sophia_xu's Shortform

post by sophia_xu · 2021-03-18T18:28:46.833Z · LW · GW · 3 comments

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comment by sophia_xu · 2021-03-18T18:28:47.346Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

New sequence idea: bridging humanities lingo to the aspiring-rationalist community.

Observation: many of our current humanities lingo (e.g. that of critical theory, postmodernism, contemporary feminism) get underrepresented or misrepresented in the lesswrong community. To verify: do a search of the terms above and see.

Observation: some people (such as philosophers on r/askphilosophy) outside of the lesswrong community view this place in a bad light because they thought we aren't taking the previous debates in philosophy on the same problems seriously.

Common knowledge: more (and more diverse) discussion almost always leads to better models of reality.
 

Common heuristic: use of different languages with different context shape how we view the same topic.


Hypothesis: A metaphorical bridge that connects the humanities language (and context) to that of us can help us make sense of a lot of points and discourse (often implicit, as a characterization of humanities subjects).

Replies from: supposedlyfun
↑ comment by supposedlyfun · 2021-03-23T03:17:14.683Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

I'm slowly working on a frontpage generally arguing that Critical Theory has value. My hypothesis is that some of the community will be allergic to it because it's associated with "SJW" issues and bad academia but that more of the community will thoughtfully engage if I present it in aspiring-rationalist terms, especially foundational ones like falsifiability and making beliefs pay rent.   

I'd be willing to help workshop entries in your sequence along those lines. And if you want to steal my particular idea for part of your sequence, go for it--the work is going slowly.

Replies from: sophia_xu
↑ comment by sophia_xu · 2021-03-23T06:58:21.114Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

I'm slowly working on a frontpage generally arguing that Critical Theory has value.

Hey I'm open if you want to co-write something!

I agree with your assessment that concepts within fields like Critical Theory was not discussed in the aspiring-rationalist context enough. I think most aspiring rationalists would be interested in these alternative maps, if it wasn't presented as totally disconnected to our original maps.