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PaperclipPerfector  8hr ago (text post)   848 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 6, 2026

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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.

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.

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.

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