fubarobfusco comments on Rationality Quotes April 2014 - Less Wrong

8 Post author: elharo 07 April 2014 05:25PM

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Comment author: Lumifer 11 April 2014 02:27:10PM 1 point [-]

We didn't talk about right or wrong but silly.

Promoting a century-and-a-half-old wrong idea looks pretty silly to me. You want to revive phlogiston, too, maybe?

is not exactly the battle cry under which you can unite people and get them to adopt a new moral framework.

That's a good thing. I am highly suspicious of ideologies which want people to adopt new moral frameworks, especially if it involves battle cries.

It also has the problem of not telling people who want to know what they should do what they should do.

That's a feature, not a bug.

Socialist governments did make a greater effort to push back religion and make people atheists

Oh yes, they certainly did. I take it, you approve of these efforts?

Comment author: ChristianKl 13 April 2014 09:18:01PM *  0 points [-]

Oh yes, they certainly did. I take it, you approve of these efforts?

That question indicates being mindkilled. I happen to be able to discuss issues like that without treating arguments as soldiers.

Discussing cause and effects is hard enough as it is without involving notions of approval or disapproval.

The implication that somehow socialism isn't responsible for spreading atheism in Europe because socialist used some immoral technique is a conflation of moral beliefs with beliefs about reality.

Comment author: fubarobfusco 14 April 2014 07:21:31AM *  0 points [-]

It seems to me that you two are talking past each other. Here's what I hear:

ChristianKI: "Socialist movements and governments did successfully promote atheism and materialism in the populations of Europe. This is why Europeans do not tend to believe, as Americans do, that atheists are incapable of being moral." (This is a descriptive claim about history and public opinion.)

Lumifer: "We should not advocate socialism as a way of promoting atheism and materialism, because socialism is awful and Marxist ideas of historical progress are silly." (This is a normative claim about advocacy.)

Comment author: TheAncientGeek 14 April 2014 02:43:40PM 1 point [-]

You're using "socialism" vaguely. Iron curtain socialism was awful. North-western European social democracy is not.

Comment author: Lethalmud 14 April 2014 02:58:11PM 2 points [-]

What do we get if we Taboo socialism?

Comment author: TheAncientGeek 14 April 2014 03:20:56PM 0 points [-]

Detail