Evangelical Rationality

A few weeks ago, I put a link to "Guessing the Teacher's Password" into one of my physics class lab reports. My professor followed the link, read several articles, and has shared at least that first one with several other science faculty at the community college I attend.

Doesn't quite count as non-geeky, but I am nonetheless well pleased.

I have to admit, I've never understood Hanson's Near-Far distinction either. As described it just doesn't seem to mesh at all with how I think about thinking. I keep hoping someone else will post their interpretation of it from a sufficiently different viewpoint that I can at least understand it well enough to know if I agree with it or not.

The game of "Paranoid Debating" ( http://lesswrong.com/lw/77/selecting_rationalist_groups/6lb ) would make for a great gameshow and it would definately increase the popularity of rationality. Someone should try pitching it to a TV station...

Another thing that comes off the top of my head is that one might try to get some groups already interested in this topic (in theory) to read LW and OB. One such group I can think of are LaVeyan Satanists. In theory, it is a religion of rationality (although, in practice, it is rather far from it quite often.. Im just lucky to know a specimen who embodies the theory)... Then again, this might not be an association we want (especially in US.. it would even be rather bad here in Estonia where most of the country is atheistic).. but there should be some other groups who hold rationality as one of their core values but know relatively little about it. These people should be rather easy to get - just by stressing that it is one of their own core values...

Typos:
dicount -> discount
meantion -> mention

We must establish non-geeky paths to rationality.

I think this is important in teaching how these principles apply to non-geeky lives. While curiosity is a virtue, not everyone has in it spades. More specifically, when some people encounter a term they do not know they simply stop reading with an, "I do not understand." They should be filled with curiosity about what that term means but, for some reason, they are not.

On second thought, "should" may be too strong. Is curiosity an innate emotion/ability/feeling? Can it be trained? This is drifting further off-topic.

It might be prudent to avoid associating rationality with particular people or social institutions.

There's always the risk that particular instances of rationality will result in disaster, or that Bad Guys will be painstakingly rational, and in the early stages, wouldn't want to suffer the fate of religions, which often take reputation hits when their followers do nasty things.

Rationality could be advertised as a morally neutral instrumental value, i.e., Better Living Through Rationality.

On the other hand, we could sell rationality as a tool for atheists, drug policy activists, and stockbrokers, and publicly associate with their successes.

I vote this article down for discourtesy.

I do not think that "the apologist and the revolutionary" is a random mostly useless piece of trivia. I think it is an interesting introduction to a particular way a damaged brain can work, such that the map and the territory are grossly different. I was fascinated by the blast of cold water in the ear, and the effect of that.

I consider that if we are too discourteous to each other we may drive people away. It is quite possible to disagree courteously, or to vote down an article, or leave a comment there.

It may be relevant that I am female. I like people to get along. I believe that we work better together when we do. Men here do, from time to time, ask why LW and OB comments are predominantly from men.

Apart from that, I am glad to read your article, and interested to hear how your evangelism went.