RichardKennaway comments on Good Idealistic Books are Rare - Less Wrong

4 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 17 February 2009 06:41PM

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Comment author: RichardKennaway 18 February 2009 12:18:15AM 1 point [-]

An education in science generally, including its history.

Speaking as an atheist brought up in a household of no significant religious zeal, there's a whole lot of stuff in the Gospels (I'd leave out the rest of the Bible) and Buddhism, if you can avoid catching religion from them. So, not for children, and not for all adults.

The self-help literature is vast enough to find in it what one looks for.

But there are two sorts of cynicism and idealism not being distinguished in these recent postings: about how the world is, and about what can be done about it. Concerning the first, the proper position for a rationalist is neither cynicism nor idealism, but to strive to discover how the world is, however that is. For example, to acquire the belief that all politicians are crooks if and only if, in fact, all politicians are crooks.

The second similarly, except that what can be done can often only be discovered by doing it. Which makes it not similar, but completely different. The cynic about what can be done has decided to fail and grants his own wish immediately; the idealist has decided not to and will have to expend some sweat, and may still fail. How does a rationalist decide?