[obfuscate]

> But you can ignore all of that if you put them all in a big bucket called "meta-contrarianism" and write their views off.

I don't see the article doing this, though it could certainly be used that way (http://lesswrong.com/lw/he/knowing_about_biases_can_hurt_peo...), but as warning about a bias you might see in the world or in yourself. I mean, look at the final paragraph:

"If meta-contrarianism is a real tendency in over-intelligent people, it doesn't mean they should immediately abandon their beliefs; that would just be meta-meta-contrarianism. It means that they need to recognize the meta-contrarian tendency within themselves and so be extra suspicious and careful about a desire to believe something contrary to the prevailing contrarian wisdom, especially if they really enjoy doing so."

[DanielBMarkham]

You understand, of course, that if I tell you that you are disagreeing with me simply because of counter-signaling, I am using an ad-hominem argument. It's another way of saying that you say has no value because you are the type of person who says such things for frivolous reasons.

It is the worst form of intellectual masturbation -- the putting on of airs to diagnose the reasons that other opinions exist in the world. Please don't let yourself do this. Ever.

Yes I understand that the author tried to dress this up as a self-analysis type of article, especially at the end, but the implication and thrust was pretty clear: we are analyzing the reasons others do and say things, especially things we find "wrong". Oh, and by the way, don't let yourself do this! But if the article was meant as introspection, it would have been written as introspection ("I find myself..." etc)

Sigh.

Please don't quote another article with the same source in a rebuttal. It makes the discussion about the site itself instead of the particular text in question. Its smacks of fanboyism. I know I started this with my closing remarks about the site itself, but the thrust of my point is that the article was plainly suboptimal. I stand by that assessment. I apologize if the remarks I offered on the site overall offended you.

You know you are in for trouble if the article begins with one site author quoting another as if they were a famous person. I knew a guy once that closed his emails by quoting himself. Not a good sign.

[cousin_it]

It seems your argument could be extended to attack the whole enterprise of identifying and overcoming cognitive biases, not just this specific post by Yvain. To me this constitutes a reductio ad absurdum of your argument.