Comment by jodrellblank
5 days ago
The post's clearest claim is that rationalists "lack wisdom" and makes a circular argument - posts are too long because they lack the wisdom to make shorter posts, and the evidence for the lack of wisdom is the length of the posts. It says nothing useful or with predictive power. Another claim is that they didn't read an article by Scott Alexander, they didn't have much to say about it, and somehow conclude that makes them wiser, or a better writer, or superior in some vague way.
I may as well ask why so many replies, and responses to rationalist posts are empty posturing, sneering, ad-hom attacks, and writing so much while being so insubstanial. That post could be replaced by Bart Simpson bashing a saucepan shouting "I AM SO GREAT" and it would be no less informative.
> "even the rare one that contains some good ideas"
"Tee hee lols, cutting insight from superior mind, zing, burn, am I so great, or am I so great? I hope you feel wiser for reading my wisdom. Imagine how much worse this would be if I committed that sin of 'adding detail and nuance'. Also I'm not going to do the one thing I said they should do - interrogate the assumptions I made at the start."
> "Tee hee lols, cutting insight from superior mind, zing, burn, am I so great, or am I so great? I hope you feel wiser for reading my wisdom. Imagine how much worse this would be if I committed that sin of 'adding detail and nuance'. Also I'm not going to do the one thing I said they should do - interrogate the assumptions I made at the start."
It's actually quite interesting to me that even relatively mild jabs get dismissed by rationalists as "sneering." "Sneering" is what they are most averse to: as if the worst crime is simply to choose not to engage with something or be dismissive of it on its face. Something that is extremely normal to do.
Take this HN thread, here are some comments that could all be replaced with "because <someone else> is dumber than me" and convey the same meaning:
- "It's because you read too slowly."
- "Most of them are too smart to have brief thoughts, but not smart enough to have succinct ones"
- "they confuse their ideological preference with rationality"
- "When one is “full of shit” as they say, the shit needs to spill out somewhere."
- "If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit."
- "a culture of not knowing when to stop posting and touch grass"
- "Rationalism is for people who have the reading skill. If someone prefers short videos, it means that the doors of rationalism is closed for him."
Extremely normal to do, and boring to read. At least Ambrose Bierce's The Devil's Dictionary is witty with its scathing putdowns. None of these is a good contribution by the HN guidelines (thoughtful, effortful, edit out snark and sneering). Why is it "actually quite interesting" that people who want to focus on evidence and logic are averse to sneering as if that's surprising - who isn't averse to it? (NB. 'simply choosing not to engage' and 'ad-hom the author' are different, btw).
I cannot speak on behalf of Hacker News commenters that are not myself, I can only defend my words, which were far milder than that.
2 replies →
> None of these is a good contribution by the HN guidelines (thoughtful, effortful, edit out snark and sneering).
This one is thoughtful correcr observation: "they confuse their ideological preference with rationality"
It is not snearing, it is factual description.