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gjm comments on Raise the Age Demographic - Less Wrong
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<cynical>
Member of proselytizing religious organization proposes that rationalists direct their attention away from people of an age at which they actually change their minds. Hmmmmmmm.
</cynical>
Cynicism aside, churches looking to attract parents with children have -- as calcsam observes -- the advantage of a prevailing assumption that taking your children to church will help them to find an identity and a set of moral guidelines. This is all very well from a group that benefits from that assumption. It isn't so useful for one that doesn't. So even if calcsam's advice were good (which seems very doubtful to me) it's not so clear how to take it.
Suspicions of ulterior motives aside, I think this is a really important point: there is a huge cognitive difference between getting someone to join a religious group and training someone in rationality. The former depends almost entirely on social factors, whereas the latter requires a lot more effort from the inductee and depends on their mental state. We should definitely be accounting for this when trying to do rationality outreach, because it suggests that some of the "conventional" religious methods won't work as well.
Yes. And this is one of my (and I think others') big problems with calcsam's series here: the whole thing seems to presuppose that the goal is to attract as many people and keep them as long as possible and as committed as possible, regardless of whether we're actually providing them with value, informing or misinforming them, messing with their heads in good or bad ways, etc. Which may well be a "good" way for a religious group to think about outreach, though I feel pretty cynical saying that too, but really seems More Wrong for this particular context.
Now, doubtless there's an opposite error -- of expecting millions of people to take one look, be overwhelmed by the extraordinary levels of rationality and insight displayed here, and leap into our arms -- and that would be a good thing to avoid too. (Religious groups have their own version of that error too, of course.) But there is such a thing as overreaction.
The whole reason I'm writing this series is that I believe LessWrong is providing them with value, and I want it to continue doing so. However, if it doesn't grow it will be unable to do so. People have made the comment in regard to specific tactics I suggested that they would cause the group to stop adding value, which I think is a legitimate counterargument. Do you have a specific argument here you would like to outline?
Being this suspicious of the motives of people who come to your group is not a great way to encourage growth, either.
No. As I say, what I'm uneasy about is what "the whole thing seems to presuppose". Each individual proposal might perhaps be a good thing to do. The whole package, though, seems like its emphasis is very wrong.
Well, I did take pains to mark that comment as a particularly cynical one; in case my meaning in doing so wasn't clear, it was something like "This is probably over-suspicious, but ...". However, note that (1) you've said in so many words that a non-negligible fraction of your motivation (you said 20%) for posting this stuff here is to persuade people to look favourably on Mormonism, so it's already established that it's not true that "the whole reason I'm writing this series" is what you say it is; (2) the LDS presence on LW is really a bit suspicious (it seems to be distinctly more, or at least distinctly more visible, than e.g. that of mainstream Christianity, and I don't think many people here will find it plausible that this is because Mormonism is much more rational than mainstream Christianity; have we perhaps been targetted?); (3) although this may well be unfair, adherents of a religion founded by a con-man (as I think just about everyone outside the LDS who's considered the question thinks it clear that Smith was) are always liable to be viewed with some suspicion.
For the avoidance of doubt, I would put Pr(calcsam's intentions here are not entirely honourable) no higher than about 10% -- but not much lower than about 5%, either. Much more likely is that you genuinely intend to offer helpful and beneficial advice, but that the advice is based on thinking that's far out of sync with the values of the LW community. It might none the less happen to be good advice, but intuitively the odds don't feel too good.
I think it's unlikely that we've been targeted deliberately; I think we're getting some people in or near the transhumanist Mormon subculture.
Oho, interesting. Thanks.
I can't articulate the reasons for my judgment, but I think LW is much closer to committing the "opposite error" of your second paragraph, and the danger of overreaction is small.
I object here. I can't comment on all religions, but here are the things we would ask people to do, mandatory if they wanted to join the LDS church:
...and more, but the other ones weren't mandatory, and some like treating wives as equals, were more difficult to enforce.
You are certainly correct as far as LDS is concerned, but I was thinking more along the lines of reformed religious communities whose social expectations are little more than "attend church every once and a while" and "send your kids to religious school."
Oh, that makes sense. I guess we were just using the same word to refer to different things ^.^