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steven0461 comments on Don't call yourself a rationalist. - Less Wrong
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A somehow arbitrary name is good, because it allows better compartmentalization.
Just like "Mensa" is better than "people more intelligent than you", or "Toastmasters" is better than "people who can speak better than you", also "LessWrongians" is better than "people who are more rational than you".
Of course we usually don't say "people who are more rational than you"; we say "rationalists" instead... but saying it differently does not prevent the audience from decoding the (real or percieved) original meaning.
Being a member of a group with arbitrary name is a hobby. Being a member of a group with some property X in the name suggests that your environment is somehow non-X or not-enough-X, otherwise you would not need such group.
It's easy to start seeing "LessWrong" as an arbitrary label if you're used to the name, but it totally does have a confrontational meaning in the way that "Mensa" and "Toastmasters" don't and in the way that "more rational than you" does.