Clearly this would not affect instrumental rationality much, as striving to succeed is what people do.
And yet, if the theory of evolution is banned, you're probably not going to succeed at biology. If you are a very intelligent person in certain cultures you might succeed at memorising the entirety of the holy scriptures, which probably won't leave much time for science.
Almost every time it was a setback, but only a temporary one.
I disagree that this happening in the future would only be a temporary setback. The takeover of Islam would not be purely demographic and bloodless. Even if the NRxers are right, and the western world is becoming too weak to defend itself, the east would not go down without a fight. The world burns, and as autonomous killing machines stalk the radioactive ruins of cities the survivors start cutting corners on safety in order to desperately hack together some sort of superintelligence before they are overrun.
Assuming humanity survives the nukes and genetically engineered bioweapons or even, at a stretch, nanoweapons, could advanced technology create a panopticon surveillance society? A dystopia that can never be recovered from? Could people read the papers on lie detection and neural corrlates of beliefs, put people inside advanced futuristic brain scanners, and simply kill everyone who's thoughts betray them?
We've never seen humanity recover from a global singleton even without advanced technology.
Of course, we would all be dead, whether from war or from old age when the singularity is delayed.
I would imagine they would reply with their usual metaphors, about the Cathedral, Cthulhu's swimming habits and so on.
"What do rationalists think of X?"
"Oh, I imagine they reply with their usual talk about cognitive biases, negotiating with beings that don't exist, and so on"
Simply dismissing the outgroup isn't exactly the most rational form of discussion.
The world burns, and as autonomous killing machines stalk the radioactive ruins of cities the survivors start cutting corners on safety in order to desperately hack together some sort of superintelligence before they are overrun.
You mean a time machine to send Arnold Schwarzenegger back to the past, right? X-D
We've never seen humanity recover from a global singleton
Have you seen a global singleton to start with?
Politics is the mind-killer. Politics IS really the mind-killer. Please meditate on this until politics flows over you like butter on hot teflon, and your neurons stops fibrillating and resume their normal operations.
Preface
I've always found silly that LW, one of the best and most focused group of rationalists on the web isn't able to talk evenly about politics. It's true that we are still human, but can't we just make an effort at being calm and level-headed? I think we can. Does gradual exposure works on group, too? Maybe a little bit of effort combined with a little bit of exposure will work as a vaccine.
And maybe tomorrow a beautiful naked valkyrie will bring me to utopia on her flying unicorn...
Anyway, I want to try. Let's see what happens.
Intro
Two recent events has prompted me to make this post: I'm reading "The rise of the Islamic State" by Patrick Coburn, which I think does a good job in presenting fairly the very recent history surrounding ISIS, and the terrorist attack in Tunis by the same group, which resulted in 18 foreigners killed.
I believe that their presence in the region is now definitive: they control an area that is wider than Great Britain, with a population tallying over six millions, not counting the territories controlled by affiliate group like Boko Haram. Their influence is also expanding, and the attack in Tunis shows that this entity is not going to stay confined between the borders of Syria and Iraq.
It may well be the case that in the next ten years or so, this will be an international entity which will bring ideas and mores predating the Middle Age back on the Mediterranean Sea.
A new kind of existential threat
To a mildly rational person, the conflict fueling the rise of the Islamic State, namely the doctrinal differences between Sunni and Shia Islam, is the worst kind of Blue/Green division. A separation that causes hundreds of billions of dollars (read that again) to be wasted trying kill each other. But here it is, and the world must deal with it.
In comparison, Democrats and Republicans are so close that they could be mistaken for Aumann agreeing.
I fear that ISIS is bringing a new kind of existential threat: one where is not the existence of humankind at risks, but the existence of the idea of rationality.
The funny thing is that while people can be extremely irrational, they can still work on technology to discover new things. Fundamentalism has never stopped a country to achieve technological progress: think about the wonderful skyscrapers and green patches in the desert of the Arab Emirates or the nuclear weapons of Pakistan. So it might well be the case that in the future some scientist will start a seed AI believing that Allah will guide it to evolve in the best way. But it also might be that in the future, African, Asian and maybe European (gasp!) rationalists will be hunted down and killed like rats.
It might be the very meme of rationality to be erased from existence.
Questions
I'll close with a bunch of questions, both strictly and loosely related. Mainly, I'm asking you to refrain from proposing a solution. Let's assess the situation first.