Tom_Talbot comments on Instrumental Rationality is a Chimera - Less Wrong

6 Post author: Tom_Talbot 16 April 2009 11:15PM

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Comment author: Tom_Talbot 17 April 2009 12:29:25AM 2 points [-]

Less Wrong is only a blog. The only thing it can ever hope to achieve is to produce some good essays. The people who read those essays may go on to achieve things, but those only reflect on them personally, not on Less Wrong.

Don't you have a sense that more is possible?

No, that is expressly disavowed by the site's title. All progress is incremental; it isn't possible to be completely right, only to be less wrong, or less often wrong.

Well alright, I was exaggerating for rhetorical purposes. But still, the point stands that "instrumental rationality" does not correspond to anything that anyone can actually do. It is a meaningless label.