The fact that you put “genetically engineer people for higher intelligence“ on your short list of solutions to society’s deepest problems is both terrible and a pretty succinct summary of the problems with rationalism.

Do you really think it helps to just say something is bad without mentioning any specific criticisms?

Yes, I know my opinions are weird, but do you have any point besides “Ha ha, look, someone believes a weird thing, let’s all make fun of him?”

Is this post supposed to end with anything other than me feeling a bit more miserable on an already miserable day, and some extra hostility between rationalists and whatever it is you are?

If not, why did you post this?

untiltheseashallfreethem and nyansandwich identify as post-rationalists, I think! Will Newsome is a post-rationalist, also muflax. I also think sister sarah might be? But I’m continually confused about her ideological affiliations.

also I think uncrediblehallq has opinions w.r.t. woo-woo-ness of Bay Area rationalists

Hi!  Yes, I consider myself a postrationalist.

The term is a bit confusing because it refers to a few different groups.  Will Newsome originally used it, but I’m not quite sure what he meant by it.  Later, on IRC, I used the word to refer to a cluster of blogs, including my own.  My definition appeared to be somewhat different than Will’s.

Anyway, the word “postrationality” came to prominence when slatestarscratchpad included it on his map of the rationalist community, to refer to the cluster of blogs I had indicated on IRC.  A lot of people started asking what postrationality was, and since Scott’s map seemed to be using my definition, I wrote up a post explaining it.  Other people from that cluster of blog- and person-space added comments about their interpretation of the word.

(I think it’s silly of Scott to complain about the word “postrationality”, when the whole thing only started because he used the word in his map.  There probably would be no postrationalist community otherwise!)

But anyway, there is a postrationalist community now.  Many of us are on Tumblr: me, countersignal, tendrilsofreality, polyaletheia.  I’m not sure if these people consider themselves postrationalists, but I’m going to link them anyway because they’re awesome: expandingwhatsthinkable, princessofdrone, raggedjackscarlet, and laofmoonster in the cluster.  (You guys, please let me know if you want to be taken off of this list.  And if anyone else wants to be on the list, let me know.)

Also there’s a postrationality IRC channel, #chapelperilous on Freenode, and everyone is invited to join.

ETA: I don’t think I’m new-agey, but feel free to look at my Tumblr and decide for yourself!

I only used it on my map because it was the term you guys were already using to describe yourselves.

Also, I think uncrediblehallq’s critiques of the rationalist community are in the opposite direction from the postrationalists and they probably wouldn’t get along.

also the incessant (and genuinely parallel) “you can never have a rational argument with these people, they’re utterly incapable of it!” though of course I’ve had perfectly productive, rational, good-faith etc discussions with both

I don’t know if I’m taking some kind of bait by responding to this, but I don’t think it’s quite as symmetrical as you’re making it sound.

I don’t think I’ve ever said mean things about communists out of the blue, I don’t think I’ve particularly insulted communism (beyond mentioning sometimes my general suspicion that it’s not a very good system) and I don’t think I’ve ever been mean to anyone about it. I feel like this is pretty common among the rationalist community - I don’t think any of us explicitly think of communists as an awful outgroup in the same way that some people dislike Republicans or SJWs or bioethicists or whatever.

I don’t think communists are impossible to argue with in general. I think they’re hostile *to me and people like me*. If there are people they are less hostile to, or people who are better at dealing with hostility, those people can probably argue with communists just fine.

I don’t think I’ve ever been remotely unwilling to argue with any communist or leftist who was polite about it. I offered to discuss some things with leviathan over email where it would be a less intense environment and they never took me up on it.

I am somewhat interested in leftism and would be happy to talk more about it, but it doesn’t seem like the Tumblr community is at all a good place to do it. I continue to follow you, ambiguously follow Multi when I’m up for the special brand of Discourse she peddles, and read some other vaguely leftie-inclined people who have demonstrated ability to discuss things without being awful about it.

I’ve gotten a few emails along the lines of “Of course we don’t like Communists, what about Mao and Stalin killing people?”

I still think they’re not an outgroup. See my post on Blue Tribe vs. al-Qaeda/Red Tribe. Yes, some people acknowledge think Communism is very bad, which is fine, but I still don’t see people pursuing it like they have a grudge, or carrying it over to personally disliking online commies as intellectually bankrupt or anything. Maybe I’m just missing it.

(correction: an earlier version of this post accidentally misgendered a communist, which is a really bad start to saying I don’t have anything against them. I can only plead that it was late and I was tired and defaulted to brain patterns from when we first met. Very sorry.)

Young Men’s Rationalist Association

you can fill in the rest of the lyrics

@slatestarscratchpad signal!

Bother @cass-uistry

The real question is why they, the “rationalists”, prefer cult membership to reading. (By and large I except people I’ve interacted with here on Tumblr from this accusation; I’m mostly thinking of LW forum comments I’ve seen and Yud’s own writings, although odd gaps do crop up on here from time to time.)

THE REAL QUESTION IS WHY THEY, THE “MEMBERS” OF MY “OUTGROUP”, PREFER NAZIS TO KITTENS (EXCEPT ALL THE ONES I KNOW PERSONALLY, FOR SOME REASON)

I tried to write a few responses to this but I simply don’t understand what you were going for here. I like your writing in general. I think it’s clear what’s meant by “cult membership” here; it’s been discussed at length; it’s not a totem of evil like “Nazis” but a contested description. See drethelin’s response to me on this very thread for someone who doesn’t like to read.

I mean, it was certainly an example of “a statement that can be made without any thought can be contradicted without any thought”, but if you want me to effortpost it…

LW survey shows that median LWer reads 2x as many books as the median US college graduate and 3x as many books as the median American. It’s one of the rare places where you can mention Wittgenstein or Spinoza or someone and not only will everybody know who you’re talking about, but five or six people will tell you that you got it wrong and the thread will devolve into a debate about exactly what they meant with a bunch of references and citations.

Survey shows that there’s an extremely wide variety of different beliefs, there’s practically no pressure for conformity (ie no one bothers the deeply religious community members for being deeply religious, no one bothers the anti-transhumanism members for being anti-transhumanism) and fails practically all of the items on any cult checklist.

Since you don’t seem to have arrived at the “they all are cultists and don’t read” thing based on evidence, I assume you arrived at it by “let me just regurgitate the most common insults I hear”. That you exclude all of the people here whom you’ve met from these insults makes it sound a lot like “All Muslims are terrorists, except my Muslim coworkers and neighbors who are all actually pretty cool and just like me, but I’m sure that doesn’t generalize.”