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SaidAchmiz comments on Ritual Report 2012: Life, Death, Light, Darkness, and Love. - Less Wrong
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Thanks! You have already updated, so I'm not sure if you want to update further, but I'm wondering if you had read Why our kind can't cooperate, and what your reaction to that was?
I have indeed read it; I've even linked it to other people on this site myself, and taken explicit steps to counteract the effect; see e.g. this post.
I have no problem saying "I agree; you are right and/or this is awesome". This happens to be a topic to which my reaction is otherwise. I think it's especially important to speak up in cases where I disagree and where I think a number of other people also disagree but hesitate to speak.
Sorry, that's not the context at which I meant it -- I'm sure you're as willing to admit you were wrong as the next rationalist. I mean it in the context of "Barbarians vs. Rationalists" -- if group cohesion is increased by ritual, and group cohesion is useful to the rationality movement, than ritual could be useful. Wanting to dissociate ourselves from the trappings of religion seems like a case of "reversed stupidity" to me...
Yes, and if that were the reason behind my dislike of ritual, that would be an apropos comment; but as I explained, that's not the case.
(I apologize for the harsh tone there, but I am failing to think of a way to express that response with a suitable level of tact, maybe because it's 2 AM here. Sorry. :\ )
As for the larger "Barbarians vs. Rationalists" point, I have two responses.
One: I really don't think that "rituals generate group cohesion, and group cohesion is useful" is actually anyone's true motivation here. I think people just like rituals. Which... is fine (with some caveats), even if I dislike it. But I don't think we should be putting forth rationalizations as true motivations.
Two: I don't think we should look at everything solely through the lens of "is this useful to the rationality movement". If doing things that are "useful to the rationality movement" causes us to systematically do things we don't actually like doing, or want to do, then I think we've rather missed the point. Now you might respond: "But Said, we do like this thing! We do want to do it!" Well, ok. Then do it. But then, as the mathematicians say, this reduces to the earlier argument.