Within the nebulous online space connected to the rationalist community a concept for understanding disagreement seems to have emerged: The distinction between high-decouplers or low-decouplers (also called decouplers and contextualizers).
Found the time to listen to it the other day. Thank you for all your kind words! I’d like to do two clarifications:
I am a PhD student in psychology (at Karolinska Institutet, in Sweden, so English isn’t my first language), however my doctoral project is not focused on cognitive biases or rationality. This is just simply something I happen to be a nerd about. (My research is currently focused on generalized anxiety disorder and mechanisms of change in internet-treatments).
Secondly, you got frustrated at my use of the meme concept. There I’d like to defend its use primarily as a useful metaphor that helped me make my point (that this new version of “decoupling” is psychologically appealing and thus more popular). I think I’d agree with most criticisms you would put forward against “memes” as a good plausible model for how ideas work within culture. I remember I had some lecturers when I was an undergraduate that were similarly critical. Still, while it is a simplistic model, and it can be misleading, it can also be useful for that very same reason. Its simplicity makes it easy to absorb.
Hey -- I used this as content for a video that I made criticising "rationalist" defences of Sam Harris. Thought I would let you know ( https://www.youtube.com/live/1FHVhu6PTL4?si=CmncnOGBnhpT5zT- )
Found the time to listen to it the other day. Thank you for all your kind words! I’d like to do two clarifications:
I am a PhD student in psychology (at Karolinska Institutet, in Sweden, so English isn’t my first language), however my doctoral project is not focused on cognitive biases or rationality. This is just simply something I happen to be a nerd about. (My research is currently focused on generalized anxiety disorder and mechanisms of change in internet-treatments).
Secondly, you got frustrated at my use of the meme concept. There I’d like to defend its use primarily as a useful metaphor that helped me make my point (that this new version of “decoupling” is psychologically appealing and thus more popular). I think I’d agree with most criticisms you would put forward against “memes” as a good plausible model for how ideas work within culture. I remember I had some lecturers when I was an undergraduate that were similarly critical. Still, while it is a simplistic model, and it can be misleading, it can also be useful for that very same reason. Its simplicity makes it easy to absorb.
I’m honored :) I’ll check it out later when I have time
Very nice! I remember the Harris/Klein podcast (I don’t think high/low decoupler is the best way to understand their disagreement).