Pursuit of rationality can be paradoxical in a sense, insofar as believing yourself capable attaining rationality is fundamentally irrational. You aren't a Vulcan, you're a Human. To err is human. All humans are irrational some of the time and if you believe yourself capable of being better than that, you're only proving yourself wrong with that very belief.<p>Rationality done right is the pursuit of an unobtainable goal that yields better-than-average results even as you ultimately fall short of the ideal. So, basically like any other form of self-improvement. When you inevitably hit a setback, reorient and adjust your approach. But don't beat yourself up when you continue to fall short, because you will. We all will.
I guess 'rationalism', as a name, calls a certain kind of person out of the ether:<p>1. They like rationality, and feel it's opposed by 'irrationality'.<p>2. They want to be part of some 'rational group'.<p>3. They're ignorant enough not to know the name is already taken.<p>4. They're ignorant enough not to know that the name means pretty much the opposite of what they believe. (A real rationalist, for instance, probably wouldn't be interested in modern science).<p>5. They're ignorant enough not to know that 'rational' and 'irrational' are usually demarcate lines of social hierarchy, not lines of theoretical commitment.<p>This is an attractive pitch, so obviously, loads of people jump on. I think the main thing that's nice about it is that no real work is called for. Every smart white kid from a nice background has been called 'logical' or 'rational' at some point, because (5), so it's a value they identify with. It's a young group, full of energy, because the internet is biased young, and young people go for (2) through (5).
From the original article they're responding to:<p>> This is still just a possibility. Maybe I’m over-focusing too hard on a couple positive results and this will all turn out to be nothing. Or who knows, maybe ivermectin does work against COVID a little - although it would have to be very little, fading to not at all in temperate worm-free countries. But this theory feels right to me.<p>> It feels right to me because it’s the most troll-ish possible solution. Everybody was wrong!<p>Actually, if it does pan out, score 1 for the conspiracy theorists. If you actually asked them by what mechanism they thought Ivermectin worked, they really had only two answers, and "alleviating strain on your immune system by killing parasites you didn't know you had" was one of them, from very early on.
This ivermectin thing is the premier example of motivated reasoning and wishful thinking in the last few years, something which seems lost on the author.
Rationality is only a pathway to reliable information when it makes clear its assumptions (i.e. axioms or postulates) and sticks to logical proof.<p>Empiricism is only useful when it adequately adopts Occam's Razor to stay focused on the facts and has a clear understanding of the difference between correlation and causality.<p>Want to disprove a mainstream position? Find a commonly held false assumption or some fact that cannot be explained by the current approaches. Keep it simple and be open to having this point explained with standard methods.<p>Read T.S. Kuhn if necessary to understand what it typically takes to change a scientific paradigm.<p>Everything else is just noise with the purpose of making a given community feel enlightened or smarter than the other "fools".
The "Do Your Own Research" title is about where he lost me. Without reading, I'm pretty sure the author didn't perform a double blind study himself, nor is he suggesting that we all perform one.<p>The rest reads like gibberish.
The "rationalist community" is morbidly fascinating in their tendency to be so self-important while also having a deficit of self-awareness. The author of this piece can't understand why an internet-famous blogger/Substack writer that he follows doesn't have time to drop everything and debate the minutia of a blog post he wrong last year on a topic that has long since been settled. Note that Scott did listen to him, work through his reasoning, and update his blog with a note about it, but that didn't satisfy the author:<p>> Step 6: Semi-Permeable Membranes<p>> One thing that shocked me was how hard it was to discuss even a simple thing with Scott, even when he knew I could have made a big deal about this without giving him an opportunity to make whatever correction he thought appropriate. It felt like communicating through a straw. I get the sense that Scott is busy. Busy and/or surrounded by people who think the world of him; a community of readers that compliment his writing early and often.<p>This piece also shares several other characteristics of "rationalist" writings: Unnecessarily long and rambling prose, flowery language and dramatic subsection titles when basic text would suffice, hedging in the middle of the article in case the author turns out to be incorrect, and a relentless insistence that the conversation revolve around <i>their experience</i> and some perceived sleights instead of letting the argument stand alone.<p>Regardless, this seems like a silly diatribe after the medical community has already investigated the Ivermectin idea to great lengths and at massive scale and concluded that any effects it <i>might</i> have are too small to be worth pursuing. It's weird to see someone writing volumes about re-litigating last years' amateur scientist social media battles.<p>This author is either obsessed with Ivermectin and the TOGETHER trial or playing a game to pander his Substack to a certain audience who loves this content. His first post was only a month ago but he's already written 11 articles suggesting errors and alluding to conspiracy theories.