dthunt comments on Self-Congratulatory Rationalism - Less Wrong
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Okay, you're doing precisely the thing I hate and which I am criticizing about Less Wrong. Allow me to illustrate:
LW1: Guys, it seems to me that Less Wrong is not very rational. What do you think?
LW2: What makes you think Less Wrong isn't rational?
LW1: Well if you take a step back and use the outside view, Less Wrong seems to be optimizing for being clever rather than optimizing for being rational. That's a pretty decent indicator.
LW3: Well, the outside view has theoretical limitations, you know. Eliezer wrote a post about how it is possible to misuse the outside point of view as a conversation stopper.
LW1: Uh, well unless I actually made a mistake in applying the outside view I don't see why that's relevant? And if I did make a mistake in applying it it would be more helpful to say what it was I specifically did wrong in my inference.
LW4: You are misusing the term inference! Here, someone wrote a post about this at some point.
LW5: Yea but that post has theoretical limitations.
LW1: I don't care about any of that, I want to know whether or not Less Wrong is succeeding at being rational. Stop making needlessly theoretical abstract arguments and talk about the actual thing we were actually talking about.
LW6: I agree, people here use LW jargon as as a form of applause light!
LW1: Uh...
LW7: You know, accusing others of using applause lights is a fully generalized counter argument!
LW6: Oh yea? Well fully generalized counter arguments are fully generalized counter arguments themselves, so there!
We're only at LW3 right now so maybe this conversation can still be saved from becoming typical Less Wrong-style meta screwery. Or to make my point more politely: Please tell me whether or not you think Less Wrong is rational and whether or not something should be done, because that's the thing we're actually talking about.
My guess is that the site is "probably helping people who are trying to improve", because I would expect some of the materials here to help. I have certainly found a number of materials useful.
But a personal judgement probably helping" isn't the kind of thing you'd want. It'd be much better to find some way to measure the size of the effect. Not tracking your progress is a bad, bad sign.