I notice that you didn't actually answer any of my questions. Earlier you said " there's upper limit above which you would see it as self important pompous fools being very wrong on some few topics and not interesting on other topics". It seems to me if that was actually the case, then there would be communities of such people taking about topics they think are interesting, and in a way that is noticeably more rational than typical discussions on lesswrong. If you are right, why can't you give an example, or at least be very interested in trying to create such a community?
Note that my question isn't purely rhetorical. If such a community actually exists then I'd like to join or at least eavesdrop on them.
Weighing back in here, I will clarify my comment which the comment you quote was based on, that my OH had this precise thought ("self-important pompous fools") when he came across this site initially. The content of the sequences he found trivial. He generally finds it easy to be rational, and didn't see the point of getting a community together to learn how to be more rational. In fact, it's a large (reverse) inferential distance for him just to understand that some people find figuring these ideas out actually non-trivial (and yet still care ab...
I've spent so much time in the cogsci literature that I know the LW approach to rationality is basically the mainstream cogsci approach to rationality (plus some extra stuff about, e.g., language), but... do other people not know this? Do people one step removed from LessWrong — say, in the 'atheist' and 'skeptic' communities — not know this? If this is causing credibility problems in our broader community, it'd be relatively easy to show people that Less Wrong is not, in fact, a "fringe" approach to rationality.
For example, here's Oaksford & Chater in the second chapter to the (excellent) new Oxford Handbook of Thinking and Reasoning, the one on normative systems of rationality:
Is it meaningful to attempt to develop a general theory of rationality at all? We might tentatively suggest that it is a prima facie sign of irrationality to believe in alien abduction, or to will a sports team to win in order to increase their chance of victory. But these views or actions might be entirely rational, given suitably nonstandard background beliefs about other alien activity and the general efficacy of psychic powers. Irrationality may, though, be ascribed if there is a clash between a particular belief or behavior and such background assumptions. Thus, a thorough-going physicalist may, perhaps, be accused of irrationality if she simultaneously believes in psychic powers. A theory of rationality cannot, therefore, be viewed as clarifying either what people should believe or how people should act—but it can determine whether beliefs and behaviors are compatible. Similarly, a theory of rational choice cannot determine whether it is rational to smoke or to exercise daily; but it might clarify whether a particular choice is compatible with other beliefs and choices.
From this viewpoint, normative theories can be viewed as clarifying conditions of consistency… Logic can be viewed as studying the notion of consistency over beliefs. Probability… studies consistency over degrees of belief. Rational choice theory studies the consistency of beliefs and values with choices.
They go on to clarify that by probability they mean Bayesian probability theory, and by rational choice theory they mean Bayesian decision theory. You'll get the same account in the textbooks on the cogsci of rationality, e.g. Thinking and Deciding or Rational Choice in an Uncertain World.