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Vladimir_M comments on Rational Regions? - Less Wrong
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In addition to whatever differences in rationality level there may be between places, there are also significant differences in how you tell a person in a given place is unusually rational. (This is an automatic consequence of beliefs being correlated with geography.)
For example, atheism seems to be a much better filter for rationality in the United States than in Europe (where it is not nearly as much of a "contrarian" position).
What are some good regional litmus tests?
To ask such questions, you must first define a scalar measure of "rationality" that can be compared between people. I don't find the choice of this measure at all obvious, or even that it can be meaningfully defined.
Not necessarily; there just has to be an ordering. Clearly people's rationality can be compared, as extreme cases illustrate: Eliezer Yudkowsky is more rational than Kent Hovind, for example.
Sure, but very extreme examples aren't interesting. The real question is how many pairs of individuals (or groups) can be covered by that partial ordering. Not very many, I'd say, unless your definition introduces some criteria for which there is ultimately no rational justification, in any meaningful sense of that word.