/ratanon/ - Rationalists Anonymous

If you strip out the bullshit it comes down to the idea that sometimes it's better not to be rational. But the meta-framework you should use to decide how to approach a particular situation ought to be rational.

Postrationalist is what you call yourself if you want to signal how much better you think you are than regular rationalists. Personally I'm a postpostrationalist and consider regular postrationalists to be plebs.

Working hypothesis: it's still rationality (winning), but darker, edgier, more right-wing and more artsy. These differences may or may not warrant a "post-". What I cannot tell is whether it is spreading within the rationalist diaspora.

> Has a rationalist in your life started conspicuously flirting with the dark arts? Or mocking the  veil of ignorance and EA? Or showing disdain for polyamory? They may be a risk! Act today before they invent a personal religion.

 >>/2136/
https://putanumonit.com/2016/05/17/rationality/

 >>/2140/
But then again https://putanumonit.com/2016/05/17/rationality/#comment-838

 >>/2136/
The time between X and post-X is decaying rapidly.Soon they are going to be simultaneous.

I think esotericism and a more positive attitude to post-modernist nonsense are a big part. Relatedly, a claim that religion/spirituality is at least not *boringly* wrong

 >>/2143/
Esotericism and postmodernist nonsense I see, but I am not so sure about "religion is not boringly wrong" as a distinguishing feature of that group. If what you mean is that they consider religion or a religion substitute like humanism useful as a hedonic accessory and a motivator, I think a nontrivial number (10%+) of regular old rationalists who are not otherwise in the postrat cluster would agree, including SA. (Though it may be that they mean different things by "religion".)

 >>/2144/
Make that 5%+ for the diaspora as a whole. Higher for SSC readers.

Must be good to be a post-rationalist. You'd be off the hook, as nobody claims that post-rationalists should win.

 >>/2146/
If anything, postrats want to trade epistemic rationality for winning.

 >>/2147/
Have any yet?

 >>/2147/
The only thing the postrats are winning at is being internet-losers. Which is actually quite impressive.

Pattern Trolling

 >>/2147/
postrationalist: genie, I wish to trade my intelligence and empistemic virtue for UNBRIDLED EFFECTIVENESS and PSYCHOLOGICAL HARMONY

genie: bippity boppity boo

postrationalist: uhhhm, what the fuck was I doing again?

 >>/2151/
Obviously, postrats believe they are trading nearly none of their intelligence and a fairly small amount of epistemic virtue for a lot of effectiveness and psychological harmony (good terms).

 >>/2152/
This is to say that I think they appreciate the hit to epistemic virtue, but consider themselves to be minmaxing correctly.

Are post rats more or less autistic than normal rats?

 >>/2154/
Autism is a stage 4 construct, reality is patterned, yet nebulous!

 >>/2154/
Autism is a stage 4 construct, reality is patterned, yet nebulous!

The question is not whether someone produces autistic or non-autistic qualia, but whether "autism" is an appropriate and helpful classification given a specific context.

Autism is a form of Eternalism.

Has anyone here recently updated on postrationalism?

Postrats are irrational.

 >>/4387/
That's the point, innit?
Maybe you'd make more sense if you didn't use the word "irrational".

 >>/4388/

Sure. Postrats are just like prerats. They are just normies who have experienced rationality and then ditch it for normies psychologically do not tolerate realistic maps well.

 >>/2154/

Postrats are a lot more NT compared to rats.

 >>/4392/
Yeah when I read David Chapman, the first thing that comes to mind is "there's a normal, well-adjusted fella".

 >>/4392/
Postrats are a narcissism-of-small-differences tier of distinctly different kind of neuroatypicality from rats.

Postrationalists are rationalists.

 >>/4394/
> distinctly different kind of neuroatypicality from rats
What kind of neuroatypicality?

 >>/4386/

> Has anyone here recently updated on postrationalism?

Old postrationalism (4+ years ago):  High church, Freud, Evola, ceremonial magic, NRx.

Current postrationalism:  Postmodernism, Chapman, Kegan, meditation, psychedelics, woo.

Common to both:  Non-EA, not-very-utilitarian, suspicious of explicit calculation in ethics generally; evo-psych, System 1 (except to the extent you take acid trips to route around it).

The old postrationalism at least lead to some ideas worth knowing about (if nothing else); the new postrationalism isn't even that.

 >>/4413/
> Old postrationalism
> Freud
> Current postrationalism
> woo
This seems like a good summary (if you accept Anissimov and MoreRight as part of the postrat thing, which makes sense), but I must question these two points. Was there a Freud person? Do current postrats have a new kind of woo that is not ritual (i.e., old postrats' ceremonial magic) or psychedelics?

 >>/4416/

Old postrat woo:  "There is a great Mystery here, perhaps locked behind an Initiation, perhaps hidden in the plain sight of ancient ritual or the letters of the Torah, but at any rate available only to the Elect."

New postrat woo:  "Its all connected, man.  Everything is one.  Pass the ganga."

Freud:  Substitute instead the whole Late Romantic or fin-de-siècle mindset; not postmodernists, but the holdouts against Modernism in the first place; the people clinging to the Mass, the dark areas of the mind, the tribal drumbbeat.

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 >>/4419/
> Everything is one.
I don't know, Chapman has specifically called out this view as false and harmful.
https://meaningness.com/monism
> fin-de-siècle mindset
You're on to something here, anon. In postrationalism there is definitely an attempt to recover pre-Modern thinking, but fuse or tame it with rationality.

 >>/4421/
>  I don't know, Chapman has specifically called out this view as false and harmful.
https://meaningness.com/monism

True, although I'm not sure all the postrat (or still-rat or rat-adjacent) psychonaughts got the memo.

Advanced tentatively:  Chapmanism is compatible with atheism and materialism but is perhaps in conflict with empiricism.  It is an introspective, naval-gazing sort of philosophy; sure there's all sorts of emphasis on tantra and "play" and experiencing, but that isn't the sort of thing of which Karl Popper would approve:  no repeatable, falsifiable knowledge is being produced, and even if it were, Chapman's hostility to quantifying anything would get in the way of adding the results to the sum of human knowledge anyway.

Come to think of it, that's kind of a common theme among the postrationalists:  they accept the conclusions of science (unlike their fin-de-siècle/postmodernist/occultist/whatever predecessors), but their own epistemology prevents them from doing any science themselves (relevant:  http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/03/against-anton-wilsonism/)

 >>/4423/
Chapman also said Monism wins the conflict between it and dualism.

I mean, "Monism holds that all religions and philosophies are essentially the same, and that they point at the same ultimate truth." is not the only kind of monism, neither is "the denial of separateness and diversity."

The sophisticated monisms sound exactly like Chapman's "Patterned yet nebulous" shit.

One thing I don't like about Chapman is that he shows little ability to apply his own multi-systematicity.

 >>/2149/
lol yeah get back on that dragon army rationalist dojo fam among a gaggle of polyamorous trannies and diabetic neckbeards

afterwards you can meet at your swinger's meeting, talk AI/furry/fantasy fanfiction and mechanical keyboards while Jamal gives your non-primary gf the Warm Fuzzies

then he pascal mugs you but you realise by doing so you've become an Effective Altruist

rationalists are *huge winners*

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l o fucking l