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MarkusRamikin comments on A Parable On Obsolete Ideologies - Less Wrong
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One day, I started looking at the people around me, and I began to realize how much they looked like apes. I quickly stopped doing this, because I feared it would cause me to treat them with contempt. And you know what? Doublethink worked. I didn't start treating people with more contempt as a result of purposely avoiding certain knowledge that I knew would cause me to treat people with more contempt.
If you think that my efforts to suppress observations relating the appearance of humans with the appearance of apes were poorly founded, then you have a very instrumentally irrational tendency towards epistemic rationality.
Wouldn't your efforts be better directed at clearing up whatever confusion leads you to react with contempt to the similarity to apes?
I can maybe see myself selling out epistemic rationality for an instrumental advantage in some extreme circumstance, but I find abhorrent the idea of selling it so cheaply. It seems to me a rationalist should value their ability to see reality higher, not give it up at the first sign of inconvenience.
Even on instrumental grounds. Just like theoretical mathematics tends to end up having initially unforeseen practical application, giving up on epistemic rationality carries potential of unforeseen instrumental disadvantage.
Good point.