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11 Rationalist house

27th Aug 2014

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At the Australia online hangout; one of the topics we discussed (before I fell asleep on camera for a bunch of people) Was writing a rationality TV show as an outreach task. Of course there being more ways for this to go wrong than right I figured its worth mentioning the ideas and getting some comments.

The strategy is to have a set of regular characters who's rationality behaviour seems nuts. Effectively sometimes because it is; when taken out of context. Then to have one "blank" person who tries to join - "rationality house". and work things out. My aim was to have each episode straw man a rationality behaviour and then steelman it. Where by the end of the episode it saves the day; makes someone happy; achieves a goal - or some other <generic win-state>.

Here is a list of notes of characters from the hangout or potential topics to talk about.

No showers. Bacterial showers
Stopwatches everywhere
temperature controls everywhere, light controls.
radical honesty person.
Soylent only eating person
born-again atheist
bayesian person
Polyphasic sleep cycles.

I have not written much in my life and certainly never anything for TV but it sounds like a fun project. I figured I would pick a pilot idea; roll with it and see if I can make a script. I could probably also get Sydney folk to act for a first-round web-cast version.

I was wondering if anyone had any other rationality topics that can be easily strawmanned then steelmanned worth adding to the list. And if anyone had experience worth sharing with writing for TV, as well as anyone interested in joining the project to write or be a sounding board...

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[-]sixes_and_sevens10y190

There is a term for unconventional strategies outside of behavioural norms that provide benefits: positive deviance. It's also a catchy and awesome-sounding term that, in the unlikely event of this concept ever making it to air, wouldn't tar the term "rationalist" with connotations of not showering, goo diets, and saying whatever unfiltered thought passes through your mind.

That said, I like this as an intellectual exercise, so:

Ergonomics (standing desks, DVORAK, Vibram Five-Fingers, etc.)
Quantified Self
Nootropics / biohacking
Time-management / productivity

[-]satt10y60

Comfort zone expansion?

An epistemic example instead of an instrumental one: looking up look-up-able facts instead of bickering or speculating about them.

[-]Elo10y50

COZE is a good inclusion... People going out and doing un-fun things and then later being all like, "I tried a rave once, and I don't usually like it. How about we go to pizza instead"

Have a coffee table "the lookup table" so that you can look things up and talk about learning about them when you discover new things. Or some way to put arguments on hold till you look them up...

[-]Elo10y20

Its easy to say "not shower" and "thats gotta be terrible", but its (potentially hilarious) to have a guy running around town insisting people smell him because he smells great! and hasn't showered in years! And demonstrating the success of the results; rather than the ickyness of no-showers.

goo diets is very strawmanned. Steelmanned is that hungover guy not sure what to eat - just eat soylent. That grumpy "I can't decide what to eat" feeling and a person being angry and someone else going - just eat some soylent! and then everyone going out to dinner and talking about how delicious everything tastes.

radical truth can be painful or helpful depending on where/when it happens. you just need to get woken up by radical truth guy at 2am doing something annoying and have him yell at radical truth guy for being annoying, and then have radical truth guy stop and say, "this is so great that you are taking it on board but next time try less yelling"

I like those suggestions too...

[-]cousin_it10y140

Outsiders will probably see this as a show about stupid people who fall for random fads, because it's not widely known that this particular set of fads is somehow associated with "rationality".

[-]Elo10y70

Something like "portlandia"?

[-]Lumifer10y60

Outsiders will probably see this as a show about stupid people who fall for random fads

s/stupid people/weird freaks/

[-]Elo10y10

I don't believe that outsiders have that perception of me. If you take a glimpse of my life. Any day; any hour. It probably doesn't explain itself. But if you grow to know me I make more sense than anyone I know...

You can have any outward view of the world that you like; but I reserve my right to believe that people can understand. If they are brought to connect in the right way.

[-]philh10y30

But if you grow to know me I make more sense than anyone I know...

Do the people who know you agree with this statement?

[-]Elo10y10

I will check with them and get back to you... But good question :)

[-]Lumifer10y10

I don't believe that outsiders have that perception of me.

I'm sorry, are you planning to write a TV series about yourself?

I make more sense than anyone I know

Oh, so do I :-D and so do, probably, the majority of all people...

[-]Elo10y10

**me as a student of rationality; And the friends I have made along the way. Not explicitly a show about me, but I can only really create from what I know. Any writings must have an inch of myself inserted into the story...

[-]V_V10y130

My aim was to have each episode straw man a rationality behaviour and then steelman it. Where by the end of the episode it saves the day; makes someone happy; achieves a goal - or some other .

A Disney-like educational show for grown ups? I'm under the impression that this kind of plot works well for children shows, but isn't exactly interesting to an adult audience. Relevant TVTropes links: Anvilicious, Author Tract, Eigen Plot, Asspull, and of course Mary Sue.

Moreover, even if the show turns out to be entertaining, there is a very real chance to screw it up into a freak show and tar the word "rationality" much like Ayn Rand tarred the word "objective".
Steelmanning the weird "rationalist" habits you listed in a convincing way would quite difficult, given that most of them are indeed questionable practices.

[-]Vaniver10y60

The first thing I thought of when I read this is Chris Traeger from Parks and Recreation, who is for being health conscious what Ron Swanson is for being libertarian. (In general, Parks and Rec has a very friendly way of being over the top, which I think is a huge part of its appeal.)

[-]Gunnar_Zarncke10y50

I wonder what inhabitants of actual rationalist houses have to say about this.

[-]Elo10y00

If you (or anyone knows of any) Can you send them in this direction to comment on the way that they see themselves and how outsiders who might occasionally enter their world might perceive them?

[-]alicey10y20

[-]RomeoStevens10y50

Can it be MealSquares instead of Soylent? :D

[-]Elo10y00

I dont see why not... it just seems to be a variant on Soylent. I wonder if we could get funding via product placement...

[-]RomeoStevens10y80

it just seems to be a variant on Soylent

D:
It's my company (along with my cofounder, John Maxwell, who is also a user here.) It's easily twice as rational as Soylent.

[-]Elo10y90

Also you should probably make a post somewhere on the interwebs saying "whats the difference between mealsquares and soylent". I googled it and got to a soylent forum I think...

[-]RomeoStevens10y50

That's a good idea, thanks.

[-]devas10y50

Now I really, really, really want to know in what SI units rationality is measured.

Litres, perhaps?

[-]Luke_A_Somers10y40

Inverse Watts?

Edit: Oh wait. Lumens, duh.

[-]Lumifer10y20

Yoctoeliezers, of course.

[-]mare-of-night10y20

I just saw your website, and it looks like a really neat idea. (I tried to make a whole foods soylent myself, and couldn't achieve a texture that didn't gross me out.) My body doesn't usually handle eggs well, but I'll probably join the crowdfund to try it anyway, since it'd be so convenient if it did work.

Do you have any plans to publish a recipe? (I imagine it would be possible to make substitutions, for people in situations like mine.) Kudos for avoiding so many of the common allergy foods (gluten/soy/corn/peanuts).

[-]RomeoStevens10y30

Soylent Orange is open source, we're keeping MealSquares proprietary for now.

[-]mare-of-night10y00

Okay, thanks.

[-]Gunnar_Zarncke10y00

None of the all-in-one foods I know of can be chewed. This makes it problematic at least for children as mastication may be needed for jaw development and cause dental misplacement. Beside turning away all those who enjoy chewing food.

[-]RomeoStevens10y00

Yeah, we're good for that reason, but OTOH it cuts out a big part of the geriatric market for us since many of them can NOT chew.

[-]Elo10y00

Will you give money/support to the efforts in the name of product placement? (Also - thats good enough for me even if you won't give money)

[-]RomeoStevens10y00

We'd certainly send people your way. Money is up in the air this early in the startup.

[-]cameroncowan10y30

As an experienced writer and someone who has experience in TV and Film I can say that this concept would really work especially if you had a different scenario each episode and then also had a cast of characters who represented different spectrums of rational living. So for example:

Character A: Biohacker Character B: Quantified Self Character C: Time efficiency expert

and so on, find someone who has taken up a particular area of rationalist living and then create your scenarios:

Ergonomics (I love my Vibrams please and thank you!) Quantified Self Time Efficiency Consciousness Bio-showering Sleep cycles Religion/atheist

Then each week you would have your characters explore each area from their unique perspective and watch the fun. The test would be not only to highlight the different way that people live but also what they decide to adopt as apart of their rationalist thinking. You could take the characters to different experts that would teach them how to live in that manner and then give them a challenge. So for example:

Week 1: Bio-showers Characters go to a bio-shower expert and learn to bio shower. Characters then live 3 days on only bio-showering after extreme physical activity, sedentary activity, and medium intensity activity and after bio-showering then going to close quarters environments like a library, a subway/bus, or a store. Then track the reactions of people and how it all works out.

You could also find out how far the characters are willing to go to live a fully rational life. Cut in some personal interviews and you have a show. I would recommend 6 characters with 3 men and 3 women.

Feel free to contact....

[-]drethelin10y20

Doesn't Big Bang Theory already exist?

[-]Elo10y70

I want to create a variant on that for rationality topics; not "giant sci-fi nerds living together"; but "giant rationality geniuses" living together.

and I want it to show rationality being a win-state not a laugh-at-me-state.

[-]drethelin10y120

I don't think this is possible. A show with consistent interactions between the same people needs either an external enemy or internal strife to keep it interesting. Shows like Always Sunny rely on the main character's biases, stupidities, and selifshness to generate strife within the group. A rationalist house would simply not be this way. Rationalists who hate each other would find some sort of system by which they can minimize interaction along dimensions they hate (maybe scheduling separate mealtimes if one is a vegan) or simply move away. As far as external enemies go, you're creating a very different kind of show.

[-]Elo10y40

I imagine the rest of the world outside the house to be and bearing in mind that no one is perfectly rational; and most people you find will be still on their journey of "getting better". I imagined my characters to only be "most of the way there".

They may appear to be incongruently on their way to rationality (aka - better in some areas than others). But such is the nature of the journey. For we are not all naturally born saints.

There is a lot of rationality to try to have it all there at once. It would have to be an imaginary "inquiry" process where a particular notion or two will be focussed on at any given episode. This episode focusses on the errors caused by a lack of bayesian reasoning over simple tasks, and further the failures of having too much of it... And eventually the advantages of bayesian thinking win out over the disadvantages.

Take: trigger-action person. (they rely on verbal triggers to do a whole bunch of actions) i.e. pushups, smiles. And have them get into a fight over their trigger action (oh no - sometimes the world is just tricky to navigate). But also have them succeed at whatever trigger action they were trying to complete. Make the win-states outweigh the losses...

Journey to the win-states? With bad jokes along the way?

Do you have/know someone with experience in scriptwriting?

[-]drethelin10y40

I don't have experience beyond having watched a lot of tv and talked about it but I have watched a LOT of tv, read a LOT of books, and seen quite a few movies.

Insofar as you make average people and situations the enemy of your main cast, you are positioning yourself as critical of normality, in a way similar to Dilbert. I think that's a decent stance to take, though I can't think of a good example that has a wide cast of competent people. But making fun of normality is a LOT easier than presenting a coherent upgrade. This is similar to the problem of writing very intelligent characters: It's not easy to write someone smarter than yourself.

Since your show is explicitly didactic, it's very vulnerable to mistakes on the part of the writing, as well as your own biases. The fact that you're drawing your bottom line before you start also has a sort of gravitational pull on the quality of your story. There will always be a temptation to present normal people as extra irrational and the solutions of your "rational" main cast will work much better than they might in reality. Even if every situation is drawn from real life examples of rationalists and their households, they can still come off as preachy and unrealistic. I don't think you can make this show with this intent and have it be good entertainment, as opposed to a blatant after-school special style program.

[-]Elo10y10

"Upgraded normality" is a neat name.

I am going to try to work out how to put the first few steps into creating a plot/script for an episode and see how it goes. (when I get around to it - it will be posted somewhere online)

[-]polymathwannabe10y60

Yes, and the characters are terrible rationalists.

[-]Elo10y40

Big bang had an alternative purpose. They did well. And maybe its time we stepped up to the plate...

[-][anonymous]9y10

Come on, the audience will decide they are crazy anyway. Why not have fun with it? Like, a bunch of would-be superheroes without special powers live in the same house. They all agree that the world can be optimized and that it is not really important to be given credit for it, they agree that they have to have a platform of beliefs to start from, and a Bayesian way of updating the beliefs, and regular reviews...

And the rest of the show is them trying to live up to their goals, with lots and lots of failure and rare but joyful victories. Like, one of them wants to do charity, selects an (interesting though weird) homeless person to help and accidentally creeps the homeless out. (Insert a self-defense scene, police, parents whoddon't understand but want their rationalist kid be happy, because if only s/he were happy s/he would not do this kind of stupid stuff.) In the end, have the rationalist just as accidentally, for him/her, invent effective altruism. (Maybe when s/he is being bailed out by comrades.)

Because it's not exactly about soylent, is it?

[-]Elo9y00

your suggestion has been added to my list of "short gags" that could be scripted. Thanks!

[-]k_ebel9y10

If you are still looking for collaborators of any nature to work on this project, please send me a message. I'd be interested in talking with you to see if there is any way I could contribute.

[-]Elo9y00

PM. Also public update: Nothing has happened for a while. probably not going to happen.

[-][anonymous]10y00

What's this not showering thing? I've never heard of that one.

[-]Lumifer10y30

It's a fad :-D See e.g. this.

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