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Annoyance comments on Open Thread: June 2009 - Less Wrong
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But recognizing that rationality is useful requires the application of rationality. So you'll only convince people that already agree, to the degree that they do agree.
The real obstacle is that people often don't want to apply rationality and prefer to use magical thinking instead. Rationalists aren't those who know how to be rational, they're the ones who choose rationality over magic when push comes to shove.
You don't have to wait until they already agree, just until they come up against a situation where their magical thinking is obviously not working. Show them that rationality fixes the problem in a few of those situations, and there's a decent chance that they'll start trying it on their own.
That's not nearly enough. To work, you have to pick a situation where the emotional obstacles to thinking rationally are weak, the tendency to avoid extended thought is most likely to be overridden because the outcome is important, and then present the rational strategy in a way that doesn't denigrate magical thinking.
It's difficult to locate such moments, as they are very rare. Better by far simply to find people who genuinely want to be right.
A situation where the person has already figured out that their way of handling things isn't working, and they're looking for advice, fits those criteria. They're still unlikely to ask for advice from someone who's more likely to mock them than to be useful, though, which is probably why you hear about those situations so infrequently.
But such people usually don't conclude that the magical thinking itself isn't working. They just want help finding a specific magical argument that will end up with their getting what they want.
I don't think I've ever known anyone who was actually against rationality altogether. Most people just want a solution that works, and if the one they wind up using is rational, they don't have a problem with that. And if you can teach them some rationalist skills while you're giving them that solution, all the better. It takes time to bootstrap people that way, but it's far from being impossible.