yeah I was kind of exaggerating, the problem is not so much utilitarianism as how the rationalists interpret utilitarianism
'oh, in this hypothetical situation strict act utilitarianism would lead to the suffering and deaths of millions of people? well, that sucks, but at least we maximised utility'
'yes, I understand there are alternatives to treating all humans as replaceable due to only valuing them based on their experience of an arbitrary and difficult to measure mental state, but pretending my morality is based on maths makes me feel smart'
Their absurd conclusions they come to are even consistent with their absurd premises, but you reach the limit of your certainty on 'I am not insane/hallucinating/hitler/stalin' long before you can justify killing one non-immediately-dangerous person the vast majority of the time, let alone millions.
There is also the not insignificant fact that people--even people who believe in utilitarianism--*don't operate* solely on utilitarianism, so if you actually did start torturing one dude to keep other people from getting dust in their eyes, it would lead to some really unpleasant places *really quickly*. That's basically the reasoning behind inflicting pain on other people due to it being cheaper or more expedient, after all.
Looking at the content of the pictured OP… When they say the don’t
believe in growth mindset (thanks to the rationalist), does that mean
they instead believe key traits like intelligence or propensity to
commit crime are instead immutable and heritable?
God fucking damnit… Scott’s goal of crypto fascist indoctrination is
obvious once you start looking for it, but layered just enough for
people to miss it if they don’t want to see it.
Also, how stupid is it to think you can learn to overcome your
cognitive biases but can’t mentally grow in other ways.
Edit: I got curious so I went to the source. The top comment isn’t
bad, it acknowledges the limits of rationality on its own as opposed to
with other tools and philosophies like empiricism. But 5 top level
comments down is someone espousing belief in genetic determinism thanks
to the rationalist community…
Like there are a lot of implicit assumptions most IQ fetishists make that are totally bogus right, but I wouldn't throw out the baby with the bathwater.
I don't know if IQ is meaningless, but I don't think treating it as meaningless leads to worse outcomes than treating it as highly significant does
(Assuming that "treating IQ as meaningless" doesn't mean using something even more obviously unsuitable, such as skin color or best guess as to genitals, for the same end)
When I was a student (to date myself, ten years ago), one of the things that the psychometric professors were pretty open about was that IQ primarily has a reliability problem. You can study for IQ tests and it makes your score go up, and taking multiple IQ tests in a short time period will show a small but significant upward trend. The problem with correlating IQ to a bunch of real world factors is that there's not much reason to be confidant that you know what your IQ is.
I'm absolutely certain that there's some third mindset beyond growth and fixed, and I just can't remember what the fuck it is. It has something to do with the idea that, according to growth mindset, the reason you can't fly by flapping your arms is because you haven't tried flapping your arms hard enough.
in all embarrassing honesty I used to be into several things the
Rationalist community likes until I met that community and saw where it
really comes from and where it leads
ISTM that there are many, many things that people who value being able to think (more) rationally are “into” that are not at all even remotely embarrassing.
The fact that the “Rationalist” community uses them in absurd ways to reach bizarre conclusions that are completely contradicted by some of their other conclusions (Pascal's Wager problems, for instance) is not a reason to abandon those things. Babies and bath water, my good sir.
I used to think Meditations on Moloch was a sufficient
critique of capitalism until I realized everyone in the rationalist
community used it to convince themselves that SA wasn’t a neocon.
I think Scott or someone else in the community tried to update the Parable of the Dragon where it also levied taxes under threat of killing even more people, but then used it to present an argument that the current capitalist system was as efficient at saving lives as it could be until the dragon can be overthrown. It completely fails to consider the *possibility* that people are incentivized to scam and steal from others so they will be fed to the dragon instead.
i used to think that utilitarianism was a cool and normal belief system before i encountered rationalists
Looking at the content of the pictured OP… When they say the don’t believe in growth mindset (thanks to the rationalist), does that mean they instead believe key traits like intelligence or propensity to commit crime are instead immutable and heritable?
God fucking damnit… Scott’s goal of crypto fascist indoctrination is obvious once you start looking for it, but layered just enough for people to miss it if they don’t want to see it.
Also, how stupid is it to think you can learn to overcome your cognitive biases but can’t mentally grow in other ways.
Edit: I got curious so I went to the source. The top comment isn’t bad, it acknowledges the limits of rationality on its own as opposed to with other tools and philosophies like empiricism. But 5 top level comments down is someone espousing belief in genetic determinism thanks to the rationalist community…
in all embarrassing honesty I used to be into several things the Rationalist community likes until I met that community and saw where it really comes from and where it leads
good wake-up call I guess
I used to think Meditations on Moloch was a sufficient critique of capitalism until I realized everyone in the rationalist community used it to convince themselves that SA wasn’t a neocon.
puts on sunglasses
starts filming from the inside of a car
It is true though.
nice, nailed it
Post is gone?