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magfrump comments on Rational Humanist Music - Less Wrong Discussion

18 Post author: Raemon 13 June 2011 01:50PM

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Comment author: Vladimir_M 13 June 2011 05:51:19PM *  18 points [-]

I think that art is an important medium by which to communicate ideas, and for rationality to be successful as a meme it's going to need "carrier wave" works of art to help it compete with religion for the general population's passion and understanding.

Trouble is, you can't do that without the message becoming, well, irrational in the process. (Which is not without historical precedent!)

Not to disparage your artistic aspirations, but your poem is certainly an example. I won't even get into various relatively minor distortions of human history it presents. I'll just comment on its basic theme of technical progress, which it presents as a constant bringer of good fortune and improved life, and the expected source of a bright utopian future. This picture is just too remote from reality. Of course, it would be silly to deny the benefits of technical progress and economic growth since the Industrial Revolution, and various ideological attempts to argue otherwise are an awful pile of nonsense. However, in other periods in history, the connection has been less clear -- and more importantly, there is no guarantee that these historically recent favorable trends will continue into the future. The future technical progress may result in anything from human extinction to a grim Malthusian scenario, and in fact, a strong case can be made that such outcomes are more likely than "the world that we all long for" (whatever that is).

Now, you could say that in order to maximize the chances of bright future, we should raise awareness along these lines, promote humanism, etc. This however seems to me like an unproven assertion. Why would you believe this, and how would you justify this belief?

Also, another significant point of disconnect from reality in your article and poem is the belief that average people care for seeking truth beyond their own practical needs, or that they can be made to do so. Regardless of all the progress in science and technology, I see no indication whatsoever that average people in modern developed countries are less superstitious and less prone to high-status delusional beliefs than their ancestors centuries ago. In fact, I don't think this is true even of most highly educated people outside their particular fields of expertise, and I certainly don't believe it's true of most people who attach to themselves labels of rationalists, skeptics, free-thinkers, etc.

Comment author: magfrump 13 June 2011 08:25:10PM 4 points [-]

Whether or not music is a good medium for spreading a message and whether or not that is an efficient goal to pursue, I for one enjoy listening to music and would be happy if there were songs like this in existence and if they were accessible to me. That amount of utility seems worth going after.

It seems likely to me that there will be positive externalities of the type you dispute, but in my mind that's orthogonal to the goal of creating art which allows this community as it exists to confirm and exult in its identity.