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ruelian comments on Four things every community should do - Less Wrong Discussion
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I agree that this is the case in some religious communities, and that this is not necessarily the direction a rationalist community should go. (On the other hand, I have a hard time agreeing with the proposition that social pressure in favor of rationality is a bad thing, but I have yet to reach a definite conclusion on the subject.) However, I happen to be familiar with several religious communities where direct and violent pressure to conform is not the case, and it is those communities I wish to emulate.
I feel that the cohesiveness of a community and its effectiveness at maintaining its norms is directly and strongly correlated to the disincentives that it provides for deviating from these norms. Just presence of symbols is not enough.
Of course things like self-selection and evaporative cooling are major factors as well.
Based on admittedly anecdotal evidence I'm inclined believe this correlation, but I think we're interpreting its existence differently. In my view, by becoming more "religious" and providing more disincentives for deviating from norms, we can increase our cohesiveness and effectiveness, but this should only be done up to a point, that point being, as far as I can tell, where we as a community can no longer tolerate the disincentives. This view is based on my value judgment that not all disincentives for deviating from norms I find acceptable or admirable are unacceptable, but rather too many disincentives or those that are too extreme are unacceptable.
Be careful about keeping descriptive and normative separate.
The correlation that we are talking about is descriptive and has to do with observable reality. What you think should be done and how is normative and has to do with your value judgments.
You're right, my apologies.
My value judgment about disincentives still stands, though. Religious communities have a framework for applying social and other disincentives (and incentives) in order to achieve their desired result. That framework could be useful if adapted to the purpose of promoting rationality.