What makes you think it isn’t? To me it seems both like a reasonable interpretation of the quote (private guts are precisely the kinds of positions you can’t necessarily justify, and it’s talking about having beliefs you can’t justify) as well as a dynamic that feels like one that I recognize as one that has been occasionally present in the community. Fortunately posts like the one about private guts have helped push back against it.
Even if this interpretation wasn’t actually the author’s intent, choosing to steelman the claim in that way turns the essay into a pretty solid one, so we might as well engage with the strongest interpretation of it.
What makes you think it isn’t? To me it seems both like a reasonable interpretation of the quote (private guts are precisely the kinds of positions you can’t necessarily justify, and it’s talking about having beliefs you can’t justify) as well as a dynamic that feels like one that I recognize as one that has been occasionally present in the community.
Because it also mentions woo, so I think it’s talking about a broader class if unjustified beliefs than you think.
Even if this interpretation wasn’t actually the author’s intent, choosing to steelman the claim in that way turns the essay into a pretty solid one, so we might as well engage with the strongest interpretation of it.
I agree, but in that case you should say make it clear how your interpretation differs from the author’s. If you don’t, then it looks like a motte-bailey is happening (where the bailey is “rationalists should be more accepting of woo & other unjustified beliefs”, and the bailey is “oh no! I/they really just mean you shouldn’t completely ignore gut judgements, and occasionally models can be wrong in known ways but still useful”), or you may miss out on reasons the post-as-is doesn’t require your reformulation to be correct.
Because it also mentions woo, so I think it’s talking about a broader class if unjustified beliefs than you think.
My earlier comment mentioned that “there are also lots of different claims that seem (or even are) irrational but are pointing to true facts about the world.” That was intended to touch upon “woo”; e.g. meditation used to be, and to some extent still is, considered “woo”, but there nonetheless seem to be reasonable grounds to think that there’s nonetheless something of value to be found in meditation (despite there also being various crazy claims around it).
My above link mentions a few other examples (out-of-body experiences, folk traditions, “Ki” in martial arts) that have claims around them that are false if taken as the literal truth, but are still pointing to some true aspect of the world. Notably, a policy of “reject all woo things” could easily be taken to imply rejecting all such things as superstition that’s not worth looking at, thus missing out on the parts of the woo that were actually valuable.
IME, the more I look into them, the more I come to find that “woo” things that I’d previously rejected as not worth looking at because of them being obviously woo and false, are actually pointing to significantly valuable things. (Even if there is also quite a lot of nonsense floating around those same topics.)
I agree, but in that case you should say make it clear how your interpretation differs from the author’s.
What makes you think it isn’t? To me it seems both like a reasonable interpretation of the quote (private guts are precisely the kinds of positions you can’t necessarily justify, and it’s talking about having beliefs you can’t justify) as well as a dynamic that feels like one that I recognize as one that has been occasionally present in the community. Fortunately posts like the one about private guts have helped push back against it.
Even if this interpretation wasn’t actually the author’s intent, choosing to steelman the claim in that way turns the essay into a pretty solid one, so we might as well engage with the strongest interpretation of it.
Because it also mentions woo, so I think it’s talking about a broader class if unjustified beliefs than you think.
I agree, but in that case you should say make it clear how your interpretation differs from the author’s. If you don’t, then it looks like a motte-bailey is happening (where the bailey is “rationalists should be more accepting of woo & other unjustified beliefs”, and the bailey is “oh no! I/they really just mean you shouldn’t completely ignore gut judgements, and occasionally models can be wrong in known ways but still useful”), or you may miss out on reasons the post-as-is doesn’t require your reformulation to be correct.
My earlier comment mentioned that “there are also lots of different claims that seem (or even are) irrational but are pointing to true facts about the world.” That was intended to touch upon “woo”; e.g. meditation used to be, and to some extent still is, considered “woo”, but there nonetheless seem to be reasonable grounds to think that there’s nonetheless something of value to be found in meditation (despite there also being various crazy claims around it).
My above link mentions a few other examples (out-of-body experiences, folk traditions, “Ki” in martial arts) that have claims around them that are false if taken as the literal truth, but are still pointing to some true aspect of the world. Notably, a policy of “reject all woo things” could easily be taken to imply rejecting all such things as superstition that’s not worth looking at, thus missing out on the parts of the woo that were actually valuable.
IME, the more I look into them, the more I come to find that “woo” things that I’d previously rejected as not worth looking at because of them being obviously woo and false, are actually pointing to significantly valuable things. (Even if there is also quite a lot of nonsense floating around those same topics.)
That’s fair.