Eugine_Nier comments on Stranger Than History - Less Wrong

52 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 01 September 2007 06:57PM

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Comment author: Jiro 19 March 2014 09:59:38PM *  0 points [-]

Well, people changed their mind about this issue, and since you consider this a rational change

Hold on there. That doesn't follow. It is possible to do the same thing either for rational or irrational reasons.

Nobody who was an adult in 1901 is alive today, but for people who changed their mind and were adults many decades ago, I'd suggest that either

  1. the influence of religion on them went down, so they were susceptible to a rational argument recently, but no rational argument could have convinced them in the earlier time period, or

  2. they changed their mind about the issue for a reason that was not rational (such as their preacher telling them that God says gay marriage is okay)

  3. "many decades ago" was long enough after 1901 that there wasn't as much religious influence on them in the first place, so they were susceptible to rational argument, but only because they were not from 1901

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 21 March 2014 04:23:13AM 4 points [-]

the influence of religion on them went down, so they were susceptible to a rational argument recently, but no rational argument could have convinced them in the earlier time period,

(..)

"many decades ago" was long enough after 1901 that there wasn't as much religious influence on them in the first place, so they were susceptible to rational argument, but only because they were not from 1901

First as I explain in more detail here your claim that it was religious influence that kept people from believing gay marriage was a reasonable thing, appears highly dubious upon closer examination. Second, since you presumably believe that the arguments that convinced them to be less religious were also rational, you could presumably convince them using the rational arguments to be less religious followed by the rational arguments for gay marriage.

Comment author: Jiro 21 March 2014 04:39:39AM 0 points [-]

I do not believe that the arguments that convinced them to be less religious were rational (and probably weren't even, strictly speaking, arguments).

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 22 March 2014 01:04:10AM 0 points [-]

Then in want sense did you mean "people in 1901 had much lower levels of rationality than people from the 20th century"?

Comment author: Jiro 22 March 2014 01:56:45AM 0 points [-]

Since 1901 is in the 20th century, I think you need to be a bit more charitable and figure out that that's a typo.

Once you correct that, there are two things going on here:

  1. People from 1901 and people from the 21st century aren't the same people. The people from 1901 didn't become people from 2014 and get more rational in the process; they died off and were replaced by different people who were more rational from the start.

  2. Even limiting it to a shorter timespan, people who became rational didn't do so for rational reasons. In fact, they couldn't--it would be logically contradictory. If they became rational for rational reasons they would already be rational.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 22 March 2014 02:54:41AM 0 points [-]

So what is the basis for your claim that these changes constitute becoming more as opposed to less rational?

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