“Generalized Hangriness: A Standard Rationalist Stance Toward Emotions” by johnswentworth

People have an annoying tendency to hear the word “rationalism” and think “Spock”, despite direct exhortation against that exact interpretation. But I don’t know of any source directly describing a stance toward emotions which rationalists-as-a-group typically do endorse. The goal of this post is to explain such a stance. It's roughly the concept of hangriness, but generalized to other emotions. That means this post is trying to do two things at once: Illustrate a certain stance toward emotions, which I definitely take and which I think many people around me also often take. (Most of the post will focus on this part.) Claim that the stance in question is fairly canonical or standard for rationalists-as-a-group, modulo disclaimers about rationalists never agreeing on anything. Many people will no doubt disagree that the stance I describe is roughly-canonical among rationalists, and that's a useful valid thing to argue about in [...] ---Outline:(01:13) Central Example: Hangry(02:44) The Generalized Hangriness Stance(03:16) Emotions Make Claims, And Their Claims Can Be True Or False(06:03) False Claims Still Contain Useful Information (It's Just Not What They Claim)(08:47) The Generalized Hangriness Stance as Social Tech--- First published: July 10th, 2025 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/naAeSkQur8ueCAAfY/generalized-hangriness-a-standard-rationalist-stance-toward --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.