Hopefully_Anonymous comments on Cynical About Cynicism - Less Wrong

22 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 17 February 2009 12:49AM

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Comment author: Hopefully_Anonymous 17 February 2009 01:16:54PM 2 points [-]

Although I think you're overstating and misapplying your case, Eliezer (like Robin implies, a "cynical" critique of both cynicism and idealism seems to me to yield more fruit than an idealist critique of both), I agree with Richard that cynicism is a poorer epistemological framework than skepticism.

I think it's also worth noting that it's a common play for status to admonish people not to be so cynical, I think because (1) the crowd seems to award higher status to people who perform optimism as a general rule, and (2) there's an element of power alignment, and (if one is powerful) power maintenance to convincing less powerful people not to be cynical about the reasons for power variance in a social group.