[dmreedy]

I would assert that it should serve as a memento mori against too much confidence in your priors. And a reminder of the value of Russellian "Hypothetical Sympathy", an encouragement to examine your priors, and see whether you disagree with something because of a glitch in its proof, or a lack of understanding (or a rejection) of the assumptions that it began with.

[throw4847285]

In my opinion, one of the key blindspots is that most of the people in this community are living right within the center of power of the world's current largest and most powerful empire, and that tends to give you a certain set of priors which are very hard to shake. Effective altruism originally took those assumptions and said, "we need to extend the incredible bounty we've been given to those who aren't living at the epicenter of global power." And then it evolved into "We're currently the most powerful force on the planet, but what if a more powerful force that we create dismantles us!" Just the War of the Worlds argument but without Wells's self awareness that he was critiquing imperialism. Now post-rationalism is just the same old argument of "our society is collapsing because we've lost touch with our traditions." Etc. etc.