Norms survey (dead)

Cayenne

Edit - Barring a major surprise, this post should be regarded as a worthless artifact of my impulse to do things instead of talking about them. I apologize for any time wasted on this, and would recommend ignoring it unless it is for historical purposes. I'll just stick to things I'm less bad at from now on.

This article will be edited as people post and discuss.

I believe that we need to have a clear, concise statement about the beliefs, practices, and taboos that it is rational to hold, and that we already hold as a group. To be clear, this is not an attempt to make new norms, but an attempt to codify the ones that we already hold and to get a rough estimate of the popularity/importance of each.

Core Rational - skills, meta-beliefs, and habits that enhance personal rationality

Social Rational - norms that enhance working in groups rationally

LessWrong Norms - norms for dealing with Less Wrong specifically

Common Knowledge - basic, useful beliefs to build on

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.

Edited - Removed the word 'should' as someone has suggested a better phrasing. Edited again - category change, remove extra now-useless examples.

This article will be edited as people post and discuss.

Core Rational - skills, meta-beliefs, and habits that enhance personal rationality

Social Rational - norms that enhance working in groups rationally

LessWrong Norms - norms for dealing with Less Wrong specifically

Common Knowledge - basic, useful beliefs to build on

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.

Edited - Removed the word 'should' as someone has suggested a better phrasing. Edited again - category change, remove extra now-useless examples.

Of course the norm would be "don't reply to words with violence", not "it is irrational to reply to words with violence".

By the same token, taboos are not actions that it is irrational to take, taboos are either actions that it's bad to take (prescriptively) or actions that it's frowned upon to take (descriptively).

Rationality is not generic virtuousness and irrationality generic sinfulness. "Rational" is not a label you slap on something when you want to endorse it. At least it shouldn't be ;)

Of course the norm would be "don't reply to words with violence",

Note that arguments are different to words.

With respect to the more general norm of responding to words we already inherit that norm via the laws of most countries where we reside. In those countries where such a norm is not enforced following the norm is quite possibly a bad idea. There are (and even more so have been) places where violence is an acceptable and even necessary response to certain types of words. This perhaps even applies in certain subcultures within the more d... (read more)

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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.

1

1

Norms survey (dead)

1

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.

1