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Sigh, slow news week.
Dexter and why meta-contrarians suck.
Dexter was a show about a serial-killer that aired on Showtime. It was pretty good, especially the early seasons. The premise, for those of you who don't know, is that Dexter was a "good" serial killer who only killed other killers.
If killers are bad, then Dexter was good because he reduced the number of killers.
You know who would really suck? A meta-Dexter who only killed Dexters.
... and that's how I see meta-contrarians.
"Let a thousand flowers bloom", the contrarians say, considering all sorts of weird and different ideas. "Actually, the rose is already the best flower and you smell bad" says the meta-contrarian, smugly.
Who are these meta-contrarians you ask? They are mustachioed hipsters of the rationalist community. They might dabble in some forbidden thoughts, but they don't take them seriously. Because, after all, the default hypthosis is usually the correct one.
And, yes, the default hypthosis usually is correct. But contrarians serve a valuable purpose, even if they are wrong more often than not! Because not EVERY default hypothesis is correct. And without contrarians we'll never find out which ones are wrong.
So I think it's important to give contrarians a lot MORE grace than people who espouse the default opinion. Meta-contrarians give them LESS grace. And that's why they suck.
I will agree that it is a problem if one reflexively disagrees with a contrarian and doesn't elaborate on why the default hypothesis is better. But, provided that one actually gives a specific argument, I think there is value in arguing against a contrarian hypothesis in support of the status quo. It tends to reveal what I like to call silent successes - the places where you don't even realize something is working well, which you only realize when a new solution is tried and fails in said places. Chesterton's Fence is a good formulation of this phenomenon.
For example, I appreciate pieces like this one by Yassine Meskhout which pushes back against some of Aella's position on polyamory (itself a contrarian position). While I don't agree with everything in the piece, it's much more valuable for it to exist than to not because it illuminates some of why monogamy (the default position) is actually good.
Yes, this makes a lot of sense. I think a ratio of 10-1 is healthy. So, for example, we have 90% normies, 9% contrarians, 0.9% meta-contrarians, 0.09% meta-meta, well you get the picture.
The problem is we have 90% normies, 5% contrarians, and 5% meta-contrarians most of whom are just closeted normies.
But I suppose we can quickly descend into this territory:
https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/06/09/all-debates-are-bravery-debates/
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