Pertinent Twitter comment:

"Rationalism is such an insane name for a school of thought. Like calling your ideology correctism or winsargumentism"

https://x.com/growing_daniel/status/1893554844725616666

ameliaquining 8 days ago | parent | next [-]

IIUC the name in its current sense was sort of an accident. Yudkowsky originally used the term to mean "someone who succeeds at thinking and acting rationally" (so "correctism" or "winsargumentism" would have been about equally good), and then talked about the idea of "aspiring rationalists" as a community narrowly focused on developing a sort of engineering discipline that would study the scientific principles of how to be right in full generality and put them into practice. Then the community grew and mutated into a broader social milieu that was only sort of about that, and people needed a name for it, and "rationalists" was already there, so that became the name through common usage. It definitely has certain awkwardnesses.

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hn_throwaway_99 8 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

To be honest I don't understand that objection. If you strip it from all its culty sociological effects, one of the original ideas of rationalism was to try to use logical reasoning and statistical techniques to explicitly avoid the pitfalls of known cognitive biases. Given that foundational tenet, "rationalism" seems like an extremely appropriate moniker.

I fully accept that the rationalist community may have morphed into something far beyond that original tenet, but I think rationalism just describes the approach, not that it's the "one true philosophy".

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ameliaquining 8 days ago | parent | next [-]

That it refers to a different but confusingly related concept in philosophy is a real downside of the name.

	▲	hn_throwaway_99 7 days ago \| parent [-]
		That point seems fair enough to me, as I'm not familiar with the specifics and history of the related concept in philosophy. But that seems different than the objection that calling yourself "rationalist" somehow implies you think that you have the "1 true answer" to the world's problems.

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nyeah 8 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I'm going to start a group called "Mentally Healthy People". We use data, logical thinking, and informal peer review. If you disagree with us, our first question will be "what's wrong with mental health?"

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hn_throwaway_99 7 days ago | parent | next [-]

But, to be frank, "Mentally Healthy People" fully acknowledge and accept their emotions, and indeed understand that emotions are the fundamental way that natural selection implements motivation.

Calling yourself "rationalist" doesn't inherently mean that you think you're better than everyone else, or somehow infallible. To me it just means your specific approach to problem solving.

	▲	7 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
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	▲	nyeah 7 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		to be frank, "Mentally Healthy People" fully acknowledge and accept their emotions, and indeed understand that emotions are the fundamental way that natural selection implements motivation. No, no, no! "Mentally Healthy People" is just the name of my group. It has nothing to do with emotions. How could you get confused like that?

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handoflixue 8 days ago | parent | prev [-]

So... Psychiatry? Do you think psychiatrists are particularly prone to starting cults? Do you think learning about psychiatry makes you at risk for cult-like behavior?

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nyeah 8 days ago | parent [-]

No. I have no beef with psychology or psychiatry. They're doing good work as far as I can tell. I am poking fun at people who take "rationality" and turn it into a brand name.

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handoflixue 8 days ago | parent [-]

Why is "you can work to avoid cognitive biases" more ridiculous than "you can work to improve your mental health"?

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nyeah 8 days ago | parent [-]

I'm feeling a little frustrated by the derail. My complaint is about some small group claiming to have a monopoly on a normal human faculty, in this case rationality. The small group might well go on to claim that people outside the group lack rationality. That would be absurd. The mental health profession do not claim to be immune from mental illness themselves, they do not claim that people outside their circle are mentally unhealthy, and they do not claim that their particular treatment is necessary for mental health.

I guess it's possible you might be doing some deep ironic thing by providing a seemingly sincere example of what I'm complaining about. If so it was over my head but in that case I withdraw "derail"!

	▲	handoflixue 7 days ago \| parent [-]
		> My complaint is about some small group claiming to have a monopoly on a normal human faculty, in this case rationality. "Rationalists" don't claim a monopoly any more than Psychiatry does. > The small group might well go on to claim that people outside the group lack rationality. Again, something that psychiatry is quite noteworthy about: the entire point of the profession is to tell non-professionals that they're doing Emotionally Healthy wrong. > The mental health profession do not claim to be immune from mental illness themselves, Rationalist don't claim to be immune to irrationality, and this is in fact repeatedly emphasized: numerous cornerstone articles are about "wow, I really fucked up at this Rationality thing", including articles by Eliezer. > they do not claim that people outside their circle are mentally unhealthy ... what? So if I go to a psychiatrist, you think they're gonna say I'm FINE? No matter what? Have you ever heard of "involuntary commitment"? > and they do not claim that their particular treatment is necessary for mental health. Again, this is about as true as it is for rationalists.

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glenstein 8 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Right and to your point, I would say you can distinguish (1) "objective" in the sense of relying on mind-independent data from (2) absolute knowledge, which treats subjects like closed conversations. And you can make similar caveats for "rational".

You can be rational and objective about a given topic without it meaning that the conversation is closed, or that all knowledge has been found. So I'm certainly not a fan of cult dynamics, but I think it's easy to throw an unfair charge at these groups, that their interest in the topic necessitates an absolutist disposition.

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rcxdude 7 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It's not particularly unusual, though. See the various kinds of 'Realist' groups, for example, which have a pretty wild range of outlooks. (both Realist and Rationalist also have the neat built-in shield of being able to say "look, I don't particularly like the conclusions I'm coming to, they just are what they are", so it's a convenient framing for unpalatable beliefs)

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wiredfool 8 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Objectivisim?

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SilverElfin 8 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

What do you make of the word “science” then?

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nyeah 8 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Great names! Are you using them, or are they available? /s