The “rationalist” community is so fascinating to me. On the surface it’s about well, being rational, and about not allowing past biases to determine a course of action.
But in practice? In practice it’s basically like creationism, where the conclusion is already decided and the work involves creating “logical” steps to justify the predetermined conclusion. The Rationalist community always makes me think of the John Galbraith quote:
“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.”
In that it’s easier for them to come up with an entire framework to justify bigotry, than to question if the bigotry needs to be there at all.
It’s just recycling the same Ayn Rand bullshit for a new generation, including using a name which pushes linguistic prescriptivism from the get go. Actually I kind of think this is the first layer of IQ test they use to weed out anyone with more than minimal cognitive activity.
“Bruh, it’s called rationalism, aren’t you rational?”
It’s just so stupid and transparent from the get go, and I am convinced that’s the entire point. Once they bring you in on that premise they can sell you whatever they want.
What I find fascinating about the “Rationalist Community” is how they expect to attract new people when what they are selling is basically the opposite of what they are providing. Anyone interested in actual rationalism would pretty quickly realize the “Rationalist Community” is not that.
Well said, in my opinion I would say this ultimately stems from toxic men trying to push the axiom that they know better already and don’t need to listen or learn to be given authoritarian control.
Do the words and concepts they fumble with really even convey meaning or are they just the lowest hanging fruit their minds could grasp to sling at those they already “know” in their heart are supposed to be victims of their violence?
Sam harris almost reeled me in when I discovered him long ago, (don’t judge me I was doing a lot of drinking, ok?) until the moment he started talking about how torture can be justified and I was like “lol ok no thank you”
Anyway I learned a lot since and fuck that guy
I definitely don’t judge, when I discovered the “rationalist” community I was super interested at first too. But the biases show themselves over time, and in such an obvious way.
PragerU is another one I’m embarrassed to say I was subscribed to for about a month. It’s mostly news-based now but it used to present moreso as “Educational YouTube”, which, sure, great, I added it to my collection…until I watched a couple episodes.
We live and we learn, I think I can take some pride in immediately checking out once the hate started coming up!
His own subreddit seems to share this take
I wonder if hes the equivalent of Joe Rogan for the athiest community, where none of his original fans support his current views.
Either way, fuck Sam Harris.
i noped out of any of his video’s some months ago, (i had been the occasional watcher on YT) he also portrays people against billionaires as being “the radical left” and how toxic that is, with no acknowledgement of how toxic and incompatible to the very fundamentals of democracy and society not only billionaires are bit inequality itself.
A wild thing about “new atheists” is how they don’t “believe in god” but they’re still religious AF.
