MartinB comments on Scientific Self-Help: The State of Our Knowledge - Less Wrong

138 Post author: lukeprog 20 January 2011 08:44PM

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Comment author: MartinB 22 January 2011 02:51:36PM *  1 point [-]

But I don't think it's implicitly understood in this case that there aren't other, non-evo-psycho, reasonable explanations of peeps hatin' on PUA

After adapting to, and talking to people about at least 10 different idea packages(*), not including this one I finally noticed how dislike is not actually a statement about the idea package itself, but about its perceived strangeness. I got negative and even hostile reactions for each of them! So I assume people do not mentally process everything and then come up with a well reasoned debunk. But they more simply just run a diff(self.current_idea_set,new_idea_set) and if it is to far out reply in the negative.

Peeps hate on everything they don't already know.

(*) being vegetarian, being atheist, standard skepticism which includes a few applied topics like homeopathy and astrology, economics, some instantiations of liberty/libertarian ideas and more

[Edit: \_ as recommended in the comment below]

Comment author: wedrifid 24 January 2011 07:36:10AM 3 points [-]

diff(self.currentideaset,newideaset)

Need to escape the underscores.

diff(self.current\_idea\_set,new\_idea\_set)

diff(self.current_idea_set,new_idea_set)

Comment author: Anatoly_Vorobey 22 January 2011 08:50:37PM 2 points [-]

I understand your frustration, but the PUA case is different: you get lots of people denouncing it who do not as a rule denounce lifestyles very different from their own. Including, for example, some LW members.

BTW, if all the people around me reacted with hostility to unfamiliar ideas, I would, first of all, try to rule out myself as a factor (e.g. maybe I'm annoyingly preachy w/o knowing it?), and if that didn't clear things up, look for better people. Well, actually, I don't know if I'd do that, but I'd like to think I would.