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Dreaded_Anomaly comments on Holy Books (Or Rationalist Sequences) Don’t Implement Themselves - Less Wrong
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Comments (149)
Nope. There's a big difference between "settled issues where questioning is a waste of time and effort" and "arbitrary positions where questioning is declared heretical by some authority (either a person or social mores)."
This sounds like a separate magisteria argument.
Well, yes. You're defining this yourself: LessWrong is about "settled issues" of science, and therefore it's okay to dismiss debate as a "waste of time and effort". Unitarian Universalists are about significantly more arbitrary positions, and therefore there's a lot more room for discussion, because people have different starting assumptions and/or goals.
Science does have the advantage that, more or less, everyone is willing to accept the same starting assumptions. Social justice and morality do not run in to that.
If you take the starting assumptions of the UUs as a given, then most of their stances are settled issues where questioning is a waste of time and effort. You can still have some really interesting discussions on corner cases and implementations, since the world is very chaotic and no one has yet managed to arrange a control group for controlled study :)
Of course, the UU stated stances are still fairly vague, so even within those, there's the question of whether violence is ever okay, etc.
All this really boils down to the question:
What evidence, exactly, do you have that Unitarian Universalists declare things 'heretical' significantly more often than LessWrong does?
No, Less Wrong isn't about settled issues, but they do come up fairly often in the course of relevant discussions. Separate magisteria arguments fail because they imply that consensus can be found based on different standards of evidence for different areas of discussion. Every area needs to be held to the same standard.
I'm not sure what the UU starting assumptions are. However, it seems unlikely that they are only terminal values, so standards of evidence should apply.
The point of the first post that I made in this chain is that coming to a consensus based on overwhelming evidence is not the same as declaring something heretical.
You seem to be pursuing two lines of argument. In some places you're just asserting that UU does not have dogmatic elements, in contradiction to Vladimir_M's observations. That's a separate conversation, and not really my concern.
In other places, though, you're asserting that LW does have dogmatic elements. I have two problems with this. First, it's not accurate, as I've explained. Second, taking the two lines of argument together, it sounds like you're saying "UU doesn't have dogma... and anyway, LW does too!" The two clearly aren't consistent, so which is it?
Just to be clear, my main point is that LW doesn't have dogma or declare things heretical, not that UU does (although I think it might approach those things in some areas). For that point, I'm providing examples and descriptions of the difference between consensus based on overwhelming evidence and arbitrary dogma. Dogma is arbitrarily absolute; it's something to be questioned under no circumstances. Consensus based on evidence is a matter of Bayesian updating.
Different definitions of dogma. The easiest translation would be "based on this usage of the word dogma, neither the UUs nor LW have it. Based on this other usage of the word dogma, both the UUs and LW seem to have it about equally. I can't see any evidence that either definition results in the UUs having more dogma, and I can't think of a third definition that makes sense, so I'm not sure why you're insisting that the UUs are more dogmatic".
English sucks for handling different definitions of the same word, and my brain does a wonderful job of not noticing when I've done this ^^;
Ahh, okay. Then I think we're actually on the same page. I was reading your "arbitrary absolutes" as being a reference to the UUs specifically. This makes much more sense now :)
An unchallenged consensus on positions of social policy, which are complicated and generally do not have conclusive evidence on one side of an argument, indicates the existence of some reinforcing social mores.
Edit: the comment at which this reply was directed was significantly altered after I typed this reply. Please hold on while I attempt to catch up.
I think we can both agree that even LessWrong has social mores. The topic is "unquestionable dogma."
Having been to a UU church and attended UU sermons, I cannot understand how you could possibly portray it as an "unchallenged consensus".
Edit: Sorry about the edit, and completely understood :)
I think we might have ended up off-track, so let me try to sum up my stance:
1) Unitarian Universalists, by default, must have "arbitrary positions" because they are not discussing settled matters. Therefore, the fact that they have arbitrary positions in and of itself is simply a function of their focus; all social justice groups will run in to this issue, whether they are religious or not.
2) Unitarian Universalists do not demonstrate any particular tendency towards an environment where "questioning is declared heretical by some authority". Unitarians are "dispassionate, upfront, and open to argument" on roughly the same level as LessWrong.
What I would be interested in hearing is actual evidence that I could use to update either of these.
To the previous evidence offered: I do not understand how having a consistent stance on an organisational level is evidence that they are close-minded or otherwise less open to discussing and debating opposing viewpoints.
If your thought process consists entirely of "having a consistent organisational stance means you have unquestionable dogma" then I think we are either running in to a definitions issue, or will have to agree to disagree. Otherwise I'd be curious if you can elaborate on the missing pieces.
I did the same in my new reply to your previous post. Let me just address one side point:
The best method of operation for a social justice group which wishes to find optimal conclusions may be to hold off on proposing solutions. Getting stuck in a position that's incorrect or not useful seems like a serious concern. There shouldn't necessarily be a consensus position on a given issue, regardless of the goal of the group.
Mmm, my gut response is thinking that there are not a lot of solved social issues so this wouldn't be very useful for a social justice group that actually wanted to get things done? The UUs have been fairly politically active in spreading their values for a while, and I haven't seen any evidence that their politics is particularly ineffective for their values.