Comment by Jach | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Jach | Hacker News Reader

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Just because all humans are intelligent (and rational), from Einstein to the village idiot, and the difference is really minuscule if you think about it, doesn't mean we should stop caring about those minuscule differences amongst ourselves. Calling people stupid doesn't help debate, I'll agree, but sometimes "misguided" doesn't quite cover it and we have to recognize that there are "stupid" people (where stupid only makes sense with humans comparing humans). I'll leave it without argument that "stupidity" should not in general be a desirable state.

I agree with you about the term "rationalist" as a signal. To me it's just saying that "I study the arts of rationality to become better at applying rationality in my life using my conscious mind, rather than letting the unconscious parts of my brain do what they were evolved to do (that is, roughly approximating Bayes' Theorem in inconsistent ways)." I personally don't like to use such labels, it reminds me of people proudly declaring themselves to be Objectivists, Atheists, Christians, etc. I don't care what you think you are, I want to know what you do, and I don't want to have to make guesses and assumptions that can lead debates into dead ends.

Also the terms "rationality" and the like are often abused and overloaded. So we're all on the same page: http://lesswrong.com/lw/31/what_do_we_mean_by_rationality/

>I'll leave it without argument that "stupidity" should not in general be a desirable state.

I'm not saying we should question the concept of stupidity, I'm saying that self-identifying as a rationalist is like self-identifying as a human--that is to say, it's redundant. And if it isn't redundant, then it's elevating your personal rationality above others.

Ahh.. As to redundancy, is there a case to be made that all or most self-identification reduces to self-identifying as a human? (After all, we're the only species (we know of) that self-identify with some word...) If not all self-identification is redundant, then surely many forms of self-identification could be made to be elevating your personal self above others? (Never mind whether it's your personal rationality or your personal programming language preference.)

I guess I'm not seeing your point on this. Why pick on rationalists? Because they think they're smarter and not supposed to fall into the traps of lazy/empty-labeling and social signaling? I'm reminded of http://xkcd.com/774/

I reject your case. Self-identification isn't even necessarily something that's public. It's as much a question of who you are to yourself.

Self-identification is a broad topic. Sports fans create opposition with other self-identified fans for the sheer hell of it. Crack addicts self-identify. Being married is a joint self-identification.

In any case, the redundancy is meant to force the argument to the other definition. My prime point is not that they think they're smart, it's that they're trying to sort people into valid/invalid thinking bins.

And as a side note, there's something very wrong with thinking that social signaling or labeling is a trap.

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