LW's image problem: "Rationality" is suspicious

Bongo

Concerning Less Wrong's tagline, consider this plausible reaction of someone looking at LW for the first time:

Cut the crap, nobody cares about rationality in the abstract. Just tell me what view you're trying to push under the guise of presenting it as the only "rational" one.

And here are two real quotes from 2009:

[concerning the ban on SIAI discussion during the first weeks of LW] I think it was so that newcomers wouldn't think that LW are a bunch of fringe technophiles that just want to have their cause associated with rationality.

And in reply:

But that's pretty much what LW is, no? I've long suspected that "rationality," as discussed here, was a bit of a ruse designed to insinuate a (misleading) necessary connection between being rational and supporting transhumanist ideals.

The quoted text speaks for itself really. So therefore I think LW's admins/web designers should seriously consider replacing the rationality tagline with something more savory.

Concerning Less Wrong's tagline, consider this plausible reaction of someone looking at LW for the first time:

Cut the crap, nobody cares about rationality in the abstract. Just tell me what view you're trying to push under the guise of presenting it as the only "rational" one.

And here are two real quotes from 2009:

[concerning the ban on SIAI discussion during the first weeks of LW] I think it was so that newcomers wouldn't think that LW are a bunch of fringe technophiles that just want to have their cause associated with rationality.

And in reply:

But that's pretty much what LW is, no? I've long suspected that "rationality," as discussed here, was a bit of a ruse designed to insinuate a (misleading) necessary connection between being rational and supporting transhumanist ideals.

The quoted text speaks for itself really. So therefore I think LW's admins/web designers should seriously consider replacing the rationality tagline with something more savory.

I want to see who you summarize as particularly technophilic.

Have you ever met a technophobe? Opposition to life extension. Fear of nanotubes. Tolkein's aesthetics. Attraction to "natural remedies" and distrust of traditional medicine. Shouting 'hubris!'. Saying "you can't" in revulsed tones - not "it's not possible, look at my model" or "it would make you a bad person", just a gut rejection. Earlier, opposition to anaesthesia during childbirth and to industrialisation.

I would say something like Ray Kurzweil's "The Singularity is Near" is particularly technophilic; it embraces basically every belief that has ever been associated with the word singularity, while sweeping essentially all concerns of danger or ethics under the rug essentially by hand-waving.

I would certainly say that LessWrongians tend to be at least slightly more technophilic than average people, but not much more than I would expect for a group that is centered around a website. Having conversations with other people, I tend to find that they a... (read more)

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LW's image problem: "Rationality" is suspicious

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LW's image problem: "Rationality" is suspicious

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