[cogman10]

> What gatherings?

Rationalist have groups meetup and conferences. For example [1]

> What beliefs?

It's pretty diverse and not uniformly held. Some of the more strange ones that seem to have pretty wide appeal are around AI safety. For example, Roko's basilisk.

> What proclamations? What evidence of insincerity?

I was responding to the comment above me that suggested that 95% don't actually hold rationalist beliefs and are instead simply having fun with it. Only a small 5% are actually sincere.

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/1car63w/les...

[zahlman]

Okay, but those pieces don't establish your claim. You would need a Roko's basilisk-like concept that only 5% of the community agree with, and a "group meetup" or "conference" where "they all" (i.e.: also the 95%) "proclaim that their beliefs (i.e.: including the basilisk thing) are true".

If I observed such a gathering knowing that 5% of the people there have sincerely come to a particular conclusion based on the available evidence and the other 95% think the evidence doesn't support that conclusion, I would be extremely surprised to see everyone going around "larping belief". And I don't think you can actually show such a thing occurring.

[cogman10]

Which claim exactly did I make which you are refuting? Please actually quote it.

> I would be extremely surprised to see everyone going around "larping belief". And I don't think you can actually show such a thing occurring.

I never claimed I could or that I observed such a thing. The 95/5% didn't come from me, it came from the person I responded to.

My point was that

- It's impossible to distinguish who's a true believer and who isn't.

- That the meetups of the rationalists re-enforce beliefs, particularly in true believers. Also that these beliefs of the rationalists can be pretty whacky and based on a jenga tower of priors.

- That there isn't "nothing" a rational person could do to dissuade someone from a whacky belief.

[zahlman]

> Which claim exactly did I make which you are refuting? Please actually quote it.

When you said:

> How about the 95% stop having gatherings where they all proclaim that their beliefs are true even if they don't seriously believe them?

you implicitly claimed that "the 95%" indeed have such gatherings.

As far as I can tell, the gatherings that they have are not of that nature.

> My point was that It's impossible to distinguish who's a true believer and who isn't.

And my claim is that it's actually trivial to tell who's a true believer and who isn't, because the concept of "true believer" does not pertain to "rationality" (by construction!) but to fringe beliefs, and people who are doing rationality correctly (which I expect to be the large majority) simply don't profess the fringe beliefs (because doing so is inherently antithetical to rationality). Therefore, the fringe 5% are the 5% of people actually saying the fringe thing, and the 95% don't actually say the fringe thing. Trivial.

For example, you won't catch Scott Alexander demanding "donate to MIRI or the basilisk might reach back in time and torture you".

> That the meetups of the rationalists re-enforce beliefs, particularly in true believers. Also that these beliefs of the rationalists can be pretty whacky and based on a jenga tower of priors.

And you have done nothing to establish this, and I believe you're incorrect.

[cogman10]

> you implicitly claimed that "the 95%" indeed have such gatherings.

> As far as I can tell, the gatherings that they have are not of that nature.

I literally cited you an example of such a gathering. Do you refute it or just deny that it exists?

> And my claim is that it's actually trivial to tell who's a true believer and who isn't, because the concept of "true believer" does not pertain to "rationality" (by construction!)

That's your mistake. The rationalists are irrational. Roko's basilisk, which I cited earlier, is an example of the sorts of ideas and beliefs they get up to which are irrational.

Your claim "This group is rational because they call themselves such" is unfounded. Trivially so. Just like the Christian Scientists aren't scientists just because it's part of their name.

> For example, you won't catch Scott Alexander demanding "donate to MIRI or the basilisk might reach back in time and torture you".

I never claimed universality. In fact, in response to you I explicitly said that the beliefs are diverse. Being able to cherry pick someone that's more rational than others and a part of the group doesn't prove that there aren't very influential members of the group who are generating a lot of fringe ideas. Specifically Eliezer Yudkowsky, the founder of LessWrong which is a core part of the rationality movement.

> And you have done nothing to establish this, and I believe you're incorrect.

I've established the meetups exist. I've established that a particularly nasty group came from these meetups, the Zizians. Specifically the founder got their start from the LessWrong forums and the "Center for Applied Rationality" [1] workshops (meetups).

[1] https://rationality.org/

[stickfigure]

You seem to be banging on a stereotype. Yudkowsky doesn't speak for everyone (not even everyone on lesswrong) and AI safety/paranoia is an incredibly polarizing issue.

There's a loosely structured community of people who self-identify as "rationalist". There are some general themes of belief but no coherent platform, per-se. Some of them are nutjobs. Maybe at an elevated rate from general society, but not dramatically so.

[s1artibartfast]

you two have fundamentally different readings of the statement "95 of them who don't take their eccentric beliefs as gospel truths and 5 who do."

One reading is the views are eccentric within the community (e.g. roko's basilisk). The other reading is eccentric view which come out of the community but are not held.

You introduced the claim that the 95% are larping along with the 5% and sharing the same proclaimations.

If you think that, it seems fair to ask you why. Most of the weird stuff (e.g. zizian) isnt accepted by the rationaist majority. A few unusual things are, like AI X-risk.

[zahlman]

> I literally cited you an example of such a gathering. Do you refute it or just deny that it exists?

You did nothing to attempt to establish that the gathering was of the nature you ascribe to it, and I see nothing in the Reddit post to support the claim.

> Roko's basilisk, which I cited earlier, is an example of the sorts of ideas and beliefs they get up to which are irrational.

You have done nothing to establish the commonality of such belief, nor have you clearly defined its boundaries. You commit the noncentral fallacy (https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/yCWPkLi8wJvewPbEp/the-noncen...) here and demonstrate outgroup homogeneity bias (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out-group_homogeneity).

> Your claim "This group is rational because they call themselves such"

No; my claim is based on reading their work and talking to them.

> I never claimed universality.

For your argument to work, you require evidence of a specific belief that is commonly asserted in the community despite a recognition that it is fringe and likely untrue.

> I've established that a particularly nasty group came from these meetups, the Zizians.

You did not in fact previously establish that the Zizians "came from those meetups". You merely mentioned them upthread. But even taking for granted that they "came from" the meetups (I haven't checked your current evidence but I'm sure it's adequate), this does nothing to establish that the meetups are "gatherings where they all proclaim that their beliefs are true even if they don't seriously believe them".

[HDThoreaun]

95% of rationalists always thought roko's basilisk was a joke