scrape_r_rational/data/cache/5fc3dr.md

[D] Monday General Rationality Thread

Post:

Welcome to the Monday thread on general rationality topics! Do you really want to talk about something non-fictional, related to the real world? Have you:

• Seen something interesting on /r/science?
• Found a new way to get your shit even-more together?
• Figured out how to become immortal?
• Constructed artificial general intelligence?
• Read a neat nonfiction book?
• Munchkined your way into total control of your D&D campaign?

Comments:

• u/trekie140:

  I've been spending an inordinate amount of time on r/AskTrumpSupporters, and it has become apparent to me that the goal of raising the sanity waterline is going to be ever harder than we thought it would be. [Anti-intellectualism](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-intellectualism) has become a pervasive attitude throughout the western world, which has rendered traditional methods of rational debate useless at persuasion.
  
  Last week I made a post about how hard I was trying to avoid dehumanizing people with different political opinions from me, but the more I speak to them the more I see my prejudices as rational. Every fact I cite is decried as biased in my favor, even when they admit they are biased against me. It's as if they see rationality itself as something to oppose. I don't know what to do.
  

  • u/space_fountain:

    I spent a little bit of time on /r/AskTrumpSupporters but I came away with the feeling that what I felt /r/AskTrumpSuporters should be wasn't what it was. The modding explicitly disallows hardball questions and even so the Trump supporters on there always are complaining that they get attacked.
    
    Anyway I wish you luck. I think it's fair to say based on polling that the /r/the_Donald style Trump supporters are in the minority both of the country and even of Trump voters. It is strange though and scary. I don't think it just comes from one side though. Politics sadly isn't an intellectual game and few people know how to even start engaging with it as if it was.
    

    • u/Sailor_Vulcan:

      what exactly are the causes of anti-intellectualism being so pervasive?
      
      Now that I think about it, if you try to run a campaign against prejudice or discrimination against any other minority group, people might be more likely to change their minds. But if that minority group is just intellectuals--that is to say, smart people who actually use their smarts and enjoy doing so--then most people will probably just feel insulted, because the implication is that *they* are not smart people who actually use their smarts. But the fact is, most people aren't and not due to any fault of their own. Most people probably don't have the time, energy or attention necessary to think deeply about things, or to learn to think deeply about things.
      
      Also, this is just pure speculation, but I wonder if maybe a lot of intellectuals started out as just average intelligence people who've then had more practice thinking deeply and analytically--more chances to hone their intellects, and either got less negative reinforcement for expressing deep analytical thoughts or who were able to just ignore the negative reinforcement. Like, somebody who is new to thinking deeply and analytically would probably think, say and do a lot of very stupid things, so in order to avoid embarrassment from expressing stupid thoughts, they just avoid deep thinking?
      
      After all, being willing to think deeply about things isn't the same thing as being more intelligent.
      

      • u/trekie140:

        The best I had conclude is that intellectualism is seen as a a form of elitism. They're either seen as eggheads detached from reality or hypocrites pursuing their own agenda. [The actual arguments I heard against trusting fact checkers](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskTrumpSupporters/comments/5f0u62/what_fact_checkers_do_you_trust/) was that they can't trust them to not be biased, even though they understand that the sources they trust are biased.
        

      • u/None:

        > Now that I think about it, if you try to run a campaign against prejudice or discrimination against any other minority group, people might be more likely to change their minds. But if that minority group is just intellectuals--that is to say, smart people who actually use their smarts and enjoy doing so--then most people will probably just feel insulted, because the implication is that they are not smart people who actually use their smarts. But the fact is, most people aren't and not due to any fault of their own. Most people probably don't have the time, energy or attention necessary to think deeply about things, or to learn to think deeply about things.
        
        People conflate a whole lot between intelligence, education, and [the professional-managerial class](https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/10/democratic-party-clinton-trump-white-voters-workers/).  We have a culture that treats being smart and acting like a college-educated professional as identical, even when certain college-educated "professionals" are *just plain wrong* about thing after thing they say and do (for instance, many people in fine suits claim AI risk doesn't exist because dualism).
        
        Yes, the link is spiders.  I think it's still worth linking, because the elephant in the room is that when talking about these issues, conflating between "people in general" and "the people who showed up and got counted on Election Day" is, well, *very* incorrect.
        
        >Also, this is just pure speculation, but I wonder if maybe a lot of intellectuals started out as just average intelligence people who've then had more practice thinking deeply and analytically--more chances to hone their intellects, and either got less negative reinforcement for expressing deep analytical thoughts or who were able to just ignore the negative reinforcement. Like, somebody who is new to thinking deeply and analytically would probably think, say and do a lot of very stupid things, so in order to avoid embarrassment from expressing stupid thoughts, they just avoid deep thinking?
        
        Sounds a lot like /r/philosophy.
        

  • u/None:

    Right-wing politics aren't anti-intellectual, although I can't speak for Trump supporters. They are strongly *anti-establishment* - this has intersections with anti-intellectualism, but it's important to understand that sometimes rationality and right-wing politics *aren't* mutually exclusive.
    
    It's understandable that they're paranoid about intellectualism when the academic establishment has such a history of being dubious, and they themselves are conservative socially. It's not as if they're against studies in general (in fact, studies help legitimize their claims) - they're against *your* studies, or they think your studies don't paint the whole picture. There are plenty of intriguing studies for the other side on issues liberals don't even tend to consider, and those keep a lot of people on the right who would otherwise leave. I can't name anything off the top of my head, but if you ask somebody for sources, you'll find *something*.
    
    /r/AskTrumpSupporters isn't a good place to reassure yourself that this presidency won't be a disaster, [because they're not as representative of Trump as Trump himself is](http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/11/16/you-are-still-crying-wolf/) - remember that many people voted for Trump begrudgingly, just to keep Hillary out of office. It's like going to /pol/ expecting to find people mourning the death of Castro. Trump himself is probably more left than half the people on that sub.
    
    Also, picture this: In the wake of that massive invalidation of psychology studies, and the near stagnation of the field of quantum study, the people arguing against the current academic environment may not be all wrong. In the same way that people advocate returning to the Enlightenment roots of the constitution, there may be people who reject the modern publishing industry and strive for the virtues first established in the Scientific Revolution. There are people who reject the academic establishment who are *not* anti-intellectual, the same way the people who want to return to the roots of the constitution are not anti-government. It's possible to be an academic conservative, or even a conservative rationalist, because the fundamentals of the movement are embarrassingly broad (and encompass both people who would identify as politically conservative and those who identify as libertarian-left).
    
    Granted, the people who use this as an excuse to not change their minds *ever* are wrong, but that's not the fault of right-politics any more than Lenin is the fault of the left-ideology. Some people are beyond the reach of rationality, but that is no reason to discount an entire political hemisphere! The biggest problem here is that you poured buckets into the desert to try to raise the sanity waterline, when you should have been digging canals in the lush fields. It might not be remarkable to preach the virtues of rationality in /r/Libertarian, but it's more liable to give you results.
    

    • u/None:

      >Right-wing politics aren't anti-intellectual, although I can't speak for Trump supporters. They are strongly anti-establishment - this has intersections with anti-intellectualism, but it's important to understand that sometimes rationality and right-wing politics aren't mutually exclusive.
      
      I don't think anti-establishment politics are confined to the Right at all these days.  *Everyone* hates the establishment right now.
      

  • u/Iconochasm:

    [One of the recurring features of American intellectual life is hand-wringing over “anti-intellectualism” by, of course, intellectuals.](http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=4001)
    
    And aside from all that, I wouldn't have advised wielding reason as your weapon of choice against the archmages of meme magic to begin with.
    

    • u/None:

      > And aside from all that, I wouldn't have advised wielding reason as your weapon of choice against the archmages of meme magic to begin with.
      
      What do you advise?  I'd usually prefer a nice hard boot and a Galil rifle, but hey.
      

      • u/Iconochasm:

        Of course you would.  I'd recommend *better memes*.  Seriously, the anti-Trump memes this cycle were atrocious.  le Drumpf!  Maybe if we act like the lamest losers who hated Obama, that'll show them!  Some **high energy** to pump up caster levels would be a big help for those opposed checks, too.  The Media Bias feat is only a situational modifier, and can't compensate for a large CL discrepancy.
        

        • u/None:

          You can't match [meme magic](http://i1.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/078/597/ab3.png), it just [is](https://pepethefrogfaith.wordpress.com/). I mean, you can match meme magic, but it would take a very concentrated effort - and at no point can it look like effort, because that would be trying too hard. It would be a forced meme.
          

• u/alexanderwales:

  I've been using the [StayFocusd extension](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/stayfocusd/laankejkbhbdhmipfmgcngdelahlfoji?hl=en) for Chrome, which limits time on whatever websites you want it to, either to certain hours or for a certain amount of time (or both). For me, that's reddit, Facebook, Netflix, Amazon video, and then a whole bunch of other sites that I use less often. That leaves me to do productive things, like writing.
  
  I've been fairly astounded by how effective it's been for me. You'd think that it would be simple to just say "okay, don't go on those sites if you want to do more productive things" but I've increasingly come to realize that good habits are a matter of conserving willpower and altering patterns more than simply doing or not doing things. I've seen lots of advice for dieting that says it's simple, just make sure that calories in are lower than calories out ... which seems to deny that the basic problem lies within the brain.
  
  (None of this is particularly new, but I haven't really applied it to my life too much before.)
  

  • u/gabbalis:

    > just make sure that calories in are lower than calories out ... which seems to deny that the basic problem lies within the brain.
    
    I've read:
    
    1) Get into the habit of cooking your meals/only buying food that requires cooking
    
    2) Don't eat outside of meals
    
    3) Go grocery shopping when full.
    
    4) Buy healthy foods.
    
    5) Buy small plates and bowls.
    
    Which sounds like a much more psychology based diet plan.
    
    Unfortunately I haven't been able to test it because I don't do the shopping. And apparently everyone else in the house thinks ensuring that the fridge contains a constant stream of Egg Nog and Chocolate Milk is a good idea...
    

• u/space_fountain:

  I'm a bit worried about the future. Something I thought of after the Brexit vote and now after Trump is how hard it can be especially for someone young to think about radical change in the future. I was born just after the fall of the soviet union. Almost all of the change I think about directly experiencing has been slow, gradual, and really quite predictable.
  
  On the other hand I didn't expect Brexit, even though the polling was tight, even though it was a hard thing to accurately poll on I had strong bias toward the status quo. Similar with Trump while I was more aware I again couldn't picture what I viewed as a radical departure from the status quo despite the fact the polls were close, despite the fact that respected experts were giving 30% odds of Trump winning.
  
  What I'm getting at is that I worry we don't picture the level of radical change we may see in the future. It's not exactly a new worry but so much Sci-Fi deals with nation states or similar groups doing bad things with technology, but the more I think about it the less that's my worry. I'm more concerned with individuals. What happens when and if any human can fabricate a nuke? I think we assume that the power to prevent destruction will scale about evenly with ability to produce destruction, but I don't see any reason for that to be guaranteed.
  
  I feel like we may come to a junction where the only way to enforce rational actions like preventing nuclear bombings of cities is a much more invasive government. As somebody who is sympathetic to the ideas of Libertarianism that's a pretty tough idea, but I don't see a way around it.
  

  • u/SvalbardCaretaker:

    There are papers out there re:what it takes to not have grey goo eat the biosphere. 
    
    It comes to the conclusion that we need blue goo, eg. benefical immune system nanobots, checking every single molecule in the biosphere every minute or so. 
    
    Thats probably the most extreme example; bioengineered plagues are currently the most realistic problem we have, and much easier to defend against (though still with really badly catastrophic outcomes). 
    
    For a fictional account of how such a world with very disproportional aggression/defense technologies looks like, see www.genocideman.com, recently finished webcomic.
    

    • u/GaBeRockKing:

      Thank you for linking that comic! I loved it so much I've already blitzed through it.
      
      I found it uncannily similar to Elephantmen, if anyone is looking for similar stuff.
      

  • u/Bowbreaker:

    >  I think we assume that the power to prevent destruction will scale about evenly with ability to produce destruction
    
    Has this ever been actually the case in history? To me it seems like destructive power always ran faster, even if for a long time in history the difference was smaller. But even now the only thing protecting us from nukes is that you can't defend against them even if you yourself use them first and thus people with the power to use it are afraid to do so.
    

    • u/CouteauBleu:

      It's especially true now (hello Anarchist Cookbook) and the social tissue isn't destroyed yet, so I guess there's hope?
      

  • u/callmebrotherg:

    Similarly, I'm finding it more and more difficult to think that we're going to pull off any kind of future worth having, because we don't seem capable of getting our act together. Some of this is certainly due to my bipolar biasing me in the pessimistic direction but I still can't shake the feeling that the right conclusion to draw, even after I account for my bias, is "we're screwed and things are going to get awful in the next couple of generations, and then get even worse," and that coming to any other conclusion is just overcompensating for my bipolar's bias.
    

    • u/None:

      I'd like to say that's the bipolar, but I also have some bipolar and feel really similar right now.
      
      The rational part of me points out that what's happening right now is *overdetermination*: the people in charge attempted to impose an irrational order too hard, so the system is breaking down quite openly and turning chaotic.  If you always give people a false choice between a lesser evil and a greater evil, while the evils always make their lives worse, they will eventually choose the greater evil, the one you didn't want them to, *just to stop you doing that shit again*.
      
      Our task here is to rebuild social consensus towards a new order that meets people's needs more effectively and reliably.  That's the hard part: the actual material infrastructure for the new order is *already here*.
      
      If we're all making World War II comparisons these days, well, things were awful in 1933, but in a part of the world FDR was about to start the New Deal then.  By 1943, everything was thoroughly fucked and humanity was in its very darkest moments.  By 1953, the Postwar Consensus had been forged and people were rebuilding in a healthier new order.  Trust me, I *hate* the fact that the long view here involved 20 years and millions of deaths.
      
      Morally, our task is the same as ever: to act on empathy and kindness rather than selfishness, fear, and bias.  I've known at least one person *from this subreddit* whom current fads of speech would group as an unrepentant neo-Nazi.  He's definitely a Manosphere person at least, and I'm not sure what other weird alt-right shit he eventually got into.  I'm not sure he browses this sub anymore, though I do very rarely see him around here.  Without revealing anything he said in private, the difference between him and someone I'd consider "more decent" is mostly just that he's *selfish*: he suffered a major hurt in life, and he wants to be part of something that explains *his* suffering and offers an opportunity to do something about *his* feelings of powerlessness, rather than about suffering and powerlessness *in general*.
      
      In very short, he suffered a deep, painful loss, and he thinks the theories he's adopted can explain that loss partially away and block off further such losses in the future.  I might think that every inference he has drawn from his experiences is wrong, but I can hardly fault him for feeling pain in the circumstances.
      
      The difference of belief that makes me *not want* to side with him, when he was trying genuinely to convince me of his views, was that I don't believe the Dragon Tyrant can be appeased, and I kinda think he does.  Or at least, he thinks he can schedule his turn with death to be "later" in an organized way that benefits him alone, while he thinks that attempts to benefit people in general are naive and in fact counterproductive.  I believe the opposite: that security for people in general is the surest way towards security for myself personally.
      

      • u/callmebrotherg:

        Thank you. We haven't had many discussions, but I've built a lot of respect for your views and general sense of things, so the encouragement actually does help. 
        
        > If we're all making World War II comparisons these days, well, things were awful in 1933, but in a part of the world FDR was about to start the New Deal then. By 1943, everything was thoroughly fucked and humanity was in its very darkest moments. By 1953, the Postwar Consensus had been forged and people were rebuilding in a healthier new order. Trust me, I hate the fact that the long view here involved 20 years and millions of deaths.
        
        Nod! To explain a little more, what's weighing me is mostly the thought that, so far as the destruction of our various ecosystems goes, the tightrope that we had to walk was already pretty thin and required that we not mess up. 
        
        Except, now we have, and so it doesn't matter that we'll eventually get back on track. I'd feel more hopeful if it were just a matter of pushing through and fixing what broke, but we don't have the time for that, or so my (possibly addled) brain says. 
        
        Or more succinctly, I don't disagree that we've faced similar circumstances before, politically, and I'm honestly very optimistic about our ability to repair the situation given the time, it's just that, in the context of climate change, I don't think we have that time, and at best we'll fix the political situation in time for everything else to fall apart on us. 
        
        So I'm kind of torn between "The moral thing to do, according to *any* of the systems that are even a little bit attractive to me, is to keep on trucking and do whatever I can, even if it ultimately won't amount to anything," and "Fuck it, I'm out, I hope I get hit by a car tomorrow because at least then I won't have to see the world burn."
        

        • u/None:

          > Nod! To explain a little more, what's weighing me is mostly the thought that, so far as the destruction of our various ecosystems goes, the tightrope that we had to walk was already pretty thin and required that we not mess up.
          > 
          > Except, now we have, and so it doesn't matter that we'll eventually get back on track. I'd feel more hopeful if it were just a matter of pushing through and fixing what broke, but we don't have the time for that, or so my (possibly addled) brain says. 
          
          So on the one hand, yes, we're in big trouble.  On the other hand, we're in the same big trouble we've been in for *many* years now.  On the other other hand, there's a bright spot: much of the social elite *actually* care about this issue.  The Chinese are *angry* at the prospect of the Paris Climate Agreement getting tossed out, and *they themselves* are focusing on clean energy.  And yeah, Trumpkin are godawful, but do we really think they can *beat down Elon Musk*?
          
          But yes, it's extremely weird to be relying on the somewhat humanist segment of our corporate elite to pull us towards halfway sensible policies on this.
          
          And yes, there's a very significant chance we've been fucked for years now, and are basically just doing damage control at this point.
          

          • u/callmebrotherg:

            > The Chinese are angry at the prospect of the Paris Climate Agreement getting tossed out, and they themselves are focusing on clean energy.
            
            It's heartening to see you say that, since I've been hearing that from other corners as well but it's not been clear how much of that is wishful thinking or otherwise BS. 
            
            > And yeah, Trumpkin are godawful, but do we really think they can beat down Elon Musk?
            
            To be honest, I wouldn't be surprised if he were struck by lightning tomorrow and then a series of impossibly well-aimed meteors of death struck each of his facilities (and only his facilities). >.>
            
            Thank you. This has been a genuinely helpful conversation, and I'm grateful that you took the time out for it.
            

    • u/trekie140:

      My main source of hope is the fact that we've managed to survive this long against the odds, and many trends like technological progress and the decline in violent death have been going steady throughout history so it's unlikely current events will drastically change those. 
      
      I'm still terrified of what might happen and the consequence of current events, but the course of history doesn't seem likely to reverse. If you'd like to listen to a man who's proven to be very intelligent and insightful reassure you that things will be fine, [listen to this podcast](http://www.earwolf.com/episode/what-the-fk-just-happened-election-autopsy/).
      

• u/None:

  I haven't seen too many good intro-friendly posts on people interested in the rationality community.  Linking people to LessWrong directly without a good guide doesn't seem great (I bumbled around a lot when I first stumbled upon it).
  
  To that end, I'm working on a short essay that introduces cognitive psych, biases, and some quirks of the rationalist community in a general way.  I could then link that to friends, instead of just sending them a glut of disorderly links.
  
  Would anyone be interested in reviewing some draft versions of the essay to give some feedback?
  

  • u/Dwood15:

    It's an interesting thought, but I think that the best intro to the rational community is good writing, although an easily digestible essay on the topic might be a good idea as well.
    
    Mother of Learning is what got me to come here and keep coming around.
    

  • u/Sailor_Vulcan:

    This already exists: Rationality: From AI to Zombies. There's also the lesswrongwiki, which is kinda like tvtropes, only for rationality instead of literature. However, it's probably easier for people to learn if they don't have to bumble around a lot, and they're less likely to bumble around if there's a clear conception of what to read in what order.
    

    • u/syberdragon:

      AI to Zombies might be a little long if I'm just introducing rationality. Its length is a commitment someone might not want to make just to get an idea of what this is all about.
      

    • u/None:

      I also agree that R:A-Z does a good job of leveling people up.  The LW wiki is also very informative.
      
      I'm looking for a quicker read I can send friends so that if they're interested, they get a sense for what the Sequences are like (e.g. letting them know it's often anecdote / technical in places).
      
      For me, the Sequences were often pretty abstract, and knowing beforehand what the general gist of what they'd been trying to get across would have been helpful.
      

  • u/callmebrotherg:

    I would be interested.
    

• u/TK17Studios:

  I may be too late for anyone to read this (I mean, it's already *Tuesday*...) but:
  
  New post on "Double Crux," which is now publicly reference-able for the first time?  Maybe?  (as opposed to just being internal to CFAR).  It's a nonstandard paradigm for approaching disagreement that creates a lot of good.
  
  http://lesswrong.com/lw/o6p/double_crux_a_strategy_for_resolving_disagreement/
  

• u/Dwood15:

  I've been helping /u/ketura with his !Pokemon fan project, and to be honest, I'm way more excited about that project than I am about school. I guess I just get anxiety when it comes to school, so helping with that is a good anxiety release without the destruction of time that comes with video games, my standard anxiety distraction. 
  
  Anyway, after typing for extended periods of time on my keyboard was giving me cramps and finger pain whereas I never used to get any, a change was in order. The keyboard I had was smaller than standard and also with even smaller keys as well. I picked up the Corsair Slate on sale during Black Friday, and have yet to notice any hand cramping in all my typing yesterday and today. Here's hoping it stays that way.
  

  • u/TennisMaster2:

    Stretch your forearms regularly, and train the muscles on the top of your forearm as well if you're prone to hand cramping issues.
    

• u/UmamiSalami:

  We're starting a nomic game at r/nommit. Seems like the sort of thing that people here might like to join, so come try it.
  

• u/Rhamni:

  I started reading von Clausewitz's On War. I haven't gotten very far, but it doesn't flow well, at least to my tastes. But I hear it's a very good (non-fiction) book, so I will give it more time.
  

  • u/None:

    Let me know how that goes.  I've kinda been meaning to read it someday.
    

  • u/RatemirTheRed:

    Good luck to you! I completely agree that this book is hard to read. I started it, but couldn't finish.
    
    Unfortunately, I cannot reassure you and say that On War is going to be good reading. It certainly had some interesting notes but a lot of chapters contained too specific or too general information for my tastes.
    
    Some points I have carried out:
    
    1. It is useful to know about Napoleonic Wars, Second Punic War and wars of Frederick the Great. Clausewitz provides great in-depth analysis of some battles in these wars.
    2. According to Clausewitz, deception is not very effective in warfare. This is why On War can't be the only book to read about war, in my opinion. (This probably comes from his experience, where such methods repeatedly failed him)
    3. Sometimes it is possible to glimpse the views of Clausewitz himself from the text. These are, mostly: 'every plan is going to fail somehow' and 'it is impossible to evade war'.
    
    If you (or other subreddit visitors) would like to read something more lightweight on military strategy, please see [this amazing blog](http://l-clausewitz.livejournal.com/) for general notes and ["Stratagems" by Frontinus](http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Frontinus/Strategemata/1*.html) for the specific examples.
    

• u/None:

  I have a triage call tomorrow with my clinic about my anxiety.  I know what drug to mention to them, since it's worked on me before, and frankly I'm going to be really glad to get back to proper neurochemical functioning.  Spending most of my time with a continuous low-level panic attack just isn't useful, even when I rationally endorse the thought that danger is in fact ahead.
  

• u/None:

  I am currently torn between continuing down the path of medical school, since I just graduated undergraduate and I'm applying to med right now, or trying something completely different: going to a reputable coding bootcamp like hack reactor or app academy and trying that out for a couple years.
  
  
  In support of the former: I've accumulated enough med knowledge on my own such that when I shadow physicians they are generally impressed with me, and ask if I'm in med school already. Im also extroverted enough that dealing with patients and coworkers is reasonably fun. In support of the latter: I'm impatient to start real/adult life, I have a growing sense of anxiety/excitement that tech is where I should work given that its kind of eating many other fields, and I want to be independent of family and in a new place for a while. 
  
  Hard to know that instinct to go with. Anyone here have thoughts on breaking into the tech industry through coding bootcamp? How realistic is that?
  

• u/DataPacRat:

  If you could pick one music track that, if turned into a music video, could most exemplify the emotions resulting from LW-style rationality, what would that song be?
  

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