The experiment is recorded in the Bible.

Do words written on paper no longer count? Obviously, there are problems with the experiment itself, and a whole lot of reasons not to trust the results, but the fact is it was recorded as history by the Hebrews about 3,000-4,000 years ago.

Well, as I pointed out in my other comments, unless I answered your challenges with essays of enormous length, my answer would consist of multiple assertions without supporting evidence that sound outlandish on the face of it. Remember that we are talking about delusions that are presently shared by the experts and/or respectable high-status people.

Note that you should accept my point even if we completely disagree on what these high-status delusions are, as long as we agree that there are some, whatever they might be. Try to focus on the main point in the abstract: if delusion X is low-status and rejected by experts and high-status people (even if it might be fairly widespread among the common folk), while delusion Y is instead accepted by them, so much that by asserting non-Y you risk coming off as a crackpot, should we be more worried about X or Y, in terms of both the idealistic pursuit of truth and the practical problems that follow?

Just because they spend their time in a perhaps less than optimal manner (compared to existential risks) doesn't automatically mean that passionate atheists and skeptics are somehow highly irrational people, does it?

I didn't say it was conclusive evidence, only that it is strong evidence.

Moreover, the present neglect of technology-related existential (and other) risk is only one example where the respectable opinion is nowadays remote from reality. There are many other questions where the prevailing views of academic experts, intellectuals, and other high-status shapers of public opinion, are, in my opinion, completely delusional. Some of these are just theoretical questions without much practical bearing on anything, but others have real ugly consequences on a large scale, up to and including mass death and destruction, or seriously threaten such consequences in the future. Many of them also make the world more ugly and dysfunctional, and life more burdensome and joyless, in countless little ways; others are presented as enlightened wisdom on how to live your life but are in fact a recipe for disaster for most people who might believe and try to apply them.

In this situation, if someone focuses on traditional religion as a supposedly especially prominent source of false beliefs and irrationality, it is likely that this is due to ideological reasons, which in turn means that they also swallow much of the above mentioned respectable delusions. Again, there are exceptions, which is why I wrote "lacking other information." But this is really true in most cases.

Also, another devilish intellectual hack that boosts many modern respectable delusions is the very notion of separating "religious" beliefs and opinions from others. Many modern ideological beliefs that are no less metaphysical and irrational than anything found in traditional religions can nevertheless be advertised as rational and objective -- and in turn backed and enforced by governments and other powerful institutions without violating the "separation of church and state" -- just because they don't fall under the standard definition of "religion." In my experience, and again with a few honorable exceptions, those who advocate against traditional religion are often at the same time entirely OK with such enforcement of state-backed ideology, even though there is no rational reason to see it as essentially different from the old-fashion establishment of religion.

Can you distinguish thoughtless egalitarianism from stupidity a little more? Stupidity seems to me to mean just that sort of thoughtlessness.

A common illustration of this distinction (often told by preachers) is that Blondin the tightrope walker asked the crowd if they believed he could safely carry someone across the Niagra falls on a tightrope, and almost the whole crowd shouted 'yes'. Then he asked for a volunteer to become the first man ever so carried, at which point the crowd shut up. In the end the only person he could find to accept was his manager.

Which is, of course, followed by handing out buckets of stones and pointing out suitable targets of righteous retribution. Adulterers, people who eat beetles, anyone who missed the sermon...

Well, you're partially right. Eliezer says all the time that rationalists ought to win, and he even uses the italics. Of course, that's an argument from authority. On my own authority, I also think rationalists should win; it strikes me as irrational to be correct about a belief at the cost of not achieving your preferred state of the world. Surely there are more important things in life than what I personally have going on in my head in terms of abstract propositions.

And, yes, to a certain extent, persuading an annoying maverick to conform by shunning her at parties might interfere with my ability to reach correct beliefs. The question is, though, isn't that a sacrifice worth making? If I am still perfectly willing to debate this person in private and listen to her point of view, how much of her side of the truth am I really losing? If I attempt to restrain my social boycotts to those who appear to me to be clearly (a) factually incorrect and (b) making logically invalid arguments, how often am I likely to register a false positive and deprive the public of my opponent's true and valid points of view?

I'm curious what you think about all this.

By the way, welcome to Less Wrong!

My syllogism runs, "I think Susie said something wrong, therefore, I will argue against what she said, but I will not set her on fire, or try to stop her from talking by violence or regulation..."

Exactly how far does your modesty run, Eliezer? Do you disapprove of economic sanctions (e.g. fines, lost business opportunities) for Susie? Do you disapprove of social sanctions (e.g. shunning Susie not because she is useless or dangerous but specifically in order to induce her to change her mind)? Would you avoid such sanctions even if Susie were publicly and successfully tricking large numbers of people into supporting unwise policies based on logically incoherent arguments?