21. The result of the major centralization of written material in the rationalist space, combined with directly associated social channels, is that a set of strong common beliefs can form, a general picture of which I gave above.
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22. This emergence of consensus on the Rationalist sphere is aided by their conversational norms: these spaces prize dispassionate intellectual conversation, as so to permit consideration of diverse topics that may fall outside the realm of social acceptability.
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23. This willingness to avoid consideration of social acceptability has led to attacks on the Rationalist community. Media sources or motivated individuals (/r/sneerclub) love to accuse the discourse of ThoughtCrime. Scott Alexander has written about his suffering as a result.
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Replying to @simpolism
Sneerclub is an interesting space. There is definitely the liberal moral purity aspect to it, but its membership is largely made up of ex-rationalists butting up against the orthodoxy you describe. Typical journey:https://www.reddit.com/r/SneerClub/comments/7gnzdb/is_it_the_people_or_the_philosophy/ …
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Replying to @dschorno
This looks a lot like the journey that leads one to being a postrat, but with negation applied to different aspects of the rationalist mentality than the typical postrat. Very interesting, ty.
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Replying to @simpolism @dschorno
simpolism Retweeted simpolism
It sounds like the author negated the skepticist aspect of the rationalist community, which is usually what postrats double-down on. Their belief in social legitimation is stronger than most rationalists, which makes sense, even just pragmatically.https://twitter.com/simpolism/status/1206346259369484293 …
simpolism added,
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Replying to @simpolism @dschorno
An alternative framing is that postrats have doubled down on skepticism by learning to apply it reflexively, such that they doubt their own conclusions on a topic as much if not more than the social consensus. At least, in theory. Whereas this poster just negates it.
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Replying to @simpolism @dschorno
To me, /r/sneerclub reads as a place to wallow in disavowal. The participants are traumatized somehow by the rationalists and then reject it wholesale, rather than attempting a synthesis with their existing worldviews. They double down on social consensus to protect themselves.
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Replying to @simpolism
Kindof like the
@Meaningness take on "stage 4.5" postmodernism vs "stage 5" metarationality1 reply 0 retweets 1 like -
Replying to @dschorno @Meaningness
eh, to put it in Meaningness terms, it'd be like peeking at stage 4 and then getting scared and leaping back to stage 3 and trying to forget that stage 4 exists, rather than trying to build forward toward stage 5
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Interesting thread, thank you both!
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