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Oh, the propaganda definitely doesn't work. I said semi-democratic for a reason -- the forms of democracy are there, but they're not doing much of anything. They are a very, very, very weak form of pressure -- but that's not the same as no form of pressure at all. Tiny incremental changes (like the constitutional change last year which didn't change anything on the ground level but did remove the king's supposed divine status) can eventually add up. It's just that those add up on ridiculously slow timescales.
I guess every drop of water counts in eroding the rock...
In response to
The Problem Of Apostasy
Speaking in long term terms, what is the mechanism by which societies secularize themselves, and are there ways to trigger it? For instance, the Jews too have a very explicit, canonic policy of stoning proselytizing apostates to death. When did they stop doing that, and why?
In response to
The Problem Of Apostasy
More importantly, concerning Less Wrong itself, should we try to distance ourselves from atheism and anti-religiousness as such? Is this baggage too inconvenient, or is it too much a part of what we stand for?
No. It is indeed too much a part of it.
As for the hotheaded young rationalist, the only general advice I can think of for the hypothetical case is, consider the situation around you and do what you think will actually work.
Hotheadedly running out into the street screaming "Stop being irrational!" is unlikely to be it, even in places where it won't get you shot. If their well-considered decision gets them killed, well, shit happens. I expect Richard Dawkins gets death threats, and Salman Rushdie certainly does, but they carry on anyway.
Now that you mention Rushdie, another topic comes out: how not to appear to be a Westernized sellout? I don't know much about Rushdie himself, but the image I got of him from popcultural osmosis is that of a professional traitor attacking Islam for the sake of getting accolades from Westerners. Regardless of how much of that is true, this is obviously an image one needs to avoid at all costs.
I would compare it to the amalgamation of "Socialist" and "Servant of the USSR" that took place during the Cold War.
People can have interesting perspectives on the topic of religious conversion. I remember a Muslim apostat getting asked, in all innocence, whether they'd be converting to Christianity next, as if it was the logical next step. Yet another argument for "people actually think of religion as a tribe, not as a set of metaphysical beliefs with moral prescriptions attached"
In response to
The Problem Of Apostasy
Like it or not, serious rationality tends to erode religious belief, just as it tends to erode belief in astrology. It tends to erode blind obedience to other authorities too. If "word spreads and authorities find out", enthusiastic participation in any sort of rationalist community is liable to mean trouble in repressively religious communities, whether Eliezer is a raging bitter passionate atheist or not.
In any case, I'm having trouble imagining what the LW community could actually do to "try to distance ourselves from atheism and anti-religiousness as such" even if we wanted to, that would have any appreciable impact on the safety of being a serious rationalist in the sorts of countries you're talking about. Go back through the LW archives and delete every post that says unkind things about religion? Forbid discussion of religious topics? It seems absurd to respond to the threat of oppression by meekly oppressing ourselves; and besides, I bet it wouldn't work. There's too much other stuff on LW that would be offensive to those regimes.
What it comes down to is this: A rationalist in a sufficiently repressive irrationalist regime is going to have to pretend not to be a rationalist. That's very bad, but having rationalists everywhere else pretend half-heartedly not to be rationalists about everything won't solve the problem.
That is the conclusion to which I had come, though I was hoping for an alternative. Now the question remains:
How can a rationalist pretending not to be a rationalist help spread serious rationalism without them and the people they inluenced getting caught (in early stages) or triggering a witchunt (supposing they were somewhat successful)?
In response to
The Problem Of Apostasy
My advice in the case of Morocco specifically would be to work towards the instrumental goal of getting those laws changed, rather than the final goal of promoting rationality. Morocco is a semi-democratic country but with extremely low levels of political participation by the citizens. That means one could have a disproportionate effect even by registering to vote (most Moroccans aren't registered), let alone by joining a political party. I'd suggest joining Movement Populaire or Union Constitutionelle, after a few minutes' googling. There's just about enough give in the system that one could make a difference in overall freedom there.
In a country without even that tiny amount of pressure one can put on the levers of power, like an outright theocracy like Iran or hereditary dictatorship, it would depend on whether the budding rationalist considered hir death a reasonable price to pay for increasing overall rationality. If yes, then supporting whatever underground opposition groups exist would make sense. If not, then just doing whatever they could to get somewhere with a saner polity would be the sensible thing to do.
Oh. So it does work, the propaganda.. Morocco is only a consitutional monarchy on paper. The power resides in the Palace, and it is absolute. Parties have been proven, time and again, to be utterly impotent before the King. That is why people don't even bother to vote. That is why you will often spot people sleeping during parliament sessions: those simply don't matter.
People have picked up on this. Now, when they make protests, they address the King directly, ignoring the Ministers. Their tone is very deferential, but that's one fuse that's burned out.
And the most popular contenders, were the regime to change, are the Islamists...
No. The whole point of that phrase is to not get overly complicated in explaining other people's failures.
Explaining and rationalizing/justifying are two different things. Pleading the "humanity is insane" is, to put it bluntly, unproductive and lazy. If you want to say "don't think about it too hard, it's not worth the effort", then say that, and spare us the theatrics.
[...] what is the necessity, nay, the justification for parties existing in this day and age?
It's a good question. The answer is "none, because people are crazy and the world is mad".
That's a bit of a non-explanation: it predicts anything, and nothing. How about, instead, you name three specific patterns of craziness (you know, fallacies, errors in judgment, bad heuristics, and so on) that are decisive factors in this state of affairs.
Politico, PolitiFact, FactCheck.org
Thank you very much for sharing these. I am very glad to find out that such organizations exist.
There are such organizations, and in general the information they put out is a lot more reliable, for exactly these reasons.
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And speaking in long-term terms, secularism tends to correlate with an increase in the perception by the individual that they have the ability to alter their circumstances. There are exceptions (the US is really weird in being something like a functioning democracy but still having a ridiculously rabid level of religiosity) but in general democracy and social mobility seem to lead to higher levels of secularism, though they're not a panacea.
Democracy and social mobility... and the ability to alter one's circumstances.... What if those were red herrings?
There is a fair number of Lesswrongers that challenge the notion that "Democracy is Good".