Comment by lukas099 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by lukas099 | Hacker News Reader

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> The rationalist community is most definitely not exclusive.

I agree, and didn't intend to express otherwise. It's not an exclusive community, but it is a community, and if you aren't in it you are in the out-group.

> The problem isn't differing opinions, the problem is that they disregard actual expertise and try ham-fisted attempts at "first principals" evaluations of a subject while ignoring contradictory evidence

I don't know if this is true or not, but if it is I don't think it's why people scorn them. Maybe I don't give people enough credit and you do, but I don't think most people care how you arrived at an opinion; they merely care about whether you're in their opinion-tribe or not.

> Maybe I don't give people enough credit and you do, but I don't think most people care how you arrived at an opinion; they merely care about whether you're in their opinion-tribe or not.

Yes, most people don't care how you arrived at an opinion, they rather care about the practical impact of said opinion. IMO this is largely a good thing.

You can logically push yourself to just about any opinion, even absolutely horrific ones. Everyone has implicit biases and everyone is going to start at a different starting point. The problem with string of logic for real-world phenomena is that you HAVE to make assumptions. Like, thousands of them. Because real-world phenomena are complex and your model is simple. Which assumptions you choose to make and in which directions are completely unknown, even to you, the one making said assumptions.

Ultimately most people aren't going to sit here and try to psychoanalyze why you made the assumptions you made and if you were abused in childhood or deduce which country you grew up in or whatever. It's too much work and it's pointless - you yourself don't know, so how would we know?

So, instead, we just look at the end opinion. If it's crazy, people are just going to call you crazy. Which I think is fair.

Some of them certainly do have some opinions outside the Overton Windows of many.

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