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Crux comments on Open thread, June 20 - June 26, 2016 - Less Wrong Discussion
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I've wondered this too. In particular, for several years, at least among people I know, people have constantly questioned the level of rationality in our community, particularly our 'instrumental rationality'. This is summed up by the question: "if you're so smart, why aren't you rich?" That is, if rationalists are so rational, why aren't they leveraging their high IQs and their supposed rationality skills to perform in the top percentages and all sorts of metrics of coveted success? Even by self-reports, such as the LW survey(s). However, I've thought of a contrapositive question: "if you're stupid, why aren't you poor?" I.e., while rationalists might not all be peak-happiness millionaires or whatever, we might also ask the question about what the rates of (socially perceived) failure are, and how they compare to other cohorts, communities, reference classes, etc.
You're the first person I've seen to pose this question. There might have been others, though.
The rationalist community has a lot of independent thinkers, and independent thinkers are more likely than the general population to find the game of amassing wealth to be an obstruction to their freedom of thought and an inefficient path to happiness and life satisfaction.
Also many rationalists are quite young, as Vaniver pointed out.
Heh. Maybe I am not a sufficiently independent thinker, but for me the greatest obstruction to freedom of thought and happiness and life satisfaction is having a daily job, especially one that resembles Dilbert comics.
My problem with the "game of amassing wealth" is that (1) I am not very good at it, and (2) even when you are smart enough to double your wealth in a few years, if you start with a small amount, all you get is double of small amount, and there is a limited amount of years in your lifetime. I mean, compared to my wealth 10 or 20 years ago, I am significantly richer, but if I would keep the same speed, I would be probably able to retire at 60, which feels a bit late.