Lots of people in the EA and rationalist communities are into ‘keeping your identity small’, an idea inspired by this blog. I think this idea is overrated. In the blog, Paul Graham argues that: ‘People can never have a fruitful argument about something that’s part of their identity. By definition they’re partisan.’
Just finished writing my own post contra Graham, but for different reasons. But I'm on his side for this.
There's a fair bit of social science backing the general idea that in/out group identities can become unreasonably rivalrous, formed on nonsensical basis (as in the minimal group paradigm), derogation of out-group and favoritism toward in-group on unrelated or frivolous grounds, more critical-mindedness concerning the out-group than the in-group, etc.
That being said though, I will agree that sometimes attribution of bad outcomes to group psychology can be overdone; missing that some bad outcomes are consistent with genuinely rational actors.
Just finished writing my own post contra Graham, but for different reasons. But I'm on his side for this.
There's a fair bit of social science backing the general idea that in/out group identities can become unreasonably rivalrous, formed on nonsensical basis (as in the minimal group paradigm), derogation of out-group and favoritism toward in-group on unrelated or frivolous grounds, more critical-mindedness concerning the out-group than the in-group, etc.
That being said though, I will agree that sometimes attribution of bad outcomes to group psychology can be overdone; missing that some bad outcomes are consistent with genuinely rational actors.
Completely agree!
I feel like this post is eliding the difference between a set of beliefs and a community that happens to have those beliefs
I think people saying "atheism sucks" are quite rare, usually what they say is "atheists suck" meaning (those people i see arguing on reddit suck)
How much should *that* affect you?