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roshni comments on Rationality Market Research - Less Wrong
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Here's two more samples for you. Both subjects are Indian, male, late twenties, highly educated and fluent in English. These are chat transcripts (used with permission):
Roshni: if someone were to describe themselves as a Rationalist to you, what stereotypes would come to your mind about that person?
X:Logical ?
Roshni: anything else?
X: Analytical ?
Roshni: would that be positive or negative?
X: Grey area... positive in some case - but in extreme cases, it can be negative
Roshni: if some one person identified that way, which part of the spectrum would you place him on?
X: I need more info
Roshni: let's say there's a club
called the Rationality club
and a group of people attend it twice in a month to discuss various things, do various club activities together etc
X:I'll term them crazy
But I consider most of these stuff as crazy
So I can be wrong
Roshni: there's no right or wrong answer, i'm looking for general impressions only
so negative
X:Yes
..................................................
Roshni:if someone were to describe themselves as a Rationalist to you, what stereotypes would come to your mind about that person?
V:ayn rand first
Roshni:what else?
V: that's about it i suppose. all that would be in my mind is "this is one person i can get along with easily"
Roshni: what if they told you they thought Ayn Rand was a nutcase? well, not a nutcase, just wrong mostly
V: sure
don't matter
Roshni :what if they told you they belong to a Rationality Club
first impressions on the club?
V:........i would really wonder if such a place really adds any value to anyone..........i would consider going to a rationality club albeit with a lot of skepticism
<snip>
Roshni: figuring out if 'rationality' has a negative connotation to people who hear it
V:nah, rationality has no negative connotation to me. i love the idea.
the negative connotation for me is with the word "club"
Personally club has implications similar to clique and social group to me, it implies the people identify themselves as similar. Whereas I would think something like "Rationality class," "rationalism training" (or dojo) implies that the people are working towards a goal within a structure. [Compare the implications of 'book club' and 'literature class']
I don't know one way or the other if explicitly mentioning a group of rationalists is a good idea or not, so bear that in mind...
But I'm think of ways to spin it that might sound better than "club", while still being accurate: "Rationalist association" "rationalist society" "rationalist fellowship" "community" "fraternity" "(semi-official) group of rationalist individuals who meet regularly for discussion"
I've gotten positive responses to "rationality dojo" the few times I've used the phrase.
I like 'dojo' too. But considering that I'd heard the word for the first time on LW, I'll probably need to find some equivalent Indian word - and I'll have to think some two or three differnt words for people from different parts of the country (speaking different languages). Well, that itself is an interesting exercise. :)
'Ashram' leaps immediately to mind, but that's probably mostly wrong.
I thought of 'Gurukul', but that gives the sense of a much more intense involvement with the 'club' than we want ppl to think. 'Kalari' works for Malayalam and a lot of south Indians, esp those familiar with Kalarippayattu and means exactly the same thing as dojo. But "Kalari for Rationality" sounds really ugly.
For Hindi, I donno.. Pathshaala? Too pompous. Sangham? :)
And the trouble with Rationalists Association etc are there already are organizations called that and they immediately evoke thoughts of 'atheism', 'anti-godmen' etc.
Society and fraternity seem to have the same negative connotations as club. Association and community seem fairly neutral, but association seems overly formal (to me).
I think we might want to use the stranger terms, like fellowship or dojo just to give off the impression that this is not a meeting of Spocks. However, fellowship might lead people to think it's a gathering of Lord of the Rings fans. Dojo is my personal favorite too.
I refer to us as a "Group" or "Community." I think it's probably a good idea to include a question about that, since one of our potential goals IS to use this information to build communities.