The “rationalist” community is so fascinating to me. On the surface it’s about well, being rational, and about not allowing past biases to determine a course of action.
But in practice? In practice it’s basically like creationism, where the conclusion is already decided and the work involves creating “logical” steps to justify the predetermined conclusion. The Rationalist community always makes me think of the John Galbraith quote:
“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.”
In that it’s easier for them to come up with an entire framework to justify bigotry, than to question if the bigotry needs to be there at all.
Sam harris almost reeled me in when I discovered him long ago, (don’t judge me I was doing a lot of drinking, ok?) until the moment he started talking about how torture can be justified and I was like “lol ok no thank you”
Anyway I learned a lot since and fuck that guy
I definitely don’t judge, when I discovered the “rationalist” community I was super interested at first too. But the biases show themselves over time, and in such an obvious way.
PragerU is another one I’m embarrassed to say I was subscribed to for about a month. It’s mostly news-based now but it used to present moreso as “Educational YouTube”, which, sure, great, I added it to my collection…until I watched a couple episodes.
We live and we learn, I think I can take some pride in immediately checking out once the hate started coming up!
It’s just recycling the same Ayn Rand bullshit for a new generation, including using a name which pushes linguistic prescriptivism from the get go. Actually I kind of think this is the first layer of IQ test they use to weed out anyone with more than minimal cognitive activity.
“Bruh, it’s called rationalism, aren’t you rational?”
It’s just so stupid and transparent from the get go, and I am convinced that’s the entire point. Once they bring you in on that premise they can sell you whatever they want.
What I find fascinating about the “Rationalist Community” is how they expect to attract new people when what they are selling is basically the opposite of what they are providing. Anyone interested in actual rationalism would pretty quickly realize the “Rationalist Community” is not that.
Some people are just shuffling cards. They can adopt the language of tribal force, or republican democracy, or leftist dialectics - or reasoned debate. Ultimately they treat reality as a team sport. Their stated ideals are ad-hoc pretense. All that has ever mattered is ingroup loyalty.
And they think that’s all you’re doing. They think that’s all there is.
YES well said. I was also fascinated by Qanon for similar reasons. I just can’t wrap my head around that way of seeing the world.
Conservatives say unreasonable things because reasoning is not what they do. Rationality isn’t a property, it’s a behavior. These people can pattern-match and build hypotheses, but what they’re doing with that ability is making shit up to perform ingroup loyalty. We keep asking each other what they really believe. But conservatives do not believe things - they believe people.
Like obviously it’s all just a word game to keep your guys at their rightful positions in the immutable strict hierarchy which decides what’s real. Claims have no objective means for evaluation because that is not what claims are for. They can only be accepted or rejected based on interpersonal trust, and calling someone incorrect means challenging their position.
Explaining why that’s wrong becomes another card in their deck. They’ll play it against you when it sounds relevant, and if you tell them that doesn’t make sense, they’ll get mad you’re not playing fair. This worldview is not fragile. It is not challenged by contrary evidence, because evidence isn’t real. To these people, there is only “who says.” If the right person moves a Falling Rocks sign, the rocks will fall somewhere else.
They’re not p-zombies. They’re not morons, either. They’re adherents to a simpler, more ingrained, and more satisfying way of experiencing reality. They’re not faking it, and they’re not about to be ousted from it by highlighting contradictions they do not view as relevant. This is just another internally-consistent way to explain what they see in the world.
Which is so much worse.
I think the best way to dismantle the arguments/worldviews like this is to stick to the simplicity of good nature and to openly challenge them for having no heart, no love, and if they accept those descriptions of themselves, stop talking to them and broadcast their self admitted behavior for fencesitters.
They have to fall back on a hatred of the weak, it is core to their ranking of who is worthy of empathy and who is not. Without it these people have no compass.
This is never truly a majority popular way of being for human beings. Let your conversation be witnessed by a crowd of neutral people and you win.
Same with the libs.
Well said, in my opinion I would say this ultimately stems from toxic men trying to push the axiom that they know better already and don’t need to listen or learn to be given authoritarian control.
Do the words and concepts they fumble with really even convey meaning or are they just the lowest hanging fruit their minds could grasp to sling at those they already “know” in their heart are supposed to be victims of their violence?
His own subreddit seems to share this take
I wonder if hes the equivalent of Joe Rogan for the athiest community, where none of his original fans support his current views.
Either way, fuck Sam Harris.
i noped out of any of his video’s some months ago, (i had been the occasional watcher on YT) he also portrays people against billionaires as being “the radical left” and how toxic that is, with no acknowledgement of how toxic and incompatible to the very fundamentals of democracy and society not only billionaires are bit inequality itself.
A wild thing about “new atheists” is how they don’t “believe in god” but they’re still religious AF.
am Harris, the rationalist and New Atheist, recently went on a rant against New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani that offers one of the most vile, putrid displays of Islamophobic bigotry that I can recall ever seeing in my life.
Really now?
I looked up “New Atheist” and it just sounds like regular atheism with a new name.
It’s regular atheism plus racism, fascism, etc.
Oh well that sounds awful. Good to know.
You don’t understand! He’s a Bad Guy didn’t you read the headline? This means there are no rules.
Hyperbolic statements are bad but if I use them against people that I think are Bad then they’re fine. No, I dont know what Irony is, but it’s probably also Bad.
Sam Harris also has 3 arms (one is used for bigotry), if you question this factual assertion then you’re defending bigotry and probably also a Bad Person yourself.
This completes your initial online argument orientation.
If you don’t see things like this then you’re
probablywrong. Please stand by and an angry teenager (mentally or otherwise) will be along shortly to divine and diagnose your personal shortcomings.I don’t know what your argument is but Sam Harris demonstrates repeatedly that he is extremely islamophobic and a Zionist, regardless of if he’s also more correct about other unrelated things
It’s not a very long conversation to read or comprehend but I don’t understand it so let me tell you my opinions.
The topic is the author of the article, their use of hyperbole and the irony of that in the context of attacking hyperbolic statements by another.
This irony exists even if the target of the author was the most vile person imaginable.
the most vile person imaginable.
Hyperbole much? Ironic.
You gotta realize this is not an example of hyperbole, right?
This irony exists even if the target of the author was the most vile person imaginable.
You forgot the rest of the sentence. Ironic.
