We tend to have reasonably similar preferences regarding how we spend our off-hours, and so of course if people I happen to interact with aren’t actually any good at analytical thinking I’m unlikely to find social interaction with them very rewarding – but I don’t really feel like I need to risk rejecting people early on by probing a proxy (for critical thinking skills), as literally nobody ever approaches me first in the social game. Before one’s basic social needs are actually met I do not believe one is doing oneself any favours rejecting people. (Granted just figuring out what your social needs are can sometimes be a challenge – I know that for me it’s very easy to get used to a very low level of social interaction with others.)

I would also like to mention that there are a few individuals in my current social group that fall into at least one of the three categories of insufferable people I mentioned in my first comment to this post. I stay in touch with them out of nostalgia or out of kinship. In the past I enjoyed very little access to intellectually like-minded people, and so I tended to be more tolerant of people’s quirks. (I am sure many would say that the old me was significantly more likeable, since I was less judgmental.) Moving to Denmark has given me way more opportunities to interact with like-minded people, and so the incentive for me to make concessions has fallen sharply. These days when I interact with people whom I have known since the days before I arrived in Denmark, I try not to talk about topics like mind-body dualism, religion and etc. as much as possible.

I think this is a very sensible approach, but I still would try to find a way to find out a person’s religious and political beliefs upon first meeting them — if I discover that they are highly irrational, then I would find a way to politely terminate the conversation. I would not seek to debate them, because, as you have already pointed out, it is often difficult to change people’s minds regarding religion (or, I would like to add, any other issue on which one’s stand is likely to be crucial to identity-formation).

The reason I do this is because I would like to know how much I can rely on a person’s opinions in general when our conversation finally progresses beyond small talk. Religious people are generally poor at analytical thinking. So if someone professes some sort of religious belief, I would minimise contact as much as possible. The alternative would be to engage only in small talk with this person — and I find this a rather insufferable proposal.

We talked on Skype but it’s useful to add stuff to the discussion here too. All the factors you mention are factors I also take into account when figuring out how desirable would be a potential social relationship with the other party. But I don’t think any of them on their own would automatically lead to permanent rejection in my case.

However it must be said that your comment made me remember a specific type of behaviour not mentioned in the post which I also tend to punish severely; when people deny facts. This most often happens in political discussions where people find it particularly hard to separate is and ought (Razib Khan put it more bluntly in a comment recently; “in politics the truth is determined by politics” – to some extent this is true, which is yet another reason why I’m not particularly keen on discussing such matters), and so as I generally try to stay clear of such discussions it’s not often an issue; but sometimes I will get into a political argument, and when that happens I most likely will make statements which aim to clarify which tradeoffs are relevant in this political area – and if someone tells me I’m wrong about which tradeoffs are relevant then they deny facts, and then that’s a black mark which is hard to get off again. It’s hard to get rid of also because as I consider it quite costly for me to engage in these discussions in the first place I as a general rule only do it when I feel that I’m well enough informed about the matters at hand to actually have an opinion, and that bar is higher for me than for most people. (hypothetical: I read 40 papers on labour market policy because that was the curriculum for my labour economics course, and now I find myself talking to some guy who’s ignoring what I’m telling him about the relevant tradeoffs and issues in the field because he’d obviously rather that the real world was different – well, screw him, unless there are extenuating circumstances that’ll probably be the last time I talk to that guy. Not knowing what to think when presented with new data is fine, withholding judgment is fine, yes almost to be expected – but denying or ignoring facts is not fine, and if you persist after I call you out on that you need to be a brother or similar to not get a (very) black mark on your record).

You mention superstition and so I figured I should bring up religion. For many Danish people religious views will not come up in discussions unless one party in the discussion is particularly keen on bringing up that topic – it’s not something people generally talk about, at least not people in my limited social sphere. In terms of how I approach such matters I’ve become better at taking this factor into account than I used to be; by now I know that if I do not bring up this stuff people will generally not feel compelled to repeat the lies they have a hard enough time convincing themselves of. So it’s not particularly hard to stay clear of this topic, and most of the time I’ll think of that as the preferable outcome, especially considering the fact that you’ll never change anybody’s mind about these matters simply by discussing these matters with them (at least it’s much too unlikely to be worth my time – especially considering that if they’re that easy to talk out of religion, well…). So the way it works is: I’ll think less of people who hold absurd beliefs if I happen to find out they hold such beliefs, but I won’t actively ask about that stuff, and as long as people don’t talk about them when I’m around I care little about what gods they may pray to when they lay scared in their beds, fearing death. However if they feel the need to talk about their gods when I’m around, that is another black mark to add to the list – this is a good way to make me lose any desire to interact with you. And so it turns out that there’s a moral event horizon which applies here as well; if I learn that someone is a priest, well, that is game over and you’re not coming back from that. I hold similar views when it comes to the implicit permissibility of other superstitious beliefs; if he keeps quiet about it, it probably won’t matter much – but if he doesn’t that’s a big problem, and if he makes a living off of that kind of crap then I’m out, permanently.

(I should perhaps point out in view of your comment that exclaiming ‘Jesus!’ or ‘Oh my god!’ after having, say, stubbed your toe, is not what I mean by ‘talk[ing] about their gods when I’m around’ – and besides, if someone associates God with stubbing his toe then that person is probably on the right track anyway… )

1. If they profess a belief in any kind of superstition — it ranges from astrology to Christianity to MBTI. Of course, it is reasonable question if I am being overly harsh for dismissing people who endorse MBTI — after all, if they have heard of MBTI in the first place, they can’t be *that* uneducated. However, I believe that it is highly probable that a person who approves of MBTI is someone who (a) lacks curiosity, or/and (b) does not care much about applying the tools of scientific inquiry to mainstream memes.

2. If they are politically correct — it ranges from espousing third-wave feminism to saying something like “I will *never* kill an innocent stranger for *any* amount of monetary reward” to claiming that there is no difference in IQs among races.

3. If they take themselves too seriously — for example, there are some hard-core atheists who would look askance at you when you exclaim ‘Jesus!’ in exasperation. Interacting with them is just tiring.