I remember realizing not too long ago how silly I was being after just having read the Quantum Physics sequence here. I would watch popular science shows and have to have a little rant about how they were ALL WRONG! (Though I still admit any given popular science show can say some silly things) I realized every time I went to explain how they were ALL WRONG I would just say some secondhand (at least) and very opinionated ideas, and realize I didn't have very deep understanding from all that. But I would keep going.

So I've decided to stop, because it's irrational and at least a bit annoying I'd bet.

What exactly does this have to do with refining the art of human rationality? I'm averse to noise.

Part of the advantage of Newtonmass is that it's a sufficiently clever joke (IMO anyway) that it becomes less about sending up Christmas than the double meaning of "mass." Or at least it can, if you explain it right.

Regardless, I don't think either Baconmas or Newtonmas or Newtonmass are actually all that offensive. My suspicion is that the sort of Christian who would get annoyed would also be annoyed at the range of politically correct holiday greetings that explicitly AVOID mentioning Christmas at all, so the reference builds Christmas' importance rather than diminishes, in some ways. Dunno. I don't know if I have a good enough model of the type of people we're concerned about here.

However, an alternative: Baconalia

I only have my own impressions to talk about, and I only had one reply to my meager introduction. There was a minor criticism included, but the welcoming part of the reply left me with a possitive feeling about it. The criticism also made me feel a little more like I was part of a discussion. It was a bit more than just a "Hey, happy you're here".

Getting any reply at all encouraged me to post a few more comments (like this one). Though others may mind criticism more, or of course get more of it by mentioning more extreme views.

Post in this thread if you live in the US or Canada.

I agree largely with what you say. Two more explanations:

If you don't understand the great mystery that is a religion, but claim to believe it anyway, you show off how pious you are.

Similarly, not knowing things can show your modesty.

Where are you? I'm in Fort Lauderdale and the Tampa area. If we're near each other maybe we could arrange one of those meetup thingies...

Hi everyone! I'm Ozy.

I'm twenty years old, queer, poly, crazy, white, Floridian, an atheist, a utilitarian, and a giant geek. I'm double-majoring in sociology and psychology; my other interests range from classical languages (although I am far from fluent) to guitar (although I suck at it) to Neil Gaiman (I... can't think of a self-deprecating thing to say about my interest in Neil Gaiman). I use zie/zir pronouns, because I identify outside the gender binary; I realize they're clumsy, but English's lack of a good gender-neutral pronoun is not my fault. :)

One of my big interests is the intersection between rationality and social justice. I do think that a lot of the -isms (racism, sexism, ableism, etc.) are rooted in cognitive biases, and that we're not going to be able to eliminate them unless we understand what quirks in the human mind cause them. I blog about masculism (it is like feminism! Except for dudes!) at No Seriously What About Teh Menz; right now it's kind of full of people talking about Nice-Guy-ism, but normally we have a much more diverse front page. I believe that several of the people here read us (hi Nancy! hi Doug! hi Hugh, I like you, when you say I'm wrong you use citations!).

I've lurked here for more than a year; I got here from Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, just like everyone else. I've made my way through a lot of the Sequences, but need to set aside some time to read through all of them. I don't know much about philosophy, math, science, or computers, so I imagine I will be lurking here a lot. :)

Welcome!

I really want to do something that will bring the world forward in some way, and right now that has me pointed at trying to put my personal effort towards nanotechnology.

Although I disagree that this is the best direction for marginal technological development (in particular, I don't know if we're smart enough to not do nanotech horribly wrong), I expect you'll learn some extremely important things in the process of studying...