fiddlemath comments on Rationality quotes: September 2010 - Less Wrong

4 Post author: Morendil 01 September 2010 06:53AM

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Comment author: Jayson_Virissimo 03 September 2010 02:45:48AM 5 points [-]

I might just be suffering from availability bias since I was reading about the French Revolution right before I read the quote, but I was thinking that so much of what we do that is non-rational (not based on explicit reasoning or weighing of evidence) could be adapted to our social environment through memetic evolution. If this was the case, dropping norms of behavior or social institutions simply because we don't have sufficient rational justification for them might prove disastrous.

Does this sound crazy or am I making sense?

Comment author: fiddlemath 03 September 2010 04:21:17AM 1 point [-]

It makes a certain sense. On the other hand, a sufficiently powerful rationalist should have some sense of what works well in our social environment, and thus shouldn't be reflexively ignored.

Comment author: Jayson_Virissimo 03 September 2010 05:14:53AM *  0 points [-]

True, which is why I am very uncertain about the quote or my first thoughts about it. Also, I had a vague picture in my mind of an entire society going through the valley of bad rationality at the same time. Needless to say, that would be a very scary (and thankfully very improbable) possible future.