jooyous comments on Explicit and tacit rationality - Less Wrong

40 Post author: lukeprog 09 April 2013 11:33PM

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Comment author: Oligopsony 10 April 2013 01:56:06AM 6 points [-]

If Rationality is Winning, or perhaps more explicitly Making The Decisions That Best Accomplish Whatever Your Goals Happen to Be, then Rationality is so large that it swallows everything. Like anything else, spergy LW-style rationality is a small part of this, but it seems to me that anything which one can meaningfully discuss is going to be one such small portion. One could of course discuss Winning In General at a sufficiently high level of abstraction, but then you'd be discussing spergy LW stuff by definition - decision theory, utility, and so on.

If businessfolk are rather rational at running businesses, but no rational than anyone else about religion, or if people who have become experts on spergy LW stuff are no more winningful about their relationships, &c. &c. this (to my mind) brings into question the degree to which a General Rationality-as-Winningness skill exists. You acknowledge the distinction between explicit and tacit rationality, but do you expect successful entrepreneurs to be relatively more successful in their marital life? When you say you want to teach tacit rationality, do you mean something distinct from Teaching People How To Do Things Good?

Comment author: jooyous 10 April 2013 07:10:40AM *  1 point [-]

This is a really good point and it is also related to Manfred's comment that I don't personally know how to reconcile with some of the points in the article. On one hand, I would like to have a lot of money because a lot of inconvenient things would suddenly become much easier. On the other hand, I would have to do other inconvenient things, like manage a lot of money. Also, I don't think I would be happy doing Oprah's job, even if it resulted in a lot of money. Basically, I would not mind lots of money but it is not currently a priority. So I don't know if I'm actually winning or not, oops.

Therefore, a poll!

How successful are you?

From a fame, money or bragging rights perspective, how ambitious are your current goals?

Personal (like fixing sleep cycle) Ambitious! (like being the next Zuckerberg/Oprah)

Submitting...