= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
lmm comments on Why Don't Rationalists Win? - LessWrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (99)
I've never really understood the "rationalists don't win" sentiment. The people I've met who have LW accounts have all seemed much more competent, fun, and agenty than all of my "normal" friends (most of whom are STEM students at a private university).
There have been plenty of Gwern-style research posts on LW, especially given that writing research posts of that nature is quite time-consuming.
I went to an LW meetup once or twice. With one exception the people there seemed less competent and fun than my university friends, work colleagues, or extended family, though possibly more competent than my non-university friends.
That was also true for me until I moved to the bay. I suspect it simply doesn't move the needle much, and it's just a question of who it attracts.
I have the opposite experience! Most people at LW meetups I've been to have tended to be succesful programmers or people with or working on stuff like math phds. Generally more socially awkward but that's not a great proxy for "competence" in this kind of crowd.
Do you think this was caused by their rationality? It seems more likely to me that these people are drawn to rationality because it validates how they already think.
What you just said doesn't make sense. "Rationality", as formally defined by this community, refers to "doing well" (which I contest, but whatever); Therefore, the question is not "was it caused by their rationality", but "was it caused by a lack of rationality", or perhaps "Was their lack of rationality caused by using LW techniques?".
Defining rationality as winning is useless in most discussions. Obviously what I was referring to is rationality as defined by the community, EG "extreme epistemic rationality".
The community defines rationality as epistemic rationality AND as winning, and not noticing the difference between the two leeds to the idea that rationalists ought to win at everything...that the winningness of instrumental rationality. and the universality of ER can be combined.