This is a beautiful idea Eliezer has here, and a fascinating thread. If you'll permit a Star Trek reference, I am reminded of Vulcans and their Kolinahr discipline. Mr. Spock was clearly possessed of a mental mastery and mystique that set him apart from the rest of the Enterprise crew, due to his rigorous Vulcan training.
I am attracted to some kind of "monastic rationality" myself, with similarities to the Eastern schools where people undergo intense training in a non-profane environment. I would like to be among people who not only wish to think differently and chat about it on online forums, but are willing to live differently, in their manner of speaking, dress, “aura of formidability”, hierarchy, etc. For this to happen, rationalists may have to emulate certain martial arts groups, monastic orders and cults – i.e. be unafraid to be non-mundane “in the real.” I’m guessing that if I observed 97% of you in a Starbucks, I would be hard-pressed to distinguish you from the common run of geek-humanity. It seems to me that such should not be the case for real black belts of “logojitsu”, “rationality fu” or Kolinahr.
Would you still expect that if it turned out that being visibly non-mundane made it more difficult for the "masters" you talk about to achieve their goals?
Today's post, A Sense That More Is Possible was originally published on 13 March 2009. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):
Discuss the post here (rather than in the comments to the original post).
This post is part of the Rerunning the Sequences series, where we'll be going through Eliezer Yudkowsky's old posts in order so that people who are interested can (re-)read and discuss them. The previous post was Raising the Sanity Waterline, and you can use the sequence_reruns tag or rss feed to follow the rest of the series.
Sequence reruns are a community-driven effort. You can participate by re-reading the sequence post, discussing it here, posting the next day's sequence reruns post, or summarizing forthcoming articles on the wiki. Go here for more details, or to have meta discussions about the Rerunning the Sequences series.