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Notes -
Yes, moral foundations theory. It's not the most grounded theory, because the foundations were largely eyeballed from initial data and then expanded based on feedback and discussion, instead of being chosen by some sort of factor analysis. And if someone does enough research on this to put it on solid ground, "three" and "six" are probably not what the result will be. But they're good enough for a shorthand.
The original book is interesting. It's dated, because it came out shortly before SJ hit, and it didn't anticipate SJ at all. But it's prophetic, because its thesis explains exactly why SJ is the way it is. And then there's the last section, which isn't talked about much, but which strikes directly at the heart of the rationalist project. It suggests that our capacity for rational thought is actually a capacity for rationalization and rhetoric, evolved to help us form strong coalitions with other humans, to help in intergroup competition. And that it's entirely incidental that this also happens to allow us to think rationally about the world, although it might be inevitable (as long as the simplest model is also correct). Which has some implications about LLMs, too.
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