Comment by DoctorOetker
5 days ago
By this token, most scientists would be considered cultists: normal people don't have "specific tensile strength" or "Jacobian" or "Hermitian operator" etc in their vocabulary. "Must be some cult"?
Edit: it seems most people don't understand what I'm pointing out.
Having terminology is not the red flag.
Having intricate terminology without a domain is the red flag.
In science or mathematics, there are enormous amounts of jargon, terms, definitions, concepts, but they are always situated in some domain of study.
The "rationalists" (better call them pseudorationalists) invent their own concepts without actual corresponding domain, just life. It's like kids re-inventing their generation specific words each generation to denote things they like or dislike, etc.
> social group
fine, the jargon of a "social group" of science is a red flag?
sure, theres lots of nasty side effects of how academia is run, rewarded, etc..
but thats not because of precision of language employed.
do you want scientists recycling the same words and overloading ever more meanings onto ever more ambiguous words?
I don’t think we disagree. I’m not taking issue with scientists having jargon, which I agree is good and necessary (though I think the less analytical academic disciplines, not being rooted in fact, have come to bear many similarities to state-backed religions; and I think they use jargon accordingly). I’m pointing out that I specifically intended to exclude professionals by scoping my statement to “social groups”. Primarily I had in mind religion, politics, certain social media sites, and whatever you want to call movements like capital R Rationality (I have personally duck typed it as a religion).
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