156. Less Wrong, Rationality, and Logicbros | THUNK

I focus a lot on improving my critical thinking skills & knowledge of bias, but I may just be honing deadly weapons to be wielded by the mad specter that sometimes possesses me.

-Links for the Curious-

[pokebreeder]

My main fear with stuff like this is that it can easily become cult-like and fulfill the human need to belong in away that fulls biases of conformity.

[MrJethroha]

Scariest thing I've watched all October

[theuglyhat]

I have struggled with this problem in the past as well and the solution i came up with is to just have some got damn humility about the beliefs you hold.
If a person has gotten far enough in their rational thinking to apply that knowledge to their worldview and to their philosophy then they should be aware of the fallability of human thinking. If you are aware of all the biases and fallacies affecting your rational thinking and still claim that your conclusion, which you reached using just that rational thinking, has to be infallable then that is nothing short of pretentiousness.
This also takes me back to the principles of thunk video 135 and arguing to learn.
If one doesn't hold any humility regarding their own viewpoint when they enter a discussion, then they aren't just showing a lack of respect to the other person. They are also doing something deprimental to their own understanding of the subject by denying themself the chance to learn from the other persons viewpoint and better understand the shortcomings of their own.
This is the truth no matter who actually starts out with the strongest understanding of the subject and as such it's always better to have some humility about your beliefs, even if you are confident in being right.
That's my conclusion atleast.

[mintyggg]

This video is great stuff I stumbled upon and also a needed discussion. This reminds me of something I read where a spiritual teacher cautioned that the ego can use anything for its own purposes, including spirituality, and people can fall into traps of spiritual egoism and spiritual materialism. Even the practice of dissolving the ego can become something for the ego to reinforce itself. It’s definitely a knife’s edge as you say.

[TheMimoJimi]

what would we do if today was our last day

[auggiemarsh]

Brilliant insights. Especially at 4:48.

[AmaranthOriginal]

I feel kind of weird whenreading about this sort of thing. I suffer from perpetual underconfidence and often worry I'm completely wrong about things. So I'm usually the one who fact-checks the quote from the opposing party that sounds too good to be true, or looks at the paper that supposedly pwns me. I don't look at every paper because I eventually need to sleep, but especially on issues that matter to me, I tend to think "what if I'm wrong" and look.

I'm not saying I've never done this, though I must admit I don't remember any incidents. It's more that I tend to be more concerned with being correct than feeling correct, and I've had no alternative but to alter my worldview accordingly in the past in order to keep myself aligned with new information. not that constantly doubting yourself is fun.

[chiarscur]

Absolutely been on both ends of logicbroism, though I like to think I left a lot of it behind... How far back do you go in your own writing before you hate the author?

[DanyIsDeadChannel]

Prehaps LessWrong may be filled with wanna be rationals, but his greatest work "rationality: Ai To Zombie" is a collection of the best essays about this topic and I am quite happy to see the author is humble and works for AI safety ethics. To quote from Cultish countercultishness: "
Cults feed on groupthink, nervousness, desire for reassurance. You cannot make nervousness go away by wishing, and false self-confidence is even worse. But so long as someone needs reassurance—even reassurance about being a rationalist—that will always be a flaw in their armor. A skillful swordsman focuses on the target, rather than glancing away to see if anyone might be laughing. When you know what you’re trying to do and why, you’ll know whether you’re getting it done or not, and whether a group is helping you or hindering you."

[benmusgrove]

Damnit Josh, I didn't need this ethical crisis right now! Curse you and your consistent ability to remind us in a timely and thoughtful fashion to appraise our own beliefs and not just those of others!
For real though, excellent video. I feel like you're keeping a lot of people here, myself included, a little more honest with this channel.

[Fiddling_while_Rome_burns]

Definately one of you most interesting vids. Never heard the term Logic Bros before but it covers so many of the "Skeptical Community" video makers and commenters out there. I've definately met many of them in the comments section and you sum them up nicely. A lot of them very clueless people who have developed competance at a kind of rhetorical/logic which will work against average people without philisophical education and fan their egos but do little else.

On the other hand logic as an ideology and it being used as surrgate religion for gaining power over other people using simlar tactics to religion is a subject I'm interested in. The similarity with which people deploy Logical Fallacies and Bible quotations to try and bulldoze people amuses me.

At the beginning you mention how logicians justify themselves by contrasting logic with fractured thinking and dogmaticism. This is similar to those atheists who make videos like, "Answers to the 10 Most Ridiculous Things Christians Say, " then pat themselves on the back for being so intelligent. I used to comment, wouldn't it be better to make a video. "Answers to the 10 Best Arguments Christians make." they never ever do though. It's the same with logic. For someone like Less Wrong to convince me they would not have to contrast logic with dogmatism, they would have to contrast it with Praxis, Pragmatism and Empiricism. Which I would guess is not the game.

[grantonmölby]

I'm glad to see these thoughts shared. Refreshed even. And also unsettled. Tools in the wrong hands can be dangerous indeed and I frequently struggle in trusting that I'm using my own properly. It's nice to know I'm not alone in that endeavor. As far as being a part of a group, I feel the struggle there too. The moment I start seeing the forest for the trees is the moment I become disillusioned with membership and am desperate to escape. Less Wrong though. I may just check it out. Thanks for you insight!

[MartinLichtblau]

Metacognition is what you need, to check and balance your own thinking.

[HuseyinOmerErgen]

It is worth mentioning that those issues are a part of the conversation in the LessWrong community as well. I don't know how your channel treats links so, in the name of caution, I will drop a link to a prominent example as a reply to this comment.

[НАРМАНДАХБЯМБАДОРДЖКОНЦЕРН-гл]

Wow, that's some content, I like you

[barraman.]

hello, mhhhh yes, a big mac and. mhhhh three, no, four colas, thank

[passingthetorch]

Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem is the scariest. But this video is also terrifying. On the other hand, as a mathematician, I understand that one must have axioms, self-evident truths, to reason from.

[causmosis]

Was it a conscious decision to not put the direct Patreon link in the video description? I know it is visually displayed briefly at the end of the video...but you'd be suprised how many more clicks it may get if more prominently displayed as a hyperlink there.

...I say this because I shamefully never noticed it in the video until AFTER I Googled "Thunk Patreon" in disbelief it didn't already exist (it obviously does). In the end I found it and joined of course, but idiot proofing never hurts when it comes to generating web traffic right?

This is one of the best channel on Youtube BTW. It's saved under my "unequivocally good for humanity" list of web content...it's a short list.

[bunny]

6:15 I guess as usual Nietzsche was on to something significant about human cognition...

[repker]

this is like an AA meeting for us internet denizens with a superior intellect than the poor, poor layman, bless their souls

i think captain d has a talk related to staving off the logicbro inside us all. i may be misremembering tho