"More trustworthy" != trustworthy.

I think the most important part of rationality is doing the basic stuff consistently. Things like noticing the problem that needs to be solved and actually spending five minutes trying to solve it, instead of just running on the autopilot. At some level of IQ, having the right character traits (or habits, which can be trained) could provide more added value than extra IQ points; and I believe you are already there.

I find the philosophical elements of Yudkowsky fascinating

Does it also make you actually do something in your life differently? Otherwise it's merely "insight porn". (This is not a criticism aimed specifically at you; I suspect this is how most readers of this website use it.)

I am curious to what extent rationalists engage in outreach (other than CFAR I guess) towards more average individuals. Because that changes how one writes.

I think the main problem is that we don't actually know how to make people more rational. Well, CFAR is doing some lessons, trying to measure the impact on their students and adjusting the lessons accordingly; so they probably already do have some partial results at the moment. That is not a simple task; to compare, teaching critical thinking at universities actually does not increase the critical thinking abilities of the students.

So, at this moment we want to attract people who have a chance of contributing meaningfully to the development of the Art of how to make people more rational. And then, when we have the Art, we can approach the average people and apply it on them.

You probably already know it, but just to be sure, there are alternative approached to teaching, e.g. the Montessori education. But it seems that most of the education system just continues by inertia. So, a few people do stop and think how to make things differently, it's just that the majority ignores them.

It seems from EY's writing that LW wanted to be a homogeneous community of like-minded (in both senses) people, but I am curious to what extent rationalists engage in outreach (other than CFAR I guess) towards more average individuals. Because that changes how one writes. Or is there a tacit resignation that more average people just won't care or grok it;

When trying to influence people on a meaningful level it's seldom useful to simple try to address the average person.

There are people in this community who do outreach. Gleb tries to do outreach via http://intentionalinsights.org/. http://www.clearerthinking.org does a bit of out-reach that's near to this community. James Miller has his podcast.

In general there also a need for research. CFAR doesn't see it's mission primarily as outreach but primarily as developing a new way to do rationality. The mission of this website is "refining the art of rationality".

There no inherent reason to do outreach and developing new ideas at the same time. Both are worthy causes and idea development isn't just about focusing on one's own growth and happiness.

A lot of energy that goes into compassionate outreach also goes into EA and not rationality as such.

puts me near the bottom of this community?

No, I don't think so. Self-reported IQs from a self-selected group have a bias. I'll let you guess in which direction :-)

I am curious to what extent rationalists engage in outreach (other than CFAR I guess) towards more average individuals

There's Gleb Tsipursky and his Intentional Insights, but from my point of view this whole endeavour looks quite unfortunate. YMMV, of course.

Welcome to Less Wrong!

I think a properly tested IQ of 131 would put you more or less in the middle for the LW community. (It would put you a little below the average self-report for LW members who have had proper professional IQ tests done, but I would guess that having such tests done correlates with higher IQ in this community. And, alas, people sometimes make mistakes, or report things that flatter them while ignoring things that don't, or just flat-out lie, and all those things will introduce a bit of upward bias in the results.)

An IQ of 131 would also put you solidly in the region where for most things less outrageously IQ-heavy than, say, theoretical physics IQ is unlikely to be what limits you.

I think there's a reasonable amount of rationalist outreach going on.

• You already mentioned CFAR, which does it on a relatively large scale, formally, for money.
• One LW member, Gleb Tsipursky, has an organization called "Intentional Insights" whose stated goal is to spread rationality to more "ordinary" people.
  • (Gleb and his organization are rather controversial around here for various reasons, and in particular there is not widespread agreement that they are actually doing any good, but they're certainly doing outreach.)
• EY wrote a big Harry Potter fanfic to bring rationalist ideas (and Less Wrong, and MIRI) to the attention of a wider audience.
• Various rationalists have blogs with an outreachy component. For instance, Put a Number on it!.
• As any religious fanatic will tell you, the most effective outreach is often done at an individual level. There are, e.g., plenty of rationalists on Facebook just being conspicuously reasonable. I'm sure most rationalists' friends are far from being a random sample of "average individuals", of course.

Are you still on the path to becoming a professor? It seems to me that being a professor in any field has to score pretty highly on the "intellectually stimulating career" metric.

I discovered SSC and LW a ~couple months ago, from (I think) a Startpage search which led me to Scott's lengthy article on IQ. Only browsed for a while, but last night rediscovered this after I read Doing Good Better and went to the EA website. I remember CFAR from a Secular Student Alliance conference two years ago.

I like Scott's writing, but I have no hard science training unfortunately.

I have realized that I've become rather used to my comfort zone, and have sort of let my innate intelligence stagnate, when I like to think it still has room to grow. I had psychological testing six years ago that put my IQ at 131 which, if I interpret the survey results correctly, puts me near the bottom of this community? Despite that, I find the philosophical elements of Yudkowsky fascinating [not so much the more mathematical stuff]. At least, this site has made me sit at a computer longer than I'm accustomed to.

It seems from EY's writing that LW wanted to be a homogeneous community of like-minded (in both senses) people, but I am curious to what extent rationalists engage in outreach (other than CFAR I guess) towards more average individuals. Because that changes how one writes. Or is there a tacit resignation that more average people just won't care or grok it; that smarter individuals should focus on their own personal growth and happiness? But then I remember Scott's writing and seeming compassion, and also the percentage of users who are social-democratic, so it seems like there would be higher demand for actually communicating with the outgroup.

I entered the humanities because I wanted to be a professor and I like to write, I like foreign languages, didn't think I would be interested in heavier things (took some psychology and philosophy as a postbac) but now I'm too far into my MA where I'm not sure I could get into an additional Master's program in something meaty and then pursue a better, more intellectually stimulating career.

Ultimately I just want to teach and "help" people. So, that's where I'm at. I read/skimmed DGB yesterday in one sitting while in the middle of yet another existential depression that my shrink thinks was caused by going off an opioid. I can't remember the last time I consumed a book in one sitting.

This was longer than I intended. Thank you.