That's meaningless hand-waving. Do you have evidence?
I don't think it's fair to say that it is meaningless. Surely it must convey some, arguably a lot, of meaning. For example, it includes the advice of making people trust authorities more, and a critique of certain traditional rationalist ideas.
In terms of evidence... well, I don't have scientific evidence, but obviously I have anecdotes and some theory behind my belief. I can write the anecdotes if you think you're going to find knowing their details relevant, but for now I'll just skip them, since they're just anecdotes.
The theory behind my claim can roughly be summed up in a few sentences:
Inside view was what got them into this mess to begin with.
This seems to be something to do with tribal politics, which is known for being annoying and hard to deal with. Probably best to not give them ammunition.
People who know a lot about biases don't seem to be any better at agreeing with each other (instead, they seem to argue much more), which indicates that they're not that rational.
Essentially, don't try to teach people 'hard mode' until they can at least survive 'easy mode'.
By the way, if it's extremely dangerous, maybe we should shut down LW -- unenlightened people can get ideas here that "could really easily backfire", couldn't they?
'Extremely dangerous' could be considered a hyperbola; what I meant is that if you push them down into the hole of having ridiculous ideas and knowing everything about biases, you might not ever be able to get them up again.
I don't think the Sequences are that dangerous, because they spend a lot of time trying to get people to see problems in their own thinking (that's the entire point of the Sequences, isn't it?). The problem is that actually doing that is tricky. Eliezer has had a lot of community input in writing them. so he has an advantage that the OP doesn't have. Also, he didn't just focus on bias, but also on a lot of other (IMO necessary) epistemological stuff. I think they're hard to use for dismissing any opposing argument.
I don't think the Sequences are that dangerous, because they spend a lot of time trying to get people to see problems in their own thinking (that's the entire point of the Sequences, isn't it?).
Also my limited experience from LW meetups suggests that people who come there only for the feeling of contrarianism usually avoid reading the Sequences.
Probably for the same reason they also avoid reading a serious textbook on the subjects they have strong opinions about. (I am not saying that the Sequences are a serious textbook, but rather that the dislike tow...
I've known for a long time that some people who are very close to me are somewhat inclined to believe the pseudoscience world, but it always seemed pretty benign. In their everyday lives they're pretty normal people and don't do any crazy things, so this was a topic I mostly avoided and left it at that. After all - they seemed to find psychological value in it. A sense of control over their own lives, a sense of purpose, etc.
Recently I found out however that at least one of them seriously believes Bruce Lipton, who in essence preaches that happy thoughts cure cancer. Now I'm starting to get worried...
Thus I'm wondering - what can I do about it? This is in essence a religious question. They believe this stuff with just anecdotal proof. How do I disprove it without sounding like "Your religion is wrong, convert to my religion, it's right"? Pseudoscientists are pretty good at weaving a web of lies that sound quite logical and true.
The one thing I've come up with is to somehow introduce them to classical logical fallacies. That at least doesn't directly conflict with their beliefs. But beyond that I have no idea.
And perhaps more important is the question - should I do anything about it? The pseudoscientific world is a rosy one. You're in control of your life and your body, you control random events, and most importantly - if you do everything right, it'll all be OK. Even if I succeed in crushing that illusion, I have nothing to put in its place. I'm worried that revealing just how truly bleak the reality is might devastate them. They seem to be drawing a lot of their happiness from these pseudoscientific beliefs, either directly or indirectly.
And anyway, more likely that I won't succeed but just ruin my (healthy) relationship with them. Maybe it's best just not to interfere at all? Even if they end up hurting themselves, well... it was their choice. Of course, that also means that I'll be standing idly by and allowing bullshit to propagate, which is kinda not a very good thing. However right now they are not very pushy about their beliefs, and only talk about them if the topic comes up naturally, so I guess it's not that bad.
Any thoughts?