You should always be wary of arguments from people who name themselves "The correct people". Less wrong, and the "rationalists" generally, are engaged in magical cult-like thinking.
Sounds like you wouldn't fit in.
> LessWrong is an online forum and community dedicated to improving human reasoning and decision-making.
The goal is to be less wrong. It isn't intended as a claim that Yudkowksy is less wrong than others.
Whether that actually reflects the attitudes of members of those communities today is doubtful, though.
All taxes that generate revenue are taxes on good things. This is a fundamental rule of economics. Using this as an argument against LVT just means that you are opposed to taxation generally as a way to generate revenue. This essay doesn't defend that position though, because it is engaged in magical thinking.
Calling yourself a rationalist is just branding. It means that your opponents aren't rationalists. It's dishonest.
No.
This frankly comes across as projection.
Please elaborate. I do not know what you could possibly mean.
Consider, are you exceptional in the sense that you would not place yourself in any camp whatsoever, ascribe to any ideology? You're neither left or right? Actions dictate identity.
Having an interest in something is not the same as having a superiority complex.
At this point I think you're trolling.
I think a majority would agree tobacco is not a good thing and yet we tax it.
I don't understand your "fundamental rule of economics" claim - carbon taxes are a clear counterexample, I would think.
person 2: "how dare you call me an irrational person!"
It seems like you are equating self-labeling of this sort with claiming to be a paragon of that ideology.
Do you think someone who labels themselves as "Christian" inherently believes they are pure of soul and perfect, and sins less than non-Christians? Certainly there are plenty of self-righteous people out there, but "Christian" does not imply "Christ-like".
The same goes for rationalists - "rationalist" does not imply "rational". I don't know the proportion of self-described rationalists that would consider themselves truly rational, but I think a good portion of them would consider anyone who made that claim to be full of crap. The whole movement is predicated on studying and maintaining awareness of the mountains of cognitive bias humans carry. If you can study that and still think you are ultra-rational, you've got a special kind of hubris.
I have known a lot of Christians. I can answer with an unequivocal yes.
Your core stance really just seems to be "people suck and groups of people also suck".
In fact, my argument is roughly "Less wrong is a religion by analogy to the religions that it resembles, like Christianity".
Arguing "well by that logic Christianity is a religion", is unlikely to sway me.