Risto_Saarelma comments on Open Thread, August 2010-- part 2 - Less Wrong
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Bridging the Chasm between Two Cultures: A former New Age author writes about slowly coming to realize New Age is mostly bunk and that the skeptic community actually might have a good idea about keeping people from messing themselves up. Also about how hard it is to open a genuine dialogue with the New Age culture, which has set up pretty formidable defenses to perpetuate itself.
Excellent article, thanks for the link! Let's keep in mind that she also wrote about how inflammatory and combative language is counterproductive, and the need to communicate with people in ways they have some chance of understanding.
What she said wasn't that simple-- she also talks about trying to get her ideas across while being completely inoffensive, and having them not noticed at all. When we're talking about a call to change deeply held premises, getting some chance of being understood is quite a hard problem.
Hah, was just coming here to post this. This article sort of meanders, but it's definitely worth skimming at least for the following two paragraphs: