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I don't think this post counts as 'trolling'. Certainly the desired responses to it could be used to troll, but that's not at all the same thing.
I don't see why they're being voted down.
I'm blaming it having successfully triggered the "absolute denial macro" in at least a few people :D.
The second, however, is much better than the first.
Why's that?
Clarity. The first depends on the interpretation of "abuse", and as such I think it's very likely that many people will agree with it to some degree.
The second is much more precise; although I think it is demonstrably untrue, I expect it will draw much reflexive denial.
In response to
Absolute denial for atheists
It's very likely that your parents were abusive while you were growing up.
Also, there is no scientific method.
These are excellent examples. I don't see why they're being voted down.
The second, however, is much better than the first.
In response to
Our society lacks good self-preservation mechanisms
Self-perpetuation in the strictest sense isn't always the point. The goal isn't to simply impose the same structure onto the future over and over again. It's continuity between structures that's important.
Wanting to live a long life isn't the same as having oneself frozen so that the same physical configuration of the body will persist endlessly. The collapse of ecosystems over a hundred-million-year-long timespan is not a failure, no more than our changing our minds constitutes a failure of self-preservation.
In response to
Absolute denial for atheists
I can't think of any particular issues that I'm convinced I know the truth of, yet most people will reflexively deny that truth completely.
I can, however, think of issues that I think are uncertain, but that the uncertainty of said issue is denied reflexively and completely. I suppose they would be meta-issues rather than issues themselves - it's a subtle point I'm not interested in pursuing.
Probably the most obvious one that comes to my mind is circumcision. I've never seen so many normally-intelligent people make such stupid and clearly incorrect arguments, nor so much uncomfortable humor, nor trying desperately to avoid thinking, for any other issue I've discussed with others, even things like abortion, religion, and politics.
I'm just rereading it due to your mention, and I found this passage at the point where Leo Graf is beginning to realize What Needs To Be Done:
[...] “How the hell should I know? At that point, it becomes Orient IV’s problem. There's only so much one human being can do, Leo.”
Leo smiled slowly, in grim numbness. “I’m not sure . . . what one human being can do. I’ve never pushed myself to the limit. I thought I had, but I realize now I hadn’t. My self-tests were always carefully non-destructive.”
This test was a higher order of magnitude altogether. This Tester, perhaps, scorned the merely humanly possible. Leo tried to remember how long it had been since he’d prayed, or even believed. Never, he decided, like this. He’d never needed like this before. . . .
Ignoring the religious content, for me-now this seems to be another occurrence of the idea that the universe is not adjusted to your skill level, and Graf is realizing he needs (to satisfy his morality) to do the impossible.
Bujold sometimes appears to argue for theism, but a very peculiar form of it that doesn't really match what most people mean by the term.
In some ways she seems to be a theological consequentialist - suggesting that people are better for believing that other people have souls, or at least acting as though they believe that other people have souls, regardless of whether it's literally true.
Cordelia Vorkosigan's religious beliefs are rather... odd. This is particularly clear in one exchange from Mirror Dance:
It's important that someone celebrate our existence... People are the only mirror we have to see ourselves in. The domain of all meaning. All virtue, all evil, are contained only in people. There is none in the universe at large.
Cordelia claims to be a theist. How can that claim be reconciled with her statement above?
In response to
Recommended reading for new rationalists
I recommend any collection of essays by Stephen Jay Gould.
I know, I know. Yudowsky [hates him][Yudkowsky], John Maynard Smith [thinks everyone else hates him][Smith], Dawkins [gave him his due but disagreed][Dawkins], etc.
But, if you read his essays with an eye toward the workings of the mind, specifically how humans think when they theorize (which I consider his main topic) you will find useful things there that you would be hard pressed to find anywhere else.
But, if you read his essays with an eye toward the workings of the mind, specifically how humans think when they theorize (which I consider his main topic) you will find useful things there that you would be hard pressed to find anywhere else.
I disagree. His logical errors are quite common; he serves as a good example of failure, yes, but such is rarely hard to find.
In response to
Recommended reading for new rationalists
Falling Free, by Lois McMaster Bujold.
It's a great story, but there's one scene in it that permanently changed my understanding of rationality: Leo Graf's first lecture to the engineering class where he discusses the relationship between engineering and ethics. The argument applies to all science and ways of applying scientific knowledge - really, to any and all attempts to interact with reality.
In response to
Causality does not imply correlation
This is a really spectacular post.
One quibble: in the case being discussed, one variable is actually a property of the other variable, rather than another thing that is affected by something else.
Is it really appropriate to say that A causes B when B is just a property of A?
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Hitler had a number of top-level skills, and we could learn (some) positive lessons from his example(s).
Eugenics would improve the human race (genepool).
Human "racial" groups may have differing average attributes (like IQ), and these may contribute to the explanation of historical outcomes of those groups.
(Perhaps these aren't exactly topics that Less Wrong readers (in particular) would run away from. I was attempting to answer the question by riffing off Paul Graham's idea of taboos. What is it "not appropriate" to talk about in ordinary society? Politeness might trigger the rationalization response...)
Those are excellent points, particularly the first. Adolf Hitler was one of the most effective rhetoricians in human history - his public speaking skills were simply astounding. Even the people who hated his message were stunned after attending rallies in which Hitler exercised his crowd-manipulation skills.