= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
Viliam comments on How could one (and should one) convert someone from pseudoscience? - Less Wrong Discussion
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (53)
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'.
'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.
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 towards textbooks also translates to dislike towards the Sequences and probably anything other than sensational online videos).
Thus, ironically despite various accusations against Eliezer and his education, the Sequences can act as a filter against crackpots. (Not a perfect filter, but still.)