Rationalism for the masses

post by marcus_gabler · 2018-10-02T17:10:52.217Z · LW · GW · 6 comments

Contents

  Key challenges
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6 comments

I think the ideas of rationalism have the potential to make our world better - or to even save it.

I see this potential largely undeveloped and currently only recognized in rather academic / intellectual circles.

I think it's more than time to bring this "wisdom" to a wider audience. Firstly online but with the final goal to have it integrated into society practically (ie. in school education) and generally (so that truth, reason and empathy become widely accepted values).

I am asking the community for assistance here.

Key challenges

I wonder if there are others out there who thought about this.

The thought of me being the only "messiah" to bring this to the world is much more scary than it might sound intriguing, trust me. I only want to get the stones rolling, and so far, I can't help but feeling on my own.

Any feedback appreciated.

And never forget to have fun, no matter how serious this might be.

Take care, Marcus.

PS: I learned to anticipate obstacles. One might be that I am not taken seriously because I have no publications out yet and that this post might as well be written by someone who can merely spell the word rationalizm. :-).

But then again: Enough great stuff has been theorized here. Even in the (theoretically assumed) case that I didn't have a clue about rationalist ideas and simply only knew nothing but that those are good for every single human being should be motivation enough to support me, logically.

6 comments

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comment by jimrandomh · 2018-10-02T19:54:56.354Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

I would recommend starting with more sophisticated and friendly audiences, the sort of people who would go to a Less Wrong meetup, before you try to pitch rationality to more mainstream audiences. It's more difficult than you would expect; rationality concepts generally rest on and depend on a foundation of analytical thinking, and this is far from universal. It's also hard to distinguish yourself from people pitching things that look superficially similar at first, but later veer into crazy politics or scams.

All that said, there's definitely value in creating more-accessible explanations of key concepts, and if you think you've got the writing skill, it's worth a shot.

Replies from: marcus_gabler
↑ comment by marcus_gabler · 2018-10-03T06:17:27.778Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

>>> more sophisticated and friendly audiences

Hmmm, i can't help feeling ANYWHERE else but LW would be a more friendly audience.

I even got 1 downvote here...

Trust me, I have decades of 1st hands on experience on running against the walls of concrete minds.

That is why I a totally aware of the challenges, that's what my post is about.

Replies from: Viliam
↑ comment by Viliam · 2018-10-03T22:52:08.525Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Trust me, I have decades of 1st hands on experience on running against the walls of concrete minds.

This doesn't seem like a good way to build rationality. It is like trying to build a computer by taking a heap of components, and kicking them really hard and really persistently. -- You will do a lot of work and your original goal is reasonable, it's just that this method does not approach that goal at all.

Replies from: marcus_gabler
↑ comment by marcus_gabler · 2018-10-04T05:30:43.752Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Maybe you didnt get me:

Because of my yearlong experience talking to average people I KNOW how to approach them and how not. (I.e. "You fools, I will lead you out of darkness" is wrong "Did you ever wonder..." is better).

Why would you even believe that running against walls could be a considerable tactic?

comment by Viliam · 2018-10-03T23:25:55.520Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

A big problem with trying to spread rationality is that an approximation is not necessarily an improvement, and may even sometimes make things worse. As an analogy, getting people from "I have no idea how much is 2+2" to "2+2 equals 5" is not an improvement in math (especially when the latter become resistant against learning that the result is actually 4, because they "already know" the answer).

Related: Knowing About Biases Can Hurt People

There already exist several approximations of rationality, for example RationalWiki [LW · GW], Intentional Insights, Logic Nation [LW(p) · GW(p)]. Your most likely risk at spreading rationality is failing completely, but your second greatest risk is becoming (or inspiring) yet another of those.

Generally, I agree with you that it is good to: simplify the language, prioritize stuff, avoid needless offense, find easily memorable words, show everyday usefulness, etc. I just think that even after you do all of this... most people will remain unimpressed. Most of them will simply not care. The rest will take what you made and twist is somehow to include their pet topic, typically some form of supernaturalism.

I wish I knew what to do instead. I don't. :( I think that having the Sequences is already a huge improvement over the previous situation (having a book I can point at, instead of just saying "uhm, the way you are using this reason thing feels wrong to me" only to be told "well, that's just your opinion, man"), but still, even most of the highly intelligent and educated people remain unimpressed. And when a century ago Korzybski wrote Science and Sanity, also a few people were highly energized by it, but most remained unimpressed, and then it mostly got forgotten. -- It would be interesting to do research on what makes people predisposed to respond positively to the idea of rationality. Because it seems to me that most people who were impressed by it, already came somehow prepared to get it. If we could only replicate this previous step...

comment by marcus_gabler · 2018-10-04T05:43:31.115Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Thanks, this backfire is not something I have yet anticipatet.

That's why I will constantly have my stuff reviewed by you folks here. :-)