A modern philosophical movement that had its origins in the likes of Mr. Eliezer Yudkowsky (of the ‘LessWrong’ fame), known for its members’ rather excursive 1 style of writings resulting from hyperfocus on cognition and blindness to affect.
Being artful often takes the form of armchair sophistry 2 (“gish gallop” for instance) in rationalists. Like anyone with an identity, native intelligence does not always operate and function cleanly and clearly on the movement’s members, despite well-meaning efforts and intentions.
![[[midwit-sources.png]]](unfree/midwit-sources.png)
People skeptical of rationalists
- Alexandros Marinos – who is also known to have gotten into argument with Mr. Scott Alexander (yet another ‘authority’ in this movement, commanding its denizens what to think).
excursive in this page for examples.
See this tweet for one way of expressing this sophistry:
[..] “sophisticated” thinkers often have just build layers of thought/words/rationalizations on top of the same emotions as everybody else.
[..] emotion driven arguments can be articulately woven with the form and vocabulary of rational norms