I am aware that there have been several discussions over to what extent x-rationality translates to actual improved outcomes, at least outside of certain very hard problems like metaethics. It seems to me that one of the best ways to translate epistemic rationality directly into actual utility is through financial investment/speculation, and so this would be a good subject for discussion (I assume it probably has been discussed before, but I've read most of this website and cannot remember any in depth-thread about this, except for the mention of markets being at least partially anti-inductive).
Partially the reason for my writing this is that I have been reading about neuroeconomics and doing some academic research of my own (as in actually running experiments), and I am shocked by how near-universal irrational behavior displayed is (and therefore, exploitable by more rational agents). Even professional traders behavior is swayed by things like fluctuating testosterone levels. (Not that I know how to compensate for this!)
On a related note I've also been thinking about:
1) Applications for machine learning/narrow AI to finance.
2) Economic irrationality invalidating the libertarian free-market ideas, and possibly libertarianism in general, seeing as personal decisions can often be conceptualized economically. (I should point out that libertarianism used to appeal to me, and I find this line of reasoning mildly disturbing)
3) Gender relations, and the possibility that men are on average better at maths then women has been discussed here, and so discussion of the possibility that women are generally better at finance (see link above) could be beneficial, both in the context of pointing out opportunities to female rationalists, and to help dispel any appearance of misogyny that this community may have.
Again, I can't remember these being discussed here, and (1) seems very relevant to this community, although (2) is probably mind-killing and not very productive, unless any of us actually have the power to influence politics.
Apologies if this all has been already discussed in-depth somewhere.
Even professional traders behavior is swayed by things like fluctuating testosterone levels. (Not that I know how to compensate for this!)
Bring some women to the team. (Yeah, that just changes the problem to a harder one: Where to find enough women rationalists interested in finance?) Or have multiple men on the team, and let them decide through some kind of voting. This would work only if their testosterone level fluctuations are uncorrelated. You could do some things to prevent that, e.g. forbid them to meet in person, and make their coordination as i...
If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.