One of the reasons this post is of interest is that it likely represents the feelings of some/many would-be rationalists and the struggles they have. The reasons this person has for continuing their current mode of living cuts across many different lines. How many people choose to not come out of the closet, don't admit to being childfree, or refuse to be the sexual libertines they wish they could be because of fear of potentially being ostracized (and losing their social and economic support networks)? Thought experiment:
In a theoretical future society where the following conditions are true:
New people are "grown" or simply do not know their parents. A highly advanced AI raises everyone. This means that there are no familial attachment. All attachments are to others who you voluntarily enter into relationships with (friends, sexual partners, mentors, whatever.) Modern analogue would "raised by the state" (and not necessarily in underfunded orphanages.)
The link between work and survival has been completely severed. Robots do all the work, and all the basics are provided. You can work if you want to, but it's not required, and you're in no greater danger of starving, being homeless, being involved in a violent situation, etc. if you don't. This means the economic reasons for maintaining links to others are also severed. Modern equivalent could be generous welfare states with universal job systems.
Finding people who you feel you'd want to associate with has become trivial. A system exists that can very quickly find others who share you interests, and due to sophisticated "intent" reading technology (meaning that it's impossible to lie or deceive said system) there's no question that those you are connected with are honest about their intentions for wanting to associate with you. No modern equivalent.
To sum up the above, it's a society of free associations, no economic dependence, and total transparency with regards to interpersonal connections.
In this society, how many people would be afraid to be rationalists (or irreligious, childfree, libertines, take your pick)? What does the data say about societies which tend more in these directions than the US? Here's one interesting datapoint: http://t.co/E2WEIxR
Bottom line for this comment: I would speculate that the ability to be an open rationalist is likely heavily influenced by which society you live in, though obviously some real data would be helpful here. Using both educational attainment and level of religiosity as a proxy for open rationalism, are countries which score high on those ranks more accepting of open rationality? Top fits would be places like the Czech Republic, Finland, Sweden, and maybe Germany. It would be interesting to know.
Using both educational attainment and level of religiosity as a proxy for open rationalism, are countries which score high on those ranks more accepting of open rationality? Top fits would be places like the Czech Republic, Finland, Sweden, and maybe Germany.
Depends. The countries in question come with their own ideological quirks. Especially Scandinavia is in a way a very conformist culture. Conformist to Liberal sensibilities but basically filled with people who have internalized a very low regard for any deviation from those sensibilities (I have hea...
When I found Less Wrong and started reading, when I made my first post, when I went to my first meetup….
It was a little like coming home.
And mostly it wasn’t. Mostly I felt a lot more out of place than I have in, say, church youth groups. It was hard to pinpoint the difference, but as far as I can tell, it comes down to this: a significant proportion of the LW posters are contrarians in some sense. And I’m a conformist, even if I would prefer not to be, even if that’s a part of my personality that I’m working hard to change. I’m much more comfortable as a follower than as a leader. I like pre-existing tradition, the reassuring structure of it. I like situations that allow me to be helpful and generous and hardworking, so that I can feel like a good person. Emotionally, I don’t like disagreeing with others, and the last thing I have to work hard to do is tolerate others' tolerance.
And, as evidenced by the fact that I attend church youth groups, I don’t have the strong allergy that many of the community seem to have against religion. This is possibly because I have easily triggered mystical experiences when, for example, I sing in a group, especially when we are singing traditional ‘sacred’ music. In a previous century, I would probably have been an extremely happy nun.
Someone once expressed surprise that I was able to become a rationalist in spite of this neurological quirk. I’ve asked myself this a few times. My answer is that I don’t think I deserve the credit. If anything, I ended up on the circuitous path towards reading LessWrong because I love science, and I love science because, as a child, reading about something as beautiful as general relativity gave me the same kind of euphoric experience as singing about Jesus does now. My inability to actual believe in any religion comes from a time before I was making my own decisions about that kind of thing.
I was raised by atheist parents, not anti-theist so much as indifferent. We attended a Unitarian Universalist church for a while, which meant I was learning about Jesus and Buddha and Native American spirituality all mixed together, all the memes watered down to the point that they lost their power. I was fourteen when I really encountered Christianity, still in the mild form of the Anglican Church of Canada. I was eighteen when I first encountered the ‘Jesus myth’ in its full, meme-honed-to-maximum-virulence form, and the story arc captivated me for a full six months. I still cry during every Good Friday service. But I must have missed some critical threshold, because I can’t actually believe in that story. I’m not even sure what it would mean to believe in a story. What does that feel like?
I was raised by scientists. My father did his PhD in physical chemistry, my mother in plant biology. I grew up reading SF and pop science, and occasionally my mother or my father’s old textbooks. I remember my mother’s awe at the beautiful electron-microscope images in my high school textbooks, and how she sat patiently while I fumblingly talked about quantum mechanics, having read the entire tiny physics section of our high school library. My parents responded to my interest in science with pride and enthusiasm, and to my interest in religion with indulgent condescension. That was my structure, my tradition. And yes, that has everything to do with why I call myself an atheist. I wouldn’t have had the willpower to disagree with my parents in the long run.
Ultimately, I have an awfully long way to go if I want to be rational, as opposed to being someone who’s just interested in reading about math and science. Way too much of my motivation for ‘having true beliefs’ breaks down to ‘maybe then they’ll like me.’ This is one of the annoying things about my personality, just as annoying as my sensitivity to religious memes and my inability to say no to anyone. Luckily, my personality also comes with the ability to get along with just about anyone, and in a forum of mature adults, no one is going to make fun of me because I’m wearing tie-dye overalls. No one here has yet made fun of me for my interest in religion, even though I expect most people disagree with it.
And there’s one last conclusion I can draw, albeit from a sample size of one. Not everyone can be a contrarian rationalist. Not everyone can rebel against their parents’ religion. Not everyone can disagree with their friends and family and not feel guilty. But everyone can be rational if they are raised that way.