Where do you think priors come from? Okay, some come from your evolutionary heritage. But most come from experience. If you save all your experiences, you can always recompute all your priors from scratch, given enough time.
Clearly in social justice theory, you're not allowed to use priors, because priors are prejudice. But nothing says you're not allowed to examine all your past experience during each encounter, and reconstruct those same priors.
But nothing says you're not allowed to examine all your past experience during each encounter, and reconstruct those same priors.
That wouldn't statisfy them, since the recomputed priors would be the same as the "racist" priors they want to get rid off.
I believe you meant
Your belief is mistaken.
In that case, you appear to have no idea how most people behave. Look at something like the Illiad, Arabian Nights, or even the behavior of modern gangs. Notice that under the implicit morality, there is nothing wrong with killing members of outgroups.
I believe the problem people have with this is that it isn't actually helpful at all. It's just a list of outgroups for people to laugh at without any sort of analysis on why they believe this or what can be done to avoid falling into the same traps. Obviously a simple chart can't really encompass that level of explanation, so it's actual value or meaningful content is limited.
EDIT: Also, looking over your list it seems that you have marked most philosophies and alternate governments as "Immoral", along with literally everything as "Pointless and Counterproductive". Anarchism, Authoritarianism, Bushido, Collectivism, Cultural Relativism, Cynicsm, Defeatism, Ecocentrism, Egocentrism, Error Theory, Ethical Egoism, fascism, Gothicismus, Harmonious Society & Scientific Outlook on Development, Hedonism, Illegalism, Libertarianism, Machiavellianism, Medievalism, Misanthropy, Misology, Moral Relativism, Moral Skepticism, Moral Subjectivism, Nihilism, Non-Atomic Eudaiominism, Opportunism, Pacifism, Sensualism, Ubuntu(!), Value-Pluralism, Virtue Ethics, Voluntaryism are all marked as "Immoral" and nothing else. I have a lot of issues with your list, but the one that jumps out hte most is Ubuntu. How is UBUNTU of all things Immoral, Pointless and Counterproductive?
I believe the problem people have with this is that it isn't actually helpful at all. It's just a list of outgroups for people to laugh at without any sort of analysis on why they believe this or what can be done to avoid falling into the same traps. Obviously a simple chart can't really encompass that level of explanation, so it's actual value or meaningful content is limited.
Thinking about it some more, I think it could. The problem with the chart is that the categories are based on which outgroup the belief comes from. For a more rational version of the diagram, one could start by sorting the beliefs based on the type and strength of the evidence that convinced one the belief was "absurd".
Thus, one could have categories like:
no causal mechanism consistent with modern physics
the evidence that caused this a priori low probability hypothesis to be picked out from the set of all hypotheses has turned out to be faulty (possibly with reference to debunking)
this hypothesis has been scientifically investigated and found to be false (reference to studies, ideally also reference to replications of said studies)
Once one starts doing this, one would probably find that a number of the "irrational" beliefs are actually plausible, with little significant evidence either way.
during the period in question
During which period? SJ is a recent phenomenon, post-civil-rights movement for certain. And to believe the glorious Chinese utopia you had to make a real effort to not notice things.
Hey, I'm trying to explain my understanding of why leftists do what they do.
Well, there is enough evidence to conclude that at least some Maoists were, in fact, driven by the desire for power. Do you have any pointers to writings by UU luminaries where they express the idea that the intensity of emotion is a good way to distinguish whether it comes from God or Satan?
Basically, I'm curious why goody two-shoes types like UU decided to get in bed with Maoist-style people.
SJ is a recent phenomenon, post-civil-rights movement for certain.
It has predecessors go back to the early to mid 20th century. What the "recent phenomenon" you are observing is the SJWs having completed their long march through the institutions, no longer have any institutional opposition.
Do you have any pointers to writings by UU luminaries where they express the idea that the intensity of emotion is a good way to distinguish whether it comes from God or Satan?
They wouldn't, in fact most UU were somewhat uncomfortable with the whole concept of Satan.
Basically, I'm curious why goody two-shoes types like UU decided to get in bed with Maoist-style people.
There's a tope about that.
Well, this is exactly the problem. First step is that people say random things just because they reflect the emotions they have at the moment. Second step is that later they sometimes derive logical consequences of what they previously said. Then bad things happen as a result.
Usually there is a boundary; people often have crazy beliefs in far mode, while having quite sensible beliefs in near mode. They can keep talking bullshit as long as it does not concern them directly, but when it becomes personal they can either conveniently forget to apply the bullshit, or have some general excuse such as "but this specific case is different". This can work surprisingly well as long as there is a social norm of not requiring people to actually act on their abstract beliefs.
Nerds usually lack the social skills to follow this strategy (because no one tells them about it explicitly; because applying this strategy to itself means never talking explicitly about it), usually harming themselves as the result, by following the norms that everyone applauds but no one except a few nerds actually follows. Sometimes they harm the others as the result, for example when they take the norm of killing unbelievers literally and become suicidal bombers; while for most of the society the same words in the holy scripture simply mean "boo unbelievers" without any impact on their everyday life.
And then there is the complication that our civilization became too complex and has too many channels where the far-mode beliefs translate into actions without people noticing that the boundary was crossed. For example, a person holding a stupid belief in far mode could never directly act upon the belief, but they might still vote according to the belief -- and then the politician in the office might actually do it.
It is a useful tool of propaganda to channel these emotions into far-mode beliefs that benefit some specific group. For example, any kind of frustration with various failures in coordination problems (what SSC readers would call "Moloch") can be channeled into hate against "Jews" or "capitalism" or "decadent western civilization", which can in turn influence the political orientation of people.
For example, any kind of frustration with various failures in coordination problems (what SSC readers would call "Moloch") can be channeled into hate against "Jews" or "capitalism" or "decadent western civilization"
Well "decadence" is not a bad description of some aspects of Gnon, or "Moloch" if you prefer.
Yep, that's a problem and an additional problem is that this mechanism is often exploited by agitprop and, generally, dark arts at the social scale.
Nerds usually lack the social skills to follow this strategy
I don't think it has anything to do with nerds or social skills. If I had to come up with an expression for what prevents people from applying their abstract beliefs in practice, it would be the trite "common sense" (which, yes, I know, isn't exactly common).
Essentially it's the matter of being able to recognize consequences when they appear in front of your eyes. Most people, thankfully, require a large amount of pushing and shoving to make the transition from "Ethnicity X is bad" to "We will go and set fire to our neighbour's house and throw stones at his children". It's not that avoiding that transition is a social skill, it's more that watching a house burn and children cry has direct emotional impact that you need very high levels of ideological belief to override.
Most people, thankfully, require a large amount of pushing and shoving to make the transition from "Ethnicity X is bad" to "We will go and set fire to our neighbour's house and throw stones at his children".
I believe you meant "most middle to upper class Westerners".
I replied to the idea it was "bigoted" and biased.
Jiro said it "borders on bigotry". I said it was a bias. I still think it's a bias.
I originally just pointed out it was reasonable to believe someone would behave more charitably if given an incentive.
Which is the same old shit of atheists being amoral because why would they have morals without incentives.
Forgive me if I'm not convinced.
I'm not trying to convince you.
I said it was a bias. I still think it's a bias.
Really, which bias are you referring to.
Which is the same old shit of atheists being amoral because why would they have morals without incentives.
Well, a lot of atheists are amoral.
If that's what he meant, he should have said "nonreligious" rather than "non-Christian".
And it still borders on bigotry, because it's equivalent to "non-religious people aren't moral".
And it still borders on bigotry
Ok, define "bigotry", also explain why "bigotry" as you just defined it is a bad thing.
That's a great point.
(Also, by "overcoming" they often mean "replacing with our priors", which are full of zeroes and ones.)
Well, they're rhetoric argues we should completely eliminate priors. Since that's impossible (in fact incoherent) in practice they wind up making an exception for priors that look as little like priors as possible.
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The bias of believing (to various degrees) that your in-group is children of the light and your out-group is the spawn of darkness.
A lot of people are amoral. So what?
Whose ingroup around here do you think is Christians?