I don't think your impression is correct, and moreover this kind of attempt to psychoanalyse your interlocutor is really not conducive to having a conversation where even one of the participants walks away with a benefit. Could you please actually engage with the content of my claim, instead of trying to dismiss it by way of something that seems to amount to "dictionary definitions say this is now how you do rationality"? The claim is not that complex: for many people in the community, it is utility-maximising to ignore this essay and continue disbelieving in Ivermectin's efficacy, because the essay takes a lot of time and effort to evaluate, the extra utility gained if it is in fact correct is small, and there are common priors that it would be surprising (that is: unlikely) if Ivermectin works against COVID. Therefore, because the definition of "rational" used by "rationalists" is very close to "utility-maximising", as far as rationalists are concerned the essay and discourse around it are not in fact strong evidence that rationalists are failing to be rational. If you disagree with any part of this, state which one! I would find it interesting to see your counterarguments about that. I would not find it interesting to see further arguments that I am only thinking those thoughts because I hate the author.
We can see the results of arguments that someone who aims to be X (their definition) is betraying their principles because they are failing to be X (your definition) around us every day, for X="not racist", "just" etc.; personally, at least, I don't like these results.
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Notes -
I don't think your impression is correct, and moreover this kind of attempt to psychoanalyse your interlocutor is really not conducive to having a conversation where even one of the participants walks away with a benefit. Could you please actually engage with the content of my claim, instead of trying to dismiss it by way of something that seems to amount to "dictionary definitions say this is now how you do rationality"? The claim is not that complex: for many people in the community, it is utility-maximising to ignore this essay and continue disbelieving in Ivermectin's efficacy, because the essay takes a lot of time and effort to evaluate, the extra utility gained if it is in fact correct is small, and there are common priors that it would be surprising (that is: unlikely) if Ivermectin works against COVID. Therefore, because the definition of "rational" used by "rationalists" is very close to "utility-maximising", as far as rationalists are concerned the essay and discourse around it are not in fact strong evidence that rationalists are failing to be rational. If you disagree with any part of this, state which one! I would find it interesting to see your counterarguments about that. I would not find it interesting to see further arguments that I am only thinking those thoughts because I hate the author.
We can see the results of arguments that someone who aims to be X (their definition) is betraying their principles because they are failing to be X (your definition) around us every day, for X="not racist", "just" etc.; personally, at least, I don't like these results.
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