging in a "special police action" against Ukraine in order to "de-nazify" the regime.

It always falls down because the end-goal of ones "rationalism" always has to be determined by a set of values. If you want to form a political ideology based on rationality, your very first step will stick you right in the middle of the sticky-icky world of the humanities. 'Hello deontology, my old friend.'

bumby 2y ago
Isn’t rationalism (as discussed above) more closely related to utilitarianism? Thus rationalism is more of a consequentialist framework than a deontological one?
- moolcool 2y ago
  Even definitions there are extremely hazy. "The most good for the most people". Define "good". Happiness? Economic prosperity? Community? And over what time span? Define "most". Percentage of people served? Number of people served? Define "people". Are you counting citizens? Immigrants? Foreigners? Prisoners? People in the future? You know the joke in the sciences about how everything distills down to mathematics? I would argue that we just as often distill down to philosophy. You have to reckon with a lot of questions which a stats degree can't help you much with.
  - bumby 2y ago
    To steal a quote from The Good Place, “This is why everyone hates moral philosophy professors”

TeMPOraL 2y ago

But then, whom are you dissing? Whom is GP dissing? Because it's really unclear. On the one hand, "rational people" keep their views even as they drift apart from a wider "rationalist movement". On the other hand, it's the rationalist communities - the movement - that's much more likely to actually know something "about the foundations of economics or political science". On the grasping hand, such communities can and do get stuck missing forest for the trees. But then on the slapping hand, approximately all criticism of rationalism (particularly LessWrong-associated) I've seen on HN and elsewhere, involves either heresay and lies, or just a legion of strawmen like "zomg Roko's basilisk" or GP's own "arguments" like: > Nobody likes a technocrat, because a technocrat would let a kid who fell down a well die there, since the cost of rescuing them could technically save the lives of 3 others someplace else It's hard to even address something that's just plain bullshit, so in the end, I'm still leaning towards giving rationalists the benefit of doubt. Strange as some conclusions of some people may sometimes be, they at least try to argue it with reason, and not strawmen and ideological rally cries. EDIT: and then there's: > They often re-hash arguments which have been had and settled like 200 years ago Well, somebody has to. It's important for the same reason reproducibility in science is important. I'd be wary of assuming any complex argument has been "settled like 200 years ago". When people say this, they just mean "shut up and accept the uninformed, simplistic opinion". In a sense, this is even worse than blindly following religious dogma, as with organized religions, the core dogmas are actually designed by smart people to achieve some purpose (ill-minded or not); cutting people off with "settled like 200 years ago" is just telling them to accept whatever's the cheapest, worst-quality belief currently on sale on the "marketplace of ideas".

vinceguidry 2y ago
Rationalism, and the people who believe in it and promote it, has the problem that the human mind unavoidably decides to act as the arbiter of what is rational or not. This limits your vision to only that which the mind internally 'agrees with' or not, entrenching hidden biases. Fundamentally, it's the mind only engaging with the cognitive, and ignoring the limbic. Engaging with the limbic, with the deep, primal parts of the brain, challenges cognitively-held truths and demands you to support these truths from a broader context. This is why rationalists are more prone to engage with fascist viewpoints, they seek more power for their held beliefs and fascism offers that in spades. You're not thinking about the history of fascist movements and how horrible they all turned out. You're thinking: How can we do it better this time? Just like in math, the rational is a subset of the real, and you need both the rational and the irrational to make reality. Focusing exclusively on rationality is intentionally blinding yourself to messy reality.
- exoverito 2y ago
  Everyone likes to use fascist to smear their political opponents, yet I'm not seeing a lot of evidence that the "anti-fascists" are any different. They support mass censorship, state propaganda, political violence, forever war, discrimination, debanking, lawfare, lockdowns, and ironically even infringement of bodily autonomy through unconstitutional vaccine mandates.
  - vinceguidry 2y ago
    I hope this "I know you are but what am I" approach to politics falls out of fashion soon. Like listening to children playing cops and robbers.
    - exoverito 2y ago
      It's childish to still not see the Democrats are corrupt corporatists, and that we need real third parties and candidates strong enough to resist the myriad of dirty tactics thrown at them. Say what you will about Trump, but he's about the only person who has the strength and resources to take on an entrenched deep state and corrupt intelligence agencies. They tried to impeach him with a fake Russian collusion hoax, throw him in prison on trumped up non-criminal felonies, and oh yeah multiple assassination attempts which were memory holed a couple weeks later. The Iron Law of Wokeism is projection of the same crimes they commit upon others. We already have massive evidence the Democrats are corrupt and authoritarian, colluding with media, persecuting and assassinating whistleblowers (Assange, Snowden, Seth Rich). They engage in grotesque amounts of graft and inefficiency, as seen with California's High Speed Rail project, Biden's rural broadband and EV charging stations, which have delivered nothing. The Democrats don't even respect their voters choices in primaries, as evident by super delegates, Hillary conspiring against Bernie Sanders, the forced abdication of the obviously senile Biden, appointment of the obviously inept puppet that was Kamala Harris, etc. etc. I hope real civil libertarians become in fashion. The self-described anti-fascists are basically communists who would create an authoritarian nightmare state, per usual. Funnily enough, the Berlin Wall was officially the the Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart, and Putin is engaging in a "special police action" against Ukraine in order to "de-nazify" the regime.