rwnspace

Think of it more like: you walk up to someone leaving a church and "socratically dismantle" their worldview by listing their thinking errors. If you actually manage to, you then go and inject your own ideas as to "how it all really works". If they listen to you and now need you for counsel, are they better off?

The socratic dialogues and enlightenment debates are generally taken up by engaged participants (else the dialogues would be quite short eh?) and aim at the idea of revealing truth through questions, or tackling fundamentally interesting ideas.

The dialogues in HPMOR are most often "you're so, so wrong because your mind is defective and clouded by this list of 30 erroneous thinking patterns. Let me elaborate for 10 minutes about why you're a blind fool and I'm a genius who sees the truth".

The pattern is very different and I think characterising what's done in HPMOR, and what's in greek or enlightenment philosophy is a bad idea.

There are good rationalist writers but Yudkowsky is not the one to look at.

There's an enormous chasm between Socrates & Rousseau, and Yudkowsky and co.

Should've said "'disabuse'" but even without its still kinda my point: I don't think it's right to aggressively pursue and dismantle others worldviews if they're doing ok, even if they're a bit wrong. Functionally you're just chipping at their morale and replacing their shit with your only slightly less wrong shit anyway, so it's ultimately more about coercion and control.

As a perseverer, I can confirm it was a waste of time and, functionally, a poorly-written demonstrative exercise on the abuse of rhetoric to disabuse others of their beliefs, dignity and agency. Imagine my surprise when I found out about the cult stuff.

I'm aware: I was inviting your thoughts (this is a cramped space for a debate). For mine, reading Lacan directly is a chore (post-atom bomb academic arts can have a "use all the cool sciencey words" problem), but I find the Other/other and reworking of Freud's ego id etc thought-provoking.

What's insubstantial about Lacan? There seems to be enough in there to give D&G, Zizek etc careers (as well as inspire a bunch of compelling media i.e. The Matrix)

I think time perception is contingent on cultural and lifestyle factors, I don't recognise it in my own life. My twenties (chaotic) lasted forever, now in my 30s, this last year in particular felt incredibly long (it was eventful and full of change).

I rarely find myself on "autopilot". Is that why?

It's not exactly GEB: there many paragraphs that are really just lists of things to go and look at deeper, and are therefore skim-readable (or a useful list of search terms). The chapters are structured quite similarly so you get a feeling of where the meat is after a few. Works well as an occasional downtime book that feeds some good thinking away from it, IMHO

In my personal experience new knowledge tends to beget questions.

Again you speak completely arrogantly, you have no idea what decisions I've taken in my life, no, none of the list, and yes, ones that involve significant threat to life. I specifically did not use the word "entertain" for those ideas because I have firsthand experience of the aforementioned sting. There's a reason I described myself as "post-rat". Yarvin was taken seriously for quite a time and is far more well-aligned with the sorts of people and views you're alluding to. Scott's Jewish, for god's sake.

I can only conclude you're a troll with far too much time on your hands. Goodbye.

Right, it's not like such "do this awful thing or do that awful thing" scenarios are constantly relevant in medical, the government, or dare I say, military decisions.

You need to start actually having conversations with real individuals, I was giving you a chance, but I'm not bothering with it any more, except to say this: I am not "you people", I am not whatever you are projecting me to be, at all, least of all someone with a lack of moral disgust. Because I am capable of engaging in deliberate thought about awful things does not make me awful too, and I have no idea why you think that Scott Alexander is somehow the boogieman in the current ethico-political landscape, go look at Curtis Yarvin.

While I'm detecting you feel strongly about trolley problems, I think it's fine to discuss them, and I really don't see why you need to try and shame me for providing an example of where I tend to sit on them.

As it happens I'm neither an EA nor much of a utilitarian, in the traditional sense, probably closer to a Christian "post-rat". I'd be hard pressed to say that it's worth killing a bunch of people to say, save the universe. I still have had a good time reading Scott and occasionally engaging with other people in the community.

He has some great essays and research pieces and has fostered a generally nice community of people who grew out of LessWrong. There aren't many places online to talk about those things in a certain way without it devolving rapidly.

Intentionally wiping almost all of my obsidian vaults and accidentally wiping my 2TB HDD was the most freeing thing.

I'd amassed so many books and papers and notes and half-finished projects over a frenzied couple of years where the main drivers were stimulant abuse and low self-worth.

It turns out that the excitement of finding some resource that's perfectly fit for your requirements is it's own rare pleasure, and it can be harmful to make them a demand on yourself in their own right, and especially harmful to try and catch'em all

I think I'd decided to grind my way out of my situation and channelled that energy into the most elaborate resource-hoarding and procrastination. I did genuinely learn a lot but very, very inefficiently, and in such a way I was sick of computers and self-motivated learning for a couple years.

Second-brain culture definitely provides an open door to hoarding (and stimulant users). I still like using obsidian but I don't care for the various "methods", I just do what makes sense. It turns out when I enjoy the process of doing/learning things, I remember stuff about them pretty well.