eli_sennesh comments on Beyond Statistics 101 - Less Wrong

19 Post author: JonahSinick 26 June 2015 10:24AM

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Comment author: minusdash 26 June 2015 10:20:44PM 3 points [-]

Those are indeed impressive things you did. I agree very much with your post from 2010. But the fact that many people have this initial impression shows that something is wrong. What makes it look like a "twilight zone"? Why don't I feel the same symptoms for example on Scott Alexander's Slate Star Codex blog?

Another thing I could pinpoint is that I don't want to identify as a "rationalist", I don't want to be any -ist. It seems like a tactic to make people identify with a group and swallow "the whole package". (I also don't think people should identify as atheist either.)

Comment author: [deleted] 26 June 2015 11:24:18PM 1 point [-]

Another thing I could pinpoint is that I don't want to identify as a "rationalist", I don't want to be any -ist.

I've always thought that calling yourself a "rationalist" or "aspiring rationalist" is rather useless. You're either winning or not winning. Calling yourself by some funny term can give you the nice feeling of belonging to a community, but it doesn't actually make you win more, in itself.