I don't think this is at all true that theism is a uniquely awful example.

What about Ayn Rand's Objectivism? I just ctrl-f'd for that on this page and I'm AMAZED to report that no one else seems to have mentioned this obvious example yet.

Things like dualism are right out, but also non-mystical things like homeopathy.

Seems to me there are lots of simply referencable ideas or schools or thought that rationality cleans up.

Secondly, though, I think that rationality often leads reliably to positions that are just a bit less easy to squirt out in a name or phrase like that. Take... free trade, for instance.

The popular common positions are to argue for or against it (mind-killing politics), but I'd think a person using rationality should reliably come to the more nuanced position that free trade is mathematically proven to be the most optimal, but there are problems in the details of switching to it that need to be addressed (ie, what happens when the safety standards between two areas are different? And while yes, everyone will be better off on average afterwards, what about those people who will be negatively affected by the transition? Do we want some policy for helping them through or what?)

So rationality should lead reliably to similar conclusions in most areas, but the conclusions will often be more complex and nuanced than are commonly squawked back and forth in pop-culture.

Secondly, big parts of these rational positions will be the "I don't know so let's find out" spirit, with the agreement being on how to start looking.

It is fairly hard to perform such checks. We don't have many situations which are analogous to Newcomb's problem. We don't have perfect predictors and most situations humans are in can be considered "iterated". At least, we can consider most people to be using their 'iterated' reasoning by mistake when we put them in once off situations.

The closest analogy that we can get reliable answers out of is the 'ultimatum game' with high stakes... in which people really do refuse weeks worth of wages.

By the way, have you considered what you would do if the boxes were transparent? Just sitting there. Omega long gone and you can see piles of cash in front of you... It's tricky. :)

I have no idea! IIRC I leaned towards one-boxing, but I was honestly confused about it.

...no? I didn't realize that the decision theory could be varied, that the obvious decision theory could be invalid, so I hit a point of confusion with little idea what to do about it.

It's a good question. You aren't missing anything. And "people are crazy, the world is mad" isn't always sufficient. ;)

I can say that for me personally, the hard part - that I did not get past till reading about it here - was noticing that there is actually such a variable as "what decision theory to use"; using a naive CDT sort of thing simply seemed rational /a priori/. Insufficient grasp of the nameless virtue, you could say.

You know, I honestly don't even understand why this is a point of debate. One boxing and taking box B (and being the kind of person who will predictably do that) seem so obviously like the rational strategy that it shouldn't even require explanation.

It is the obvious rational strategy... which is why using a decision theory that doesn't get this wrong is important.

Awesome. =]

If say, "This isn't about a test of rationality itself, but a test for true free-thinking. All good rationalists must be free-thinkers, but not all free-thinkers are necessarily good rationalists", is that a good summary?

You know, I honestly don't even understand why this is a point of debate. One boxing and taking box B (and being the kind of person who will predictably do that) seem so obviously like the rational strategy that it shouldn't even require explanation.

And not obvious in the same way most people think the monty hill problem (game show, three doors, goats behind two, sports-car behind one, ya know?) seems 'obvious' at first.

In the case of the monty hill problem, you play with it, and the cracks start to show up, and you dig down to the surprising truth.

In this case, I don't see how anyone could see and cracks in the first place.

Am I missing something here?

Victoria, BC