Consider that in the West, life expectancy is very high, and people are very wealthy in historical perspective. This is the default position - to end up prematurely dead or poor (in an absolute, not relative, sense) you need to either take a lot of risk or be otherwise very unlucky. Sure, life could be better. But most (Western) folks have it OK as it is - yet they're not rational by OB standards.
LW readers seek a great deal of rationality, which is above and beyond what is required for an OK life in a human society. But remember that LW's prophets have extraordinary goals (Eliezer put a temporary moratorium on the discussion of his, but Robin has futarchy, as far as I understand). If your goal is simply to live well, you can allow yourself to be average. If your goal is to live better than average, you need some thinking tricks, but not much. If you want to tackle an Adult Problem (TM), then you have to start the journey. (Also if you're curious or want to be strong for strength's sake. But your life definitely will not depend on it!)
Cryonics seems to be an exception, but in most cases we'll do best by listening to the collective advice of domain experts. And we shouldn't believe that we can magically do better.
It is not economically feasible to outsmart or even match everyone. And even in an Adult Problem (TM), you can't hope to do it all by yourself. The lone hero who single-handedly defeats the monster, saves the world and gets the girl is a myth of movies and video games. In reality, he needs allies, supplies, transportation, weapon know-how, etc.
If you want to contribute, your best bet is to focus on a specific field. And you'll be much more productive if your background (which includes a lot of institutions) provides better support, evidence- and theory-wise. If we strive to improve institutions in general, that's a net gain for all of us, no matter what field we pursue. That's Robin's point, as I understand it.
Cryonics... and whether to spend your money at the margins on healthcare... and...
On at least two occasions - one only a year past - my life was at serious risk because I was not thinking clearly. Both times, I was lucky (and once, the car even survived!). As a gambler I don't like counting on luck, and I'd much rather be rational enough to avoid serious mistakes. So when I checked the top-ranked posts here and saw Robin's Rational Me or We? arguing against rationality as a martial art I was dumbfounded. To me, individual rationality is a matter of life and death[1].
In poker, much attention is given to the sexy art of reading your opponent, but the true veteran knows that far more important is the art of reading and controlling yourself. It is very rare that a situation comes up where a "tell" matters, and each of my opponents is only in an occasional hand. I and my irrationalities, however, are in every decision in every hand. This is why self-knowledge and self-discipline are first-order concerns in poker, while opponent reading is second or perhaps even third.
And this is why Robin's post is so wrong[2]. Our minds and their irrationalities are part of every second of our lives, every moment we experience, and every decision that we make. And contra to Robin's security metaphor, few of our decisions can be outsourced. My two bad decisions regarding motor vehicles, for example, could not have easily been outsourced to a group rationality mechanism[3]. Only a tiny percentage of the choices I make every day can be punted to experts.
We have long since left the Hobbesian world where physical security depends on individual skills, but when it comes to rationality, we are all "isolated survivalist Einsteins". We are in a world where our individual mental skills are constantly put to the test. And even when we can rely on experts, it is our individual choices (influenced by the quality of our minds) that determine our success in life. (How long would a professor's reputation last if he never did any original work?)
So while I respect and admire Robin's interest in improving institutions, I believe that his characterization of the relative merits of individual and collective mechanisms is horridly wrong. To have more and better rational collective institutions is a speculative, long-term goal with limited scope (albeit in some very important areas). Learning the martial art of rationality is something that all of us can do now to improve the quality of our decisions and thus positively influence every part of our lives. By making us more effective as individuals (hell, just keeping us from stupidly getting ourselves killed), it will help us work on all of our goals - like getting society to accept ambitious new social institutions.
In the modern world, karate is unlikely to save your life. But rationality can. For example, if one believes that cryonics is a good gamble at immortality, and people don't do it because of irrationality, then improved individual rationality can give people a shot at immortality instead of certain death. And that's only one of the myriad decisions we each face in optimizing our life!
Which is why, while I spend my days working on better institutions, I also practice my rationality katas, so that I will survive to reach the new future our institutions will bring.
[1] I have a post about the more recent incident that's been written in my mind for months, and just hasn't fallen out onto the screen yet.
[2] Or at least, this is related - I freely admit to liking poker metaphors enough that I'm willing to stretch to make them!
[3] Yes, I'm sure a clever person can come up with markets to keep young men from doing stupid things with cars. That's not the point. Markets have significant overhead, and it takes high public interest for it to be worth opening, funding, trading in, and running a market. They may have great value for large decisions, but they are never going to replace the majority of decisions in our day to day lives.