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simplicio comments on Welcome to Less Wrong! (2010-2011) - Less Wrong
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I would recommend totally eliminating your impressions of "the kind of people who think X" from your considerations about X, unless the X-ites are actually torturing babies.
By paying attention to their personal characteristics, you're essentially guaranteeing that your opinions will be hijacked by how socially comfortable you feel with their group, which has nothing to do with truth. New agers are great people to hang out with, very... undogmatic, but I wouldn't recommend swallowing any of their truth claims.
If LW thinks it knows the Way to the Truth, then the thing to evaluate is what exactly our way is, and why we think it leads to the truth.
Oh, I agree. I am busy evaluating exactly that. But I will point out that a large fraction of the techniques taught here have to do with how to communicate clearly, rather than simply how to think clearly. One presumes that the reason we wish to communicate is that we wish to be understood. If certain "personal characteristics" (I mentioned passion and etiquette) either promote or interfere with successful communication, then I think that both sender and receiver have some responsibility to make adjustments. In fact, in a broadcast model, with one sender and many receivers, the onus of adjustment lies mainly on the sender. [Edit: spelling]