Good point, Robin, in my opinion. Eliezer, lots of good ideas in this post, well-articulated, but I think there's sleight of hand in your distinguishing empirical science from bayesian rationality. You're not being transparent that our confidence in bayesian rationality stems from empirical verification. Beyond that, it's decision-making/resource allocation in the context of scarcity. We have a scarcity of time and human capital, and we need to decide how to allocate our efforts in the context of that scarcity. That doesn't take us away from empiricism, it just places hard limits in our ability to engage in it to inform our decision-making (for example, about cryonicism, molecular nanotech, etc.). This false dichotomy between empirical science and bayesian rationality doesn't help us, in my opinion, and your ideas in this post would be better served separated from that whole framework.