> Rationalist circles make just as many horrific logical errors. If you want to dig into this stuff philosophy has dug deep, and frankly all they came up with is all sources should be treated as suspect.

Sharing some anecdata, because I enjoy when others do.

I've got some very dear friends born in a highly prescriptive culture where credential-ism runs deep, being an intellectual is extremely valued -people are often denied leases due to their non-academic status- and authority figures and strangers get the "Mrs." and "Mr." treatment for years after you've met them. Early on in our friendship we would discuss and rant about everything and anything. We would often talk about my attitude of trusting no one and how I believe there are, truly, no experts, in the colloquial sense of the word. We've often had late-night discussions about my "stubborn and deeply misguided attitude", about how it's wrong that the only experts I trust are those who deeply distrust their own abilities, instincts and continuously attempt to disprove their own claims.

Shockingly, they defended the aforementioned views until many of their countries top virologists and they themselves, often and loudly, shared their opinion on covid-19 around March, April and May: covid-19 was nothing special, national mortality trends were unaffected, their country is rich and they had a high number of ICUs, it was basically just like the flu and nothing to worry about. Then, as we all know, shit hit the fan and we saw cooling trucks being turned into mortuary vehicles. I simply told them what I've always told them, and for the first time since we're friends they nodded with some sadness in their demeanour: trust no one, acquire evidence, make your own judgments, try to find hidden risks and the only so-called experts worth trusting are the ones who, in their own words, publicly and candidly express their skepticism towards their very own claims and try to help you reproduce their methods and conclusions.

If it's not too personal a question, I'm curious which culture you're talking about? My guess is French?

From a friend of mine who says she never had a problem renting a flat as soon as she's says she's a "Dr." This could be Germany :-)

I think people who are too in love with their own rationality leave themselves vulnerable to some pretty ridiculous beliefs that common sense would normally guard them against. A suspension of common sense is certainly important sometimes, because common sense can lead you astray, but at other times it will save you a lot of time and mental energy. A classic example from antiquity is Zeno's paradoxes of motion. It was not immediately clear to people trying to rationalize about these 'paradoxes' how they could be resolved. But somebody who is slightly less in love with their own rationality, who trusts their own common sense, would not waste their time wondering about a supposed paradox that can be refuted by standing up and walking around the room. Failing to balance rationalism with common sense can get you stuck in solipsist traps or worse.

I think the point with Zeno's paradox is less "motion can't happen" and "obviously this is wrong, so where is my mistake?"

Turns out the answer is math ;) more specifically stuff which didn't exist back then.

I'll rephrase my point then; I think Less Wrong people spend a lot of time trying to figure out how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Or: They should stop sniffing their own farts, pull their heads out of the clouds, try not to get lost up their own asses, etc.

Anyway, according to Wikipedia: "Some mathematicians and historians, such as Carl Boyer, hold that Zeno's paradoxes are simply mathematical problems, for which modern calculus provides a mathematical solution.[6] Some philosophers, however, say that Zeno's paradoxes and their variations (see Thomson's lamp) remain relevant metaphysical problems.[7][8][9]"

So it seems like a few people are still wasting their time with this.

I have bad news about philosophy circles; I agree that some philosophers have dug deep, and most people in philosophy circles (even those who have read widely) are much worse at this than the LW folks.

(I found LW/rationalism through philosophy circles, incidentally)

There’s got to be a joke about the discovery that nobody has a clue failing to generate experts who realize they don’t a clue.

Sadly, I am not a comedian.