Is rationality training in it's infancy? I'd like to think so, given the paucity of novel, usable information produced by rationalists since the Sequence days. I like to model the rationalist body of knowledge as superset of pertinent fields such as decision analysis, educational psychology and clinical psychology. This reductionist model enables rationalists to examine the validity of rationalist constructs while standing on the shoulders of giants.

CFAR's obscurantism (and subsequent price gouging) capitalises on our [fear of missing out](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_of_missing_out). They brand established techniques like mindfulness as againstness or reference class forecasting as 'hopping' as if it's of their own genesis, spiting academic tradition and cultivating an insular community. In short, Lesswrongers predictably flouts [cooperative principles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative_principle).

This thread is to encourage you to speculate on potential rationality techniques, underdetermined by existing research which might be a useful area for rationalist individuals and organisations to explore. I feel this may be a better use of rationality skills training organisations time, than gatekeeping information.

To get this thread started, I've posted a speculative rationality skill I've been working on. I'd appreciate any comments about it or experiences with it. However, this thread is about working towards the generation of rationality skills more broadly.

If we're part of a simulation, how likely is it that whatever it's running on is using the same sort of atoms we've discovered?

I think the answer is it's very unlikely. The closest resemblance I find plausible is that our atoms are simplified versions of the substrate atoms, and I wouldn't count on even that much.

I'm pretty sure that a simulation has to be smaller in some sense than the universe that's running it, which means that it has fewer things or simpler things (these might be equivalent because more simplicity means fewer sub-components in things) than the home universe.

You might do a meticulous job of simulating your matter in a simulation, but I suggest that you'd only bother in a small and/or specialized simulation, and even if you did, there's a reasonable chance that you don't have a full understanding of your own physics.

When I look at the range of human-created simulations (dreams, daydreams, fiction, games, art, scientific, political, and commercial simulations) and contemplate that we've probably only explored a small part of the possibilities for simulation, it seems vanishingly unlikely that we're in an ancestor simulation.

When I first came up with the question of the nature of our possible substrate, I didn't think there was a way to get a grip on it at all, but at least now I've got some clarity about the difficulties I think. 

So onwards to practical questions. Is there any conceivable way of telling whether we're in a simulation and if so, learning something about its nature? Is it worth trying to get out of the Big Box?

Edited to add: I should think that being a simulation is an existential risk.

Heinlein imagined the Howard Foundation as a group founded by a millionaire dying of "old age" in mid-life; founded to encourage long lived people to have children together using financial incentives with the goal of breeding extra long-lived humans.

Our world has many billionaires, typically older rather than younger people ( Forbes list - few under 50 ); middle aged Bill Gates has donated his fortune to normal kinds of charity, elder Warren Buffett has as well, youthful Mark Zuckerberg has pledged his too, all healthy. Steve Jobs is worth over a billion dollars and has been criticised for his lack of public philanthropy, he's also CEO of a company with $60 billion in reserve, and suffering serious health problems.

In short, we live in a world where there are rich people, and where you hear the idea of "rich old white men spending a lot on medical treatments to benefit rich old white men" but at the same time, Aubrey De Gray style serious discussion of longevity is rare  and much medical spending goes on alleviating and curing the problems of old age rather than avoiding them.

Sergey Brin has donated $50 million towards Parkinson's research based on DNA tests showing he has a 50% chance of getting it, yet at the moment he has a much higher probability of getting old-age and a net worth of $10-15 billion.

Is our world one where something analagous to the Howard Foundation will appear? Let's pull some numbers from thin air and say that means someone dying and leaving pretty much all of their estate of more than $200 million to fund longevity research/treatment in some way. If so, it might be something done in private that we would not hear of, so what would be indicators that it might be about to happen, or might have happened already? And if an ill middle aged technology billionaire with change-the-world drive doesn't do it, then who?

(I consider significant increases in lifespan (100 healthy years, 150 total years, or more) nearly inevitable at some nonspecific time in the future, given a world where humans continue to develop technology improvements, remain primarily biological, and avert or avoid existential risks and government restrictions on it. I also consider that dying and leaving money to The Gates Foundation is a good cause arguably much better than longevity research, wheras dying and leaving hundreds of millions to heirs / dogs homes / art / etc. is not).