cousin_it comments on "3 Reasons It’s Irrational to Demand ‘Rationalism’ in Social Justice Activism" - Less Wrong

9 Post author: PhilGoetz 29 March 2016 03:16PM

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Comment author: Viliam 29 March 2016 08:28:57PM *  33 points [-]

Yeah, it's nice when your opponents volunteer to remove from you the burden of proof whether they are irrational.

But seriously, I don't even know where to start. Perhaps here: Articles written on most popular websites are clickbait. It means that their primary purpose is to make you read the article after seeing the headline, and then share it either because you love it or because you hate it. And that's what you did. Mission accomplished.

Another article on the same website explains why animal rights movements are oppresive. (I am not going to link it, but here are the arguments for the curious readers: because it's wrong to care about animals while there are more important causes on this planet such as people being oppressed; because vegans and vegetarians don't acknowledge that vegan or vegetarian food can be expensive; because describing animals as male and female marginalizes trans people; and because protecting animals is colonialistic against native people who hunt animals as part of their tradition.) Obviously, the whole article is an exercise in making the reader scream and share the article to show other readers how crazy it is. This is exactly what the authors and editors get paid for; this is how you shovel the sweet AdSense money on them. So the only winning move is not to play this game.

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I may be too extreme in this aspect, but when I talk with most people, I simply assume that almost everything they say is a metaphor for something (usually for their feelings), and almost nothing is to be taken literally. This is a normal way of communication among people who couldn't program a Friendly AI if their very lives depended on it.

When someone says "rationality is bad", the correct translation is probably something like "I hate my father because he criticized me a lot and didn't play with me; and my father believes he is smart, and he makes smartness his applause light; and this is why I hate everything that sounds like smartness". You cannot argue against that. (If you try anyway, the person will not remember any specific thing you said, they will only remember that you are just as horrible person as their father.) This is how people talk. This is how people think. And they understand each other, so when another person who also hates their father hears it, they will get the message, and say something like "yeah, exactly like you said, rationality is stupid". And then they know they can trust each other on the emotional level.

Here is a short dictionary containing the idioms from the article:

  • everydayfeminism.com = "I hate my father"
  • we should abolish prisons, police = "I hate my father"
  • cisheteropatriarchy = "I hate my father; but I also blame my mother for staying with him"
  • those who are committed to social justice = "my friends, who also hate their fathers"
  • we have to stop placing limits on ourselves = "we should steal some money and get high"
  • Being Rational Has No Inherent Value = "I don't even respect my father"
  • my very existence is irrational = "my father disapproves of my lifestyle"
  • The only logical time for abolition and decolonization is now = "I wish I had the courage to tell my parents right now how much I am angry at them"

You are overanalyzing it, searching for a logical structure when there is none. If you treat the article as a free-form poem, you will get much closer to the essence. You don't share the author's emotions, that's why the text rubs you the wrong way.

And by the way, other political groups do similar things, just in a different flavor (and perhaps intensity).

Comment author: cousin_it 30 March 2016 12:07:38PM *  4 points [-]

Harsh but mostly true, I think.

Many social movements base their popularity on texts that are basically free-form poems. Eliezer, Moldbug, Ayn Rand, even the Sermon on the Mount :-)

Comment author: formido 30 March 2016 06:13:07PM *  0 points [-]

...or like women's suffrage or abolition!

Not all poetry is equally valid or has equally defensible aims.

Comment author: Lumifer 30 March 2016 07:10:34PM 0 points [-]

Not all poetry is equally valid

What does it mean for poetry to be "valid"?