https://web.archive.org/web/20220202193959/https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/why-do-i-suck
I think it passed by without remark a few months ago, but Scott says out loud something that, though obvious, really does put the pin in the bubble of his “rationality”.
Second: I hate conforming. Hate hate hate it. As Mencken said, “it’s not worth an intelligent person’s time to be in the majority, by definition there are already enough people to do that.” Expressing a majority viewpoint feels like punching down, or like kicking an underdog. I’ll do it if I have to, because you should still defend the truth even when it’s popular, but I don’t enjoy it.
Now, Yogi Berra famously (and apocryphally) summed up the iconoclastic misanthropic streak in all of us with the oft-quoted “Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded.” It’s hardly unique to Mr. Codex to have this streak. Although, it tends to be quite a bit stronger in anyone, like myself, who is neuro-diverse in a way that makes navigating the social landscape a mystifying chore.
But, to celebrate it as a valid reason to form an opinion, or to avoid arguing in favor of something, is quite the failure for someone who professes to want to believe more true things and less false ones. You’d think that he might rethink whether he actually believes what he thinks he does, but …
I realize it’s self-serving to write a post on why you suck and transition to “maybe I’m just too good for everyone”.
Ah Scott, you’ve probably always deeply wanted to believe this. You may have spent your whole adult life trying to convince yourself of it. One both despises the crowd and craves its adulation.
one weird trick: All scott has to do is convince himself that his position is marginalized and beleaguered, even if it isn’t. Then he gets the benefit of the underdog morale buff, even while arguing on behalf on entrenched power structures. next level power gaming strat
This is one of the best sneers I’ve seen on here recently. I know the tendency and purpose of the sub is to, well, sneer but IMO the best critiques of online rationalism here are pointing out when rationalists brazenly fail by their own self-proclaimed standards. Scott’s transparent straw-manning during the recent post on “Justice” was a classic case of not noticing “skulls” too.
Lol wtf. What kind of grown-ass man acts all rebellious and contrarian towards his friends? It never occurred to you to extend them some actual charity and empathy to your friends to find out why they think they way they do? They’re your friends. This is straight up teenager bullshit at best.
You are literally a republican. Only braindead republicans think the creeping conspiracy of critical race theory is even a thing. Did it even occur to you to actually check if this was true? Because it isn’t. If you extend the concept of rationality to actually looking up facts you’d know that.
excuse me what
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Can anybody recommended any good skeptical writing into the real undercurrents of rationalism like this Aeon essay about “longtermism”?: https://aeon.co/essays/why-longtermism-is-the-worlds-most-dangerous-secular-credo
I was kind of shocked when I read that because I don’t think it even mentions Scott but he has capped off multiple essays with that exact crazy hypothetical “humanity living for a trillion zillion years as an intergalactic trans human species” and I thought it was just a slightly zany exercise in following a line of logic to trippiest conclusions but to realize that’s a really foundational belief of “Rationalists” is really something else.
Ah yes, machine learning metaphors. Such a deep well of wisdom. Computers have so much to teach us
As a ‘I’m contrarian so I can feel smugly superior’ contrarian, I have to say that he is doing contrarianism in a contrarian way.
(I joke, but I did have a sort of phase like this, which together with an interest in transhumanism etc eventually led me to Scott, who made me see the error of my ways).
“I hate conforming. Hate hate hate it. All you people who have agreed on the meaning of English words can go frzzlebump jha ullr weq-lurprot.”
Just wanted to non-sneeringly say that “despise the crowd but crave its adulation” is a very pretty sentence.
This bit has been coming to mind a lot recently:
https://youtu.be/o2AMojXb1lc
HL Mencken
JF Christ