Norms survey (dead)

Cayenne

Norms survey (dead) — LessWrong

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Can you explain why this is a very high priority for you?

Any phrase beginning with "we should believe that" seems outright irrational. Rational beliefs are grow from evidence, not moral reasoning of any kind.

Instead of saying "we should believe that the Earth is round because it looks round when seen from the space", just say "the Earth is round because it looks round when seen from the space". The latter sentence is clearer and doesn't lack anything important which the former has.
If you rather had in mind something like "we should believe that the Earth is round because else, we are no rationalists", rather say "the belief in non-round Earth is not rational (given such and such definition of rationality)".
If the proposed norms are intended rather procedurally, such as "we should believe that the Earth is round because whoever doesn't will be forever banished from this community", just say "whoever doesn't believe in round Earth will be forever banished from this community".

Except the last variant, the formulations without "should" don't sound like norms, and that's a feature, not a bug. Or at least should be.

Cayenne15y10

Norms really are a 'should' type of thinking. I don't like using 'should' in any capacity, because it sounds like I'm telling someone what to do, but in this case that's exactly what norms do.

It's a high priority because of the recent posts suggesting that we adopt select practices from religions. I want to know now if I should walk away, and if any efforts I'm in the process of making are just sunk costs already. Before we start adopting things from other groups, we need to have something to compare them to so that we can make sure that there aren't hidden conflicts. In general, isn't writing things down a way to avoid or expose biases?

0AdeleneDawner15y

The latter sentence parses as either malformed or false, to me. The earth appears to be round from space because it's round, not vice versa; the earth is round because of the forces that were involved in its creation. I do agree that the 'should' needs to go, but I think the formulation should look something like 'it is rational to believe [thing] because [evidence]' or 'I/we believe [thing] because [evidence]'.

See in context

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Norms survey (dead)

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Please post one phrase at a time and then give your reasoning under it. Once any idea has a common consensus, I'll add it to this article in the appropriate list.

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Norms survey (dead)

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Please post one phrase at a time and then give your reasoning under it. Once any idea has a common consensus, I'll add it to this article in the appropriate list.

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