All of JacobLW's Comments + Replies

When at school I learned about Kohlberg's stages of moral development, there was a nice example of a moral problem (something like the Trolley problem, but I think it was about stealing an expensive medicine to heal someone) where either side could be argued from each stage of moral development. For example, you could make a completely selfish argument for either side "I don't care about anyone's property" or "I don't care about anyone's health", but you could also make an abstract principled argument for either side "we should optimize for orderly society" or "we should optimize for helping humans" (simplified versions). The lesson was that the degree of moral development is not the same as the position on an issue. If I look at the "rationality / postrationality" vs "Kegan's stages" using similar optics, I can see how people on different stages could still argue for either side. Therefore, one could "explain" either side as a manifestation of any of stages 3, 4, and 5. If the Stage 3 is "socially determined, based on the real or imagined expectations of others", we could argue that people who use the label "rationalists" do it because they are in the Stage 3, and they believe that other "rationalists" expect them to use this label, so they follow the social pressure. But just as well we could argue that people who avoid the label "rationalists" (and use "post-rationalists" instead) do it because their social environment disapproves of the "rationalist" label. Both sides could be following social pressure, only different social pressures, from different groups of people. Maybe "rationalists" are scared that they could lose their group identity. And maybe "post-rationalists" are scared that someone from their social group could pattern-match them to "rationalists" and consequently exclude them from their group, whatever it happens to be (academia, buddhists, cool postmodern people, etc.). If the Stage 4 is "determined by a set of values that they have authored fo

I don't have much to say to most of that besides nodding my head sagely. I will remark, though, that "developmental stage" theories like Kegan's almost always rub me the wrong way, because they tend to encourage the sort of smugly superior attitude I fear I detect in much "postrationalist" talk of rationalism. I don't think I have ever heard any enthusiast for such a theory place themselves anywhere other than in the latest "stage". (I don't mean to claim that no such theory can be correct. But I mistrust the motives of those who espouse them, and I fear that the pleasure of looking down on others is a good enough explanation for much of the approval such theories enjoy that I'd need to see some actual good evidence before embracing such a theory. I haven't particularly looked for such evidence, in Kegan's case or any other; but nor have I seen anyone offering any.)

Tone arguments are often frowned upon, but these is a difference between saying "you guys are doing a specific mistake here, let me explain, because this is very important" and "you guys are hopelessly wrong, I am going away and starting my own dojo" -- even if technically both of them mean "you are wrong, and I am right". It would be especially bad if the guy starting his own new dojo happens to be right about a specific thing X and also to be wrong about a specific thing Y. Now believing in "neither X nor Y" becomes the mark of the old tribe, and believing in "both X and Y" becomes the mark of the new tribe. Which seems to me what typically happens in politics. I'd like to be able to consider the "postrationalist" or "metarationalist" claims individually, perhaps to agree with some, disagree with some, and express uncertaintly about some. Instead of having two separate packages, and being told to choose the better one. (Then of course remains the problem with the identity of a "rationalist", where I don't expect people to agree, because that's a thing of aesthetical preferences and social pressures. I'm not pretending any middle ground here; I enjoy the label of "rationalist" or "x-rationalist", and I try to be the one who can cooperate and is willing to pay the cost, hoping to become stronger, as a team. I don't think my contribution matters a lot, but I don't see that as a reason for defecting.)

Melting Asphalt has this very intriguing analysis of personhood.

The Meaningness book's section on Meaningness and Time is all about culture viewed through Chapman's lens. Ribbonfarm has tons of articles about culture, most of which I haven't read. I haven't been following post-rationality for very long. Even on the front page now there is this which is interesting and typical of the thought. Post-rationalists write about rituals quite a bit I think (e.g. here). But they write about it from an outsider's perspective, emphasizing the value of "local" or "small-set" ritual to everyone as part of the human experience (whether they be traditional or new rituals). When Rationalists write about ritual my impression is that they are writing about ritual for Rationalists as part of the project of establishing or growing a Rationalist community to raise the sanity waterline. Post-rationalists don't identify as a group to the extent that they want to have "post-rationalist rituals." David Chapman is a very active Buddhist, for example, so he participates in rituals (this link from his Buddhism blog) related to that community, and presumably the authors at ribbonfarm observe rituals that are relevant within their local communities. Honestly, I don't think there is much in the way of fundamental philosophical differences. I think it's more like Rationalists and post-Rationalists are drawn from the same pool of people, but some are more interested in model trains and some are more interested in D&D. It would be hard for me to make this argument rigorous though, it's just my impression.

FWLIW, I took "I've never heard of metatroll either, but I won't hold that against them :)" as intended to have a net-deëscalatory effect, even if it didn't seem to be entirely subtext-free. (and this combination of attributes is not something I have a problem with)

Thank you for trying to improve the quality of the debate! If you could rewrite the most important insights as a new "sequence" that would be awesome. If I may express my opinion, I would prefer reading a text that would not include criticism of what to me seems like a strawman of "rationalists", and simply focus on the specific ideas. (Something like writing "2+2=4" instead of "rationalists believe that 2+2=3, but post-rationalists believe that 2+2=4 and here is why".) I am curious how much of post-rationality will remain after the tribal aspects are removed.

I certainly see some negative attitudes towards this sort of thing on LW, but it doesn't look to me at all like "vague annoyance that Rationalist principles are being challenged". Could you explain why you think that's what it is? (Full disclosure: your description above seems to me like an example of my snarky thesis that postrationality = knowing about rationality + feeling superior to rationalists. But I think that in feeling that way I'm being uncharitable in almost exactly the way I'm suspecting you of being uncharitable. :-) ) For what it's worth, I'm not a fan of the notion that anything that successfully builds on rationality is a part of rationality. Not because it's exactly wrong, but because surely it could happen that the self-identified rationalist community has a wrong or incomplete idea of what actually constitutes effective thinking. In that case, a New Improved Version should indeed be "part of rationality", but until the actual so-called rationalists catch up it might not look that way. And if the rationalist community were sufficiently dysfunctional, calling the New Improved Version "rationality" might be counterproductive. I am not claiming that any of this is actually the case, and in particular I am not claiming that the "postrationalists" or "metarationalists" are in fact in possession of genuine improvements on LW-style rationality. But it's not a possibility that can be ruled out a priori, and this "automatically part of rationality" thing seems to me like it fails to acknowledge the possibility.

I was white-knighting for the weird suns. See, I haven't read Chapman. I just assumed you were here to steal their work by annexing it to your own philosophical brand of "meta-rationality". I didn't know that was one of his buzzwords. Of course you have a right to be a Chapmanite; even that version of postrational subculture is surely better than the subrational postculture that surrounds it. But do not imagine for a moment that his is the only way to go meta.

Absolutely, I see that in the sense of the idea of, "leave things unsaid" (from that specific culture). if I were in the position of metatroll, I would take it as a perceived smugness (leading downhill into more smugness in response), not in the lighthearted "don't talk about the elephant in the room" kind of way that you intended it. Metatroll started it, you played with it instead of either letting it go or responding to it directly. I contributed by ignoring it. Do continue to hang around and share your ideas with us.

I believe you mean to say that you don't like the tone of the original post in that it feels "accusatory". I realise I failed to make it clear that I picked up on that when I made my response. I agree it comes across as accusatory. Especially as 3 levels leading to "I have never heard of you". I am glad you said: Keeping a welcoming community is very important to us.

Goodbye Less Wrong! Love y'all. Hope to see you soon.

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Well, I "hang around in rationalist corners of the world" and I've never heard about it until it popped up in some comments here in LW this week. I don't think it's quite as universal as you think, and a brief, even 3 sentences explanation would have helped the post a lot.

I strongly encourage you to do it. I'm typing up a post right now specifically encouraging people to summarize fields in LW discussion threads as a useful way to contribute, and I think I'm just gonna use this as an example since it's on my mind..

I think it's better to be somewhat separate from CFAR. CFAR has their own priorities, which could make LW neglected.

How this all feels to me: When I look at the Sequences, as the core around which the rationalist community formed, I find many interesting ideas and mental tools. (Randomly listing stuff that comes to my mind: Bayes theorem, Kolmogorov complexity, cognitive biases, planning fallacy, anchoring, politics is the mindkiller, 0 and 1 are not probabilities, cryonics, having your bottom line written first, how an algorithm feels from inside, many-worlds interpretation of quantum physics, etc.) When I look at "Keganism", it seems like an affective spiral based on one idea. I am not saying that it is a wrong or worthless idea, just that comparing "having this 'one weird trick' and applying it to everything" with the whole body of knowledge and attitudes is a type error. If this one idea has merit, it can become another useful tool in a large toolset. But it does not surpass the whole toolset or make it obsolete, which the "post-" prefix would suggest. Essentially, the "post-" prefix is just a status claim; it connotationally means "smarter than". To compare, Eliezer never said that using Bayes theorem is "post-mathematics", or that accepting many-worlds interpretation of quantum physics is "post-physics". Because that would just be silly. Similarly, the idea of "interpenetration of systems" doesn't make one "post-rational".

Any chance you could be bothered to write a post explaining what you're talking about, at a survey/overview level?

Having new conversational focus seems good. Right now, at least, there doesn't seem to be too much of a common thread in terms of discussion topics or central themes that people focus on. I, too, have seen some mentions to Kegan, most notably in Benjamin Hoffman's posts here. I don't quite understand constructive developmental theory and having some beginner-friendly discussion would be great.