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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   24235 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 6, 2026

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All(most) rationalists are atheists, but not all atheists are rationalists.

I think rationalism is kind of like stoicism (both philosophies I like and try to practice, though I don't really "identify" as either a rationalist or a stoic) - the basic outlines are unobjectionable and sensible, and more people would benefit by them, but the more fine-grained you get, the harder it is to be a "true" rationalist/stoic. Nobody can act with pure rationalism or stoicism all the time, and the more seriously you take it the more you become entangled in questions of "what is the real rationalist/stoic answer, anyway?"

Note that Ryan Holiday, the most famous Stoic influencer online, regularly seems to have embarrassing emotional meltdowns in public, usually over politics. A lesson in that for dealing with Actually Existing Rationalism, too.

I think a lot of modern stoic practitioners consider Ryan Holiday to be one of the many $toic grifters who gives the philosophy a bad name. Of course, there's always going to be the "no true Scotsman" problem, but the problem of Stoics in name only is a much older problem, if Epictetus is anything to by:

Observe yourselves thus in your actions, and you will find to what sect you belong. You will find that most of you are Epicureans, a few Peripatetics, and those feeble. For wherein will you show that you really consider virtue equal to everything else or even superior? But show me a Stoic, if you can. Where or how? But you can show me an endless number who utter small arguments of the Stoics. For do the same persons repeat the Epicurean opinions any worse? And the Peripatetic, do they not handle them also with equal accuracy? who then is a Stoic?

As we call a statue Phidiac which is fashioned according to the art of Phidias; so show me a man who is fashioned according to the doctrines which he utters. Show me a man who is sick and happy, in danger and happy, dying and happy, in exile and happy, in disgrace and happy. Show him: I desire, by the gods, to see a Stoic. You cannot show me one fashioned so; but show me at least one who is forming, who has shown a tendency to be a Stoic. Do me this favor: do not grudge an old man seeing a sight which I have not seen yet. Do you think that you must show me the Zeus of Phidias or the Athena, a work of ivory and gold?

Let any of you show me a human soul ready to think as God does, and not to blame either God or man, ready not to be disappointed about anything, not to consider himself damaged by anything, not to be angry, not to be envious, not to be jealous; and why should I not say it direct? desirous from a man to become a god, and in this poor mortal body thinking of his fellowship with Zeus. Show me the man. But you cannot. Why then do you delude yourselves and cheat others? and why do you put on a guise which does not belong to you, and walk about being thieves and pilferers of these names and things which do not belong to you?

I agree - I have a high opinion of Stoicism, hence the lesson about figures in the movement who seek "thought leadership" positions.

I think rationalism is kind of like stoicism (both philosophies I like and try to practice, though I don't really "identify" as either a rationalist or a stoic)

They are absolutely different philosophies. Ethically, Stoicism (similar to Christian ethics) is virtue ethics system, rationalists/Yudkowskyans are utilitarian consequentialists. Stoicism is focused on individual and it teaches how individuals can lead a virtuous life. One of the principles is Hierocles’ Concentric Circles (similar to Catholic subsidiarity) where responsibility flows from virtuous individual to virtuous broader society. Yudkowskyian rationalists have completely opposite system, they ground their morality in "greater good" of Effective Altruism, where they obsess about macro level and maximizing utility for maximum number of conscious beings including those not yet born.

Rationalists are reductionist materialists/physicalists. The universe is dead, intelligence is emergent property of unthinking universal wavefunction, morality is accident of evolutionary engineering of biological computers that gave birth to human intelligence. Stoics believed that the universe has telos, that it is a thinking organism and by being virtuous you align with this universal telos - it is similar to Thomistics natural law philosophy.

Those two systems could not be more different. In fact it is one of my main criticism of Rationalists.

Rationalists are reductionist materialists/physicalists.

The Stoics were also materialists/physicalists, even if they did believe in a divine telos, as you say.

What then is that which is able to conduct a man? One thing and only one, philosophy. But this consists in keeping the daemon within a man free from violence and unharmed, superior to pains and pleasures, doing nothing without a purpose, nor yet falsely and with hypocrisy, not feeling the need of another man’s doing or not doing anything; and besides, accepting all that happens, and all that is allotted, as coming from thence, wherever it is, from whence he himself came; and, finally, waiting for death with a cheerful mind, as being nothing else than a dissolution of the elements of which every living being is compounded. But if there is no harm to the elements themselves in each continually changing into another, why should a man have any apprehension about the change and dissolution of all the elements? For it is according to nature, and nothing is evil which is according to nature.

-- Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 2.17

I'm aware they are different philosophies, though I disagree that they "could not be more different." I find them similar in their systemic approaches. As I said, I don't identify with either or take either one as ground truth about the nature of reality.

They are not only different, they are opposite to each other in all ways that matter. They are bitter enemies.

Their similarity is in following logical, thought-out principles. The real opposite is normiedom, i.e. just do whatever everyone else is doing, and "we do it like this because we've always been doing it like this, my father and his father did it so as well" and I live my life like this because that's what everyone else expects and they would point their fingers and laugh at me otherwise. It also differs from the morality that the tyrant would want to install in everyone which boils down to "I do it because I was ordered to do it".

Both Stoicism and rationalism are about taking control of your own simpleton mind and applying superior individual control over it using one's own willpower and superseding the trappings of regular normal-people thinking. I know that this is a broad umbrella, but "just be a normal person and do what everyone else is doing, go with the flow, don't ever be weird" is the true opposite pole.

Their similarity is in following logical, thought-out principles. The real opposite is normiedom, i.e. just do whatever everyone else is doing, and "we do it like this because we've always been doing it like this, my father and his father did it so as well" and I live my life like this because that's what everyone else expects and they would point their fingers and laugh at me otherwise

This is actually a false dilemma fallacy, you can use the same logic to show how any coherent philosophical system has more in common with one another compared to "normiedom". Additionally it is self-defeating specifically from rationalist perspective. Adhering to tradition and proclaiming normie beliefs is absolutely a rational thing to do. One can argue that these norms are just highly-optimized and time tested heuristics. My argument is that following stoic as opposed to rationalist philosophy would lead to a completely different heuristics and norms.

Both Stoicism and rationalism are about taking control of your own simpleton mind and applying superior individual control over it using one's own willpower and superseding the trappings of regular normal-people thinking. I know that this is a broad umbrella, but "just be a normal person and do what everyone else is doing, go with the flow, don't ever be weird" is the true opposite pole.

There is no need to sneer at it. In fact stoics did not sneer at simpletons, they saw them as agents with spark of logos fully capable of manifesting it. Additionally one of four cardinal virtues of stoics was wisdom in both senses - Sophia as understanding of math and logic, but also Phronesis as practical wisdom rooted in tradition. Plus again stoics were interested in personal virtue, many of their individual or societal prescriptions would be sneered at by rationalist as backwards and "irrational" in Yudkowskian utilitarian/consequentialist sense.

You seem more invested in the conflict than I am, but it doesn't bother me. While I wouldn't call myself a "stoic rationalist" or a "rationalist stoic," I wouldn't scoff at the label.

I think the part that hangs you up is the discipline of stoicism I find the least relevant, that of Physics, concerning the nature of God. I find stoicism more interesting in its mental practices and its connection to CBT.

Sure, you can also say that you are atheistic theist and that they both have in common that they discuss God and that it makes you feel good as part of your CBT. I am not denying that, I am just arguing that saying I think rationalism is kind of like stoicism is incoherent, that is all.

Well, I understand your opinion. I think you're wrong and honestly, being a little silly here, but I am not trying to persuade you to be either a rationalist or a stoic.

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