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Comment by computerphage | Hacker News Reader

It's possible that all of our big ideas are just us being along for the ride with broad historical and social trends. -me, a rationalist

Great. So how does this help me reason better?

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I would assert that it should serve as a memento mori against too much confidence in your priors. And a reminder of the value of Russellian "Hypothetical Sympathy", an encouragement to examine your priors, and see whether you disagree with something because of a glitch in its proof, or a lack of understanding (or a rejection) of the assumptions that it began with.

In my opinion, one of the key blindspots is that most of the people in this community are living right within the center of power of the world's current largest and most powerful empire, and that tends to give you a certain set of priors which are very hard to shake. Effective altruism originally took those assumptions and said, "we need to extend the incredible bounty we've been given to those who aren't living at the epicenter of global power." And then it evolved into "We're currently the most powerful force on the planet, but what if a more powerful force that we create dismantles us!" Just the War of the Worlds argument but without Wells's self awareness that he was critiquing imperialism. Now post-rationalism is just the same old argument of "our society is collapsing because we've lost touch with our traditions." Etc. etc.

I suppose if that were the case, you'd want to look for plausible counterfactual historical trends and compare whether those make a better reasoning framework for big ideas

I'm not too convinced by the premise. But if I were, I'd try to look at the counterfactual consequences beyond just acknowlegding the possibility

How can you tell whether something is a better reasoning framework for big ideas? Seems like that's the step that does all the work.

I wish I could say empirically. Simply trial the framework and see if you end up making better choices, better predictions about the world.

Unfortunately, if rationalism has so far done anything to help people in any sort of measurable empiric way, it's been too slight for anyone to statistically notice.

What about medicine?

I don't really know. I only know that all post-historical "end of history" type narratives are complete BS and whenever I see one I can't take an argument seriously anymore.

And both the rationalists and the post-rationalists see themselves primarily as actors rather than those being acted upon. That kind of hyper-individualism is also a huge red flag for me.

I don't have a program. I don't know what I'm talking about. I'm trying to parse out my feelings here.

imo part of the goal is to convince you that "reason" is ...

- an illusion

- an affectation of the bourgeoisie

- an incomplete and imperfect tool

- only effective within a limited and hard-to-bound domain

- a tool of oppression

- capable of being claimed or colonized by any number of objectionable belief systems

Can't tell if you're being facetious, but I believe you're about 50% right.

When the post-modernists lose arguments because their ideas lack merit, they attack the very concept of merit in a desperate attempt to remain relevant.

Unfortunately, this is a plan that works when you infect the institutions of learning with it by misaligning incentives.

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