"I used to be a cyberpunk, but then I realized big corporate profits weren't always good for the little people. Now I'm a post-cyberpunk."
"Oh, I have a similar story! One day I realized human beings were often pretty bad at explicit reasoning, and now I'm a post-rationalist."
Conversation
Like. Where are all these "rationalists" who think that Everything Can Be Solved With Explicit Reasoning even coming from? Is there a whole hidden subcommunity of people who identify as "rationalists" but have literally never read a single blog post I've written?
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We hear all these very loud people who go around saying that they *used* to be in this subsection of rationalism that somehow ended up with the impression that verbal thinking always works, and now they're post-rats, but I never hear from anybody who believes that *right now*.
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And maybe they're telling the truth, and there actually *is* this buried subsector of self-identified EAs/rationalists who have no idea at all what the core material is, and I just never meet them, and also none of them are on Twitter.
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Or alternatively, maybe "post-rat" is an identity largely adopted wholesale, and it comes with a standard origin story, and that origin story doesn't make any sense, but it sounds good, and people imitate that origin story from each other and repeat it, or maybe even believe it.
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Replying to
I'm sure lots of ppl are using 'post-rat' in ways I don't understand/agree with, but I've felt affinity for the term for my own reasons. And to be clear I have a *strong* affection for straight up rationalists; I think they're often misconstrued in unfair ways. 1/
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when I attended my first rationality meetup, i found great people and discussion and *also* like a big part of the way I approached reality was missing/unseen/not respected there. I tried really really hard to bring it, but I think something systemic prevented it from being seen
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Idk if it was 'rationality' specifically or just selection effects that made the ppl who gravitated there also not resonate with my perspective? But it was the case, and has remained the case with all the rationalists groups I've hung with - *except* post-rats
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I like the term post-rat in the sense that it describes "people who love rationality but find it doesn't touch this other part they really want touched". Maybe even with a side sprinkle of "and find rationality to be fundamentally inadequate for touching that part"
Are you able to articulate what the difference is? I'm curious!