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MC_Escherichia comments on POSITION: Design and Write Rationality Curriculum - Less Wrong
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As an aside; the use of "Org" (i.e. Rationality Org) seems really unusual and immediately makes me think of Scientology (Sea Org); am I unusual in having this reaction?
Yikes, thanks for mentioning this; I will stop saying "rationality org". JenniferRM actually brought this up to me once, but I forgot, but there's nothing quite like having seven people agree with a point to make it stick in memory.
It makes me think of "Rationality Orgy", but that's just me. I'm not sure how I feel about that as I haven't been to a meetup yet.
It crossed my mind as well. Hopefully it's just a placeholder name; an association with Scientology is a really bad thing if we're trying to avoid accusations of cultishness, particularly if katas or similar exercises are going to be a fixture of the organization.
Placeholder name, check. We don't really have any good names at the moment.
One problem with pitching "rationality" is that implying that someone lacks rationality puts them on the defensive; it sounds as though you're trying to bring people from below-baseline up to baseline, rather than from baseline to a higher level. I've gotten better reactions when using the phrase "advanced sanity techniques". Suggesting that someone study them conveys the existence of a higher level, without being perceived as a status attack. I think that if the name is descriptive, it's important that it contains something ("advanced" or an equivalent word) which clearly communicates the fact that it is not aimed at low-status people.
Advanced critical thinking skills?
Both "rationality" and "sanity" imply that the person to whom the class is addressed isn't rational or sane. OTOH people already tend to think that "critical thinking skills" are a good thing to learn. (i.e. the popular cached thought: "A liberal arts degree may not prepare you for a specific job, but it does impart valuable critical thinking skills")
Absolutely agreed. While rhetorically it might work cross-purposes to "raising the sanity waterline" (in the sense of raising people's expectations about "sanity"), it would be good to have a term that says "There's nothing wrong with you, but here's a way to be even better that you might not know about".
What "bad" name ideas do you have?
Rationality Org
Best wiseass LW comment I've seen thus far.
sigh yes, thank you.
I like "Waterline", as proposed by Alicorn.
My friend says it makes her think it has to do with boating. There should be a separate focused attempt to come up with the best name.
I agree. The waterline metaphor is not so commonly known outside LW that it would evoke anything except some watery connotations.
So, what about a nice-looking acronym like "Truth, Rationality, Universe, Eliezer"? :)
Seriously? This place already has a rep for being a personality cult. Let's not purposefully reinforce it. ;)
If there is concern that people outside of LW won't know the metaphor, then the name "Rationality Waterline" can be used at first with the goal of gaining enough recognition to move on to simply "Waterline" at a later date.
You're not alone.
I think a nice name for the rationality org would be "Waterline".
Wow, yes.
I thought the same and wondered if it might have been intentional and meant ironically (since IIRC that is not meant to be the actual eventual name of the organization anyway). Either way, not the best association.
Same here.
For me the name "Rationality Org" would suggest that something would be hosted at "rationality.org" but instead I see a squatter there.
I did not have this reaction, but I hadn't heard of Sea Org. I don't think Rationality Org is the greatest of names anyways though.
I have the same reaction.
No. Same here.
No, not unusual. I had the same reaction, and assumed it's probably partly a deliberate joke to have such a placeholder name (or alternatively it's actually so that the Scientology connotation didn't occur to folks at SIAI).
I btw commented on this a couple of days ago in a comment to the SIAI blog, and note now that comments there seem to take a rather long time to be moderated for spam, as apparently no comments have appeared for many months. (Ok, sorry for the joke. More likely you've forgotten about the blog comments or something, than it really being about the spam moderation that commenters are told might take some time when they leave a comment.)
I love Rationality Org as a name. I for one do not have the Scientology association, but I suppose other people might.
Having spent years as a Scientology critic, I have also become aware of how often people use "org" as an abbreviation for "organisation" in general, so I actually thought it was fine :-) How much do they want for rationality.org?
Makes me think of Dr. Evil and Scott.
No, you are not alone.