Chinese Robbers and Sources of Truth

[viscousmemories]

I have questions.

I saw a reference to this article about a so-called "Chinese Robber Fallacy". It was interesting but I wondered why I had never heard of it so I Googled it and found this page where it was apparently rejected from RationalWiki as a "Neologism from the LessWrong-sphere with no currency outside it." LessWrong sounds vaguely familiar to me but a search of this here only shows a single mention of it (by Chatter in 2012). So, my questions are:

1. Anyone heard of this fallacy before? It seems like maybe something akin to hasty or sweeping generalization; not clear how it's different.
2. Anyone familiar with RationalWiki? I've come across it before and it always seemed like a legit source, but don't know much about it.
3. Anyone familiar with LessWrong? I don't know that I've every heard anything about it.
4. Bonus question: Anyone familiar with the source of the original article (SlateStarCodex)?

I'm so out of the loop on who to trust on the Internets outside of these days.

[lisarea]

The Chinese Robber Fallacy | The Rationalist Conspiracy

It looks like it's a specific type of overgeneralization, where you attribute something that's common to a lot of different groups to just one of those groups.

[viscousmemories]

Yah, that much I gathered from the original article. I was more curious about why the editors of RationalWiki rejected it so firmly. It sounds like they're saying something to the effect of "this is just more pseudointellectual crap from lesswrong" but I don't know enough about RationalWiki or LessWrong to know who is the more reliable judge.

[lisarea]

Oh, that part, I'm probably an unreliable source because I'm generally not a fan of most of these things. They're all part of the general atheist sphere, which I find generally icky in a lot of ways.

But Less Wrong is pretty bad. They lean heavily toward edgelord sociopathy, kind of alt-right shit. They're Yahoo Answers for condescending neckbeards. Imagine, if you will, a bunch of individual manifestations of Sebastian Gorka discussing among themselves how stupid everyone else is, and patting each other on the back.

I dunno so much about the 'culture' of RationalWiki, except it's mostly just a crackpot debunking wiki.

And Slate Star Codex is a link aggregator blog that signal boosts that sort of thing is all I know, really.

[JoeP]

LessWrong rang a bell, and it turns out it was started by Eliezer Yudkowsky who has been referenced a few times on .

RationalWiki is less than charitable about him. I have not checked whether RationalWiki deserves any attention.

[JoeP]

Objectively better - Today on Wrong Hands - Comics by John Atkinson - GoComics

[JoeP]

Originally Posted by viscousmemories

but I don't know enough about RationalWiki or LessWrong to know who is the more reliable judge.

If I have formed an opinion it is this:
RationalWiki: self-important, narrowminded atheist extremists who believe everyone else is full of pseudointellectual crap.
LessWrong: self-important, narrowminded alt-right eugenicist extremists who believe everyone else is full of pseudointellectual crap.

[specious_reasons]

Originally Posted by JoeP

LessWrong rang a bell, and it turns out it was started by Eliezer Yudkowsky who has been referenced a few times on .

RationalWiki is less than charitable about him. I have not checked whether RationalWiki deserves any attention.

I liked the first few chapters of Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, they were cute, but it got really tedious and fundamentally misunderstood some of the characters.

I'm not surprised that this person is the source.

[viscousmemories]

I was referred to this article by someone on another forum and it's pretty interesting. I didn't really know anything about Slate Star Codex or the "rationalist movement".

Slate Star Codex and Silicon Valley’s War Against the Media | The New Yorker

The guy who runs SSC seems pretty interesting just based on that article.

[lisarea]

Oh, wow, but also. I'm not generally a fan of that stuff, but I certainly don't think that he deserves to be doxxed by the NYT.

[Ensign Steve]

I like the part where he's like "Please tell the NYT how you feel, but definitely don't brigade them, wink wink" and then he gets all pearl-clutchy when they totally brigade the NYT.

[lisarea]

True, there is that, although the New York Times would probably result in a more substantial brigade than Slate Star Codex.

I just don't think they should be doxxing people unless they have a super-good reason. Like, if the site had been clearly associated with violence or otherwise seriously damaging stuff; or if he were some kind of authority or an already public figure they were investigating.

[Ensign Steve]

Oh yeah, totally. I already don't like the NYT, and after reading the New Yorker piece (the first half of the New Yorker piece if I'm being totally honest ) I like NYT even less, if what it says about their real-name policy is true.

I had another laugh at this bit, though:

Had the issue been with Facebook and its contentious moderation policies, which are applied in a similarly ad-hoc and sometimes clumsy way, the reaction in Silicon Valley would likely have been more magnanimous.

First day in Silicon Valley?

[Corona688]

Originally Posted by JoeP

If I have formed an opinion it is this:
RationalWiki: self-important, narrowminded atheist extremists who believe everyone else is full of pseudointellectual crap.
LessWrong: self-important, narrowminded alt-right eugenicist extremists who believe everyone else is full of pseudointellectual crap.

So the rejection of the fallcy is not so much on its content, as much as, the kind of things they use it to justify? Like when someone waltzes in here spitting race statistics without context or saying what it's about, we're suspicious.

[JoeP]

Originally Posted by Corona688

So the rejection of the fallcy is not so much on its content, as much as, the kind of things they use it to justify? Like when someone waltzes in here spitting race statistics without context or saying what it's about, we're suspicious.

That was months ago ... and they were 2020 months, much longer than regular months ... and I didn't leave myself any citations or references.

But I think it might be more detection of, or to use your word, suspicion of a fallacy, based on the kind of things brought. Actual confirmation of a logical fallacy would obviously only be based on actual methods of logic, because we are all intellectually honest and open-minded here. :relevantsmilie:

[fragment]

Originally Posted by Corona688

So the rejection of the fallcy is not so much on its content, as much as, the kind of things they use it to justify? Like when someone waltzes in here spitting race statistics without context or saying what it's about, we're suspicious.

Seemed more like RationalWiki rejected the neologism as not being used outside of LessWrong. Kind of like Wiki's notablity criterion.