Did the label “rationalist” ever fit? Going by the philosophical
definitions, at least, they seem all along to have embraced not
rationalism but rather the cast-offs of both rationalist and empiricist
thinking, left to grow pungent and then stitched together into a
shambolic corpse, animated by a storm of pure ego.
Well, along the old rational vs. empirical divide, they always prefer to deduce from ~~prejudices~~ ~~cognitive biases~~ first principles rather than induce from ~~having to look something up in a publication~~ ~~knowing wtf you're talking about~~ experience and data. So that kinda fits. Maybe it's the only possible outcome when a bunch of internet laypeople try to recreate thousands of years of philosophy without reading anything outside their blogosphere, maybe it's because they've absorbed the American right-wing mythology that academia is hopelessly tainted with ~~cultural Marxism~~ wokeism and therefore all its accumulated knowledge is useless. Regardless, the shoe may be the wrong size but it fits the right foot.
If it helps, use an uppercase R, and think of these Rationalists not as "those who reason" but "those who rationalize".
Yeah, they seemingly prefer deducing from "first principles" (i.e., reasoning from an armchair, or whatever the gamer word for one is). Yet there's also a strain of "just look at the data, it implies all these oh-so-uncomfortable and contrarian conclusions". They want to pwn with both facts *and* logic. Of course, the "data" is [Googling "families of overachievers"](https://www.reddit.com/r/SneerClub/comments/qquusr/why_do_aristocratic_families_exist_the_other/) and the like. Overall, I think they partake of the worst of both worlds, though of course they may skew more one way than the other.
The sentiment that a superintelligence can divine all necessary facts about the real world without any experiental testing (like the "AI in a box" thought experiments, or Yud's "eugenic superhumans pwning 5d tentacle aliens after seeing two frames of their world") seems more "rationalist" than "empiricist" to me. No offence meant to actual rationalist philosophers, of course.
While causal determinists, this omniscient intelligence is not arrived at through any sort of ontological argument but through speculative thinking, and this superintelligence is the end point of history, the culimination of the development of consciousness at which point Spirit apprehends all reality is reason and itself as the realization of reason.
That's right: (sci-fi nerd) *Hegelians*.
All this talk of "memes" is literally reinventing idealism, just dressed up in 21st century scientific lingo rather than 19th century one. That's it really.
I've seen some 'reality is a simulation/video game' that come, I think, as close as one could expect to old school rationalism, also some references to 'first principles' but usually that's with respect to politics.
They're Bayesians, or at least attest to be, so rely on statistical inference rather than deduction from intuition, in the early modern sense.
He had me in the first half, not gonna lie. (I thought he finally
realized the systemic problems with capitalism and was going to frame
standard leftists views in rationalist lingo.)
[This](http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2018/01/dude-you-broke-the-future.html) piece by Charlie Stross is close to that, by framing corporations as "slow AI". Stross is actually smart though.
I can get you started on the jargon and terminology:
* instead of “baseless assumption” use the term “priors”.
* instead of “learning new information” use the term “Bayesian updating”
* instead of “I am ignoring your new information” use the phrase “my Bayesian update was not enough to shift my inferences”
* instead of “capitalism drives systemic problems” try “misaligned economic incentives” or “moloch”
* instead of “feckless enlightened centrist” try “grey tribe”
Don’t forget to use computer programming terms outside the context of computer science! With ~~im~~proper use of the terminology you can simultaneously mock other academic fields, imply that computer science can better describe every aspects of reality, appeal to an audience that idolizes programming, and boost you word count!
Has someone made a dictionary of Rationalistisms? Not on their terms, but their equivalent terms in normal philosophy. I've never actually come across any Rationalist term i haven't been able to find a near-to-exact equivalent to in standard philosophical discourse, but I don't want to keep having to look up these goofy turns of phrase
Sweden's not doing [too bad](https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2021/10/21/citizens-in-advanced-economies-want-significant-changes-to-their-political-systems/). Though in fairness to this sub, it [doesn't fit](https://thedispatch.com/p/why-the-nordic-model-wouldnt-work) that neatly into US political dichotomies either.
That survey has very flawed wording and is misleading. Complete reform and big changes are two very different things that cover a wide section of the spectrum, and can be interpreted in several ways. Our system is very good, capitalism is amazing, we need to make a small number of changes that will have big effects we do not need complete reform Which would be the equivalent of throwing the system away and changing to something else. Significant changes can be interpreted as lots of changes or fewer but larger changes. And it's very relative to interpretation.
Patents are being given out for things that shouldn't be patented.
Copyright should be given an expiration date that isn't changed periodically by Disney.
Housing law should be changed so not every house is forced to be single family.
Capitalism is not the problem.
You're missing the forest for the trees here: I think the survey is more a gauge of the national mood, rather than about specific policy issues. Whatever its actual effects, Swedes are rather uniquely satisfied with their system. And as the other article I linked to in my first comment demonstrates, Sweden's not exactly embodying the kind of “democratic socialism” favored by US Bernie types either.
Sweden has a far more regressive taxation system and lower corporate and capital taxes than America; it also has free higher ed with government grants covering living expenses paid to all students on top. Meanwhile, its public debt stood at around 35% of GDP in 2019 to America's over 100%. Belying the oft-cited claims about American capitalism yielding a uniquely innovative and dynamic economy, the share of GDP devoted to R&D is higher in Sweden, as is the annual per-capita rate of scientific publications and patent registrations. Even conservatives should be happy – Sweden's TFR surpassed that of the US in 2021, no doubt in part due to its extremely liberal government family policies.
It still has the problem of grouping too many people together. The way they ask the question is not very clear. I will never be satisfied with the system, I still think it's the best system. Cultural differences in language can explain why they are satisfied and we aren't.
Very few but specific changes would fix all of those differences here, and they aren't the changes people often think they would be.
To repeat myself – you are reading too much into the particular verbiage. For a typical person, such a question is just a reflection of their general sense of where their country is going.
There is no such thing as a typical person. It all depends on how you define satisfaction. It can either mean no complaints 100 percent. Or it can be 50 percent as in barely acceptable. Mad unless the everyone agrees on which definition is used the survey is useless. It could berry easily be a difference in culture.
When you ask a person on the street such a question as in the survey (i.e. “Do you think the economic/healthcare/political system needs to be completely reformed?”), you don't get a granular answer that goes into the technicalities of policy – the person gives you the magnitude of their undefined “sense” or “feeling” of where their country's at in these particular domains. Trying to read anything further into the survey is futile – call it a national mood barometer.
To be honest, I get the impression you are just being overly defensive regarding the standing US citizens have of their country and have rationalized a Panglossian view of the American economic & political system for yourself. No matter what spin you put on it, a country like Sweden has nowhere near the polarization or manifold social pathologies that characterize America. Whether there's a theoretical magic bullet to solve them all is immaterial when there's at least an equal risk of the country becoming a banana republic governed by authoritarian cronies.
If you ask people if they are satisfied with something, you are going to get different answers based on how they understand the specific wording you used. The survey is begging the question.
My point is that we can't know what people are actually thinking based on such a simple question that is going to be interpreted differently based on the culture of the language in that person's area.
A country like Sweden has much less of a monopoly on news coverage, so any polarization there is going to be seen less. The people on the extremes in America get a lot of attention so we think there is more here than there actually is.
Asking whether your country's politico-economic system needs to be “completely reformed” is a pretty unbiased proxy for general _feelings of satisfaction_ with that system; again, a person on the street doesn't take that question to mean whether one or two things need to be completely changed. _On average_, it's a measure of affective satisfaction and nothing else.
Also, the trend towards increased polarization in the US is quite [well established](https://web.stanford.edu/~gentzkow/research/cross-polar.pdf) (see figure 1, cf. Sweden & US).
I'm on mobile. Do you have a link to that which works on mobile without a download?
Asking a yes or no question is always leading the question. And people are much more likely to say yes in the over polite culture of the us.
You need to stop assuming that everyone is going to answer the question the same way you do. Cultural differences in the us are larger than you think when it comes to language.
Did you look at the linked [graph](https://www.pewresearch.org/global/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/10/PG_2021.10.21_Democracy_0-01.png?resize=1024,866)?
Nope, didn't see them with the dark mode filter I was using. All I could see was the underlined text for me it was yellow text just like everything else. I didn't see that it was a link. If I were you I'd post a normal link next time.
I cannot imagine a more bleak and nihilistic worldview than the one that looks around at what we've got going on right now and says "Yep, this is the best and most efficient system."
High on his own supply
Did the label “rationalist” ever fit? Going by the philosophical definitions, at least, they seem all along to have embraced not rationalism but rather the cast-offs of both rationalist and empiricist thinking, left to grow pungent and then stitched together into a shambolic corpse, animated by a storm of pure ego.
He had me in the first half, not gonna lie. (I thought he finally realized the systemic problems with capitalism and was going to frame standard leftists views in rationalist lingo.)
Posting crypto bros is cheating
.eth in the @
Someone steal that dork’s apes
That doesn’t make any kind of sense. Is he a bot?
Rationalizationist would fit
that last line made me burst out into hysterical laughter
Evidence that this sort doesn’t read beyond the first 4 letters? Feminist! = femicide
Is this what the death drive is ?
what a moron
Roko admitted that he at the age of 37, had a poor career and no gf/wife. He also said he was aiming to date teenagers
Zero to a gillion real fast, twice