lessdazed comments on The problem with too many rational memes - Less Wrong

80 Post author: Swimmer963 19 January 2012 12:56AM

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Comment author: lessdazed 24 January 2012 08:29:36PM *  1 point [-]

You seem to be better at tolerance of religious believers than I am. Religious conclusions happen to not bother me much.

A brief tangent: the "level up" model found in video games is, to a significant extent, a product of people's intuitive falling for the halo effect fallacy. Cartoons, movies, and video games frequently feature leaders who are superior in most every way to their henchmen. In many RPGs, to achieve a high level of mastery at a skill such as crafting, one needs to be at a high character level. Yet remarkably, if one goes to a jewelry store and attempts to verify the skill of the jewelers there by asking them how many orcs they've slain, one gets thrown out by security! In real life, skills aren't actually as related to each other as we intuit. The skill tree model found in some games better represents reality.

There is one sub-skill I think I am probably better at than you at (this doesn't have too many implications for other skills; I hope the above paragraph is a good enough disclaimer to enable me to speak plainly and be heard without triggering a status-based conversation). My identity is apparently largely planted at a higher level of abstraction as one who values certain modes of though, such that r/atheism triggers cringes and my internal alarm of discomfort. The conclusions aren't as important as how they are arrived at. Possibly you should try to recallibrate your alarms such that the poor thinking on r/atheism triggers them more than wrong religious conclusions do.

I see that your comment is largely about yourself from months ago. Perhaps when you read r/atheism now, you feel the same sort of turmoil?