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jacoblyles comments on Why Our Kind Can't Cooperate - Less Wrong
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"However, unless a galactic overlord designed the universe to please homo sapien rationalists, I don't see any compelling rational reason to believe this to be the case."
Except that we are free to adopt any version of rationality that wins. Rationality should be responsive to a given universe design, not the other way around.
"Irrational belief systems often thrive because they overcome the prisoner dilemmas that individual rational action creates on a group level. Rational people cannot mimic this."
Really? Most of the "individual rationality -> suboptimal outcomes" results assume that actors have no influence over the structure of the games they are playing. This doesn't reflect reality particularly well. We may not have infinite flexibility here, but changing the structure of the game is often quite feasible, and quite effective.
In that case, believing in truth is often non-rational.
Many people on this site have bemoaned the confusing dual meanings of "rational" (the economic utility maximizing definition and the epistemological believing in truth definition). Allow me to add my name to that list.
I believe I consistently used the "believing in truth" definition of rational in the parent post.
I agree that the multiple definitions are confusing, but I'm not sure that you consistently employ the "believing in truth" version in your post above.* It's not "believing in truth" that gets people into prisoners' dilemmas; it's trying to win.
*And if you did, I suspect you'd be responding to a point that Eliezer wasn't making, given that he's been pretty clear on his favored definition being the "winning" one. But I could easily be the one confused on that. ;)
"In that case, believing in truth is often non-rational."
Fair enough. Though I wonder whether, in most of the instances where that seems to be true, it's true for second-best reasons. (That is, if we were "better" in other (potentially modifiable) ways, the truth wouldn't be so harmful.)