Kaj_Sotala comments on Rationalists Are Less Credulous But Better At Taking Ideas Seriously - LessWrong

43 Post author: Yvain 21 January 2014 02:18AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (285)

You are viewing a single comment's thread.

Comment author: Kaj_Sotala 21 January 2014 05:33:21AM 24 points [-]

and rationalist training probably makes you less likely to believe cryonics will work.

I like this post, but this conclusion seems too strong. There could e.g. be a selection effect, in that people with certain personality traits were less likely to believe in cryonics, more likely to take ideas seriously, and more likely to stick around on LW instead of forgetting the site after the first few months. In that case, "rationalist training" wouldn't be the cause anymore.

Comment author: private_messaging 22 January 2014 10:03:31PM *  2 points [-]

Proto-rationalists thought that, on average, there was a 21% chance of an average cryonically frozen person being revived in the future.

....

Last year, using the same definitions, proto-rationalists assigned a 15% probability to cryonics working

...

I think we have a general trend of decrease in the skepticism of newcomers.

As for signing up for cryonics, LW used to advocate signing up for cryonics far more loudly back in the day. edit: also, did those 13% people sign up for cryonics after their "rationalist training", or before?

Comment author: ESRogs 22 January 2014 12:50:00AM 1 point [-]

Yes, and in particular, I would expect age to possibly be a common cause behind being on LessWrong longer, and having signed up for cryonics after being convinced of its plausibility.

Comment author: FourFire 23 January 2014 02:52:15PM 0 points [-]

Age, and economic status, at least in my case, and I am one of the survey takers.

Comment author: RyanCarey 22 January 2014 07:45:49AM 0 points [-]

Yeah, it's probably 50% rationalist training (reading), 25% rationalist culture and 25% being a futurist before LW existed...