Out of curiosity: because rationalists are supposed to win, are we (on average) below our respective national averages for things which are obviously bad (the low hanging fruits)?
In other words, are there statistics somewhere on rationalist or LessWrong fitness/weight, smoking/drinking, credit car debt, etc.?
I'd be curious to know how well the higher-level training effects these common failure modes.
I've wondered this too. In particular, for several years, at least among people I know, people have constantly questioned the level of rationality in our community, particularly our 'instrumental rationality'. This is summed up by the question: "if you're so smart, why aren't you rich?" That is, if rationalists are so rational, why aren't they leveraging their high IQs and their supposed rationality skills to perform in the top percentages and all sorts of metrics of coveted success? Even by self-reports, such as the LW survey(s). However, I've thought of a contrapositive question: "if you're stupid, why aren't you poor?" I.e., while rationalists might not all be peak-happiness millionaires or whatever, we might also ask the question about what the rates of (socially perceived) failure are, and how they compare to other cohorts, communities, reference classes, etc.
You're the first person I've seen to pose this question. There might have been others, though.
[Meta]
Update: I've received feedback, and I won't be posting links to TFP in this thread, or others, on LW.
Would it be below the bar for no-politics to post one or more links in this thread from The Future Primaeval (TFP)? Some of their posts are more overtly political or controversial than others, and the only ones posts from the site I'd link here are ones which make more direct reference to, e.g., the rationality community, metacognition, strategic thinking, etc., rather than having something to do with sociopolitics. Note: I'd prefer if those hostile to TFP links of LW would reply to this comment rather than downvoting it, but, that stated, downvotes without clarification will be treated as a negative response to my above question.
A floor might be a good idea, although GiveWell would probably welcome having lots of people give even $1 as it would at least introduce themselves to the organization. You are right that publicity would be the key for this to work.
Yeah, I think the floor should be relatively low as well, just as a technicality. Like, $0.05 USD, or something, even. Really, I was just thinking it would ruin the vote for future awards if the system was ever gamed by a bunch of trolls, as has happened in the past with TIME's Person of the Year, or with Boaty McBoatface. However, that might not be at all likely, or everyone might be good-humoured enough to not mind anyway.
How serious would you be about actually making this happen? It doesn't seem actually-crazy, and seems only 'crazy' in the sense that the time spent doing it poses a high opportunity cost in terms of a member of the EA community who would do this doing something else valuable with their time. Asking because I could be that person, and/or could find one or more person(s) who could do it instead/also.
The goal would be to raise money for Givewell. They are special because they likely practice effective altruism.
The goal would be to raise money for Givewell.
Oh, so gaining the right to vote in the awards would incentivize to donate through Givewell? Sounds good. What ideas would you have in mind to make these awards attractive, or prestigious? I mean, why would people care? If they're the only voter choice awards in a given niche, that might make them attractive. The unique spin of being a donor getting someone the right to vote might also entice those looking to have fun while doing good. In that case, we might want to set a floor-level to donate to earn a vote, so the system isn't gamed by a bunch of voters who only donated a cent or whatever.
If all that makes sense, what that would leave is finding a good way to advertise the awards.
GiveWell should have book/movie/podcast/video game awards (like the Hugo award) open to voting for anyone who has given money through GiveWell in the past year.
What makes donors to Givewell-recommended charities special?
I don't know if it was in the comments of here or an SSC post, but when talking about the rationalist diaspora and where the community goes from here, Scott has said he would welcome blog posts from guest authors, and mentioned several people he'd be willing to have on the site, or had already invited to make a guest post. Naturally, the guest authors he mentioned were already once-prominent LW bloggers--I forget who he mentioned besides Eliezer, who declined, but there were almost a dozen others. Scott's writing is so impressive I wouldn't be surprised if even some of his close friends, our friends, who hundreds of us think are often writers just as good or sometimes better than Scott, are personally too intimidated to post on SSC.
Well, that's one hypothesis. Sometimes posts are so top-notch on SSC guest authors might feel they're not up to snuff. Another hypothesis is that, for prominent authors, LW was a forum which exhausted all the low-hanging fruit, and wasn't receptive to juicier, edgier, topics, like the culture and politics Scott writes about. However, with that level of exposure on a personal blog, writing on more controversial topics, earns a lot more scrutiny. SSC isn't without its share of contentious posts. Maybe all that politicking, having the patience to grit your teeth and exercise the principle of charity in the face of hundreds of commentators, is a skill Scott has that's harder for the rest of us to hack. Maybe other diaspora authors know this, and don't think they can thrust themselves into the spotlight without getting burned out.
I think if the LW/rationalist community made an effort to publicly laud the authors of various blogs we like, they'd feel like it's more worth the effort if respected readers want more. I don't know if that'll work. However, I know that if there was a thread were dozens of people were commenting that they liked my blog, even though they usually didn't speak up about it, and that each of those comments had dozens of upvotes or whatnot, I'd be more inclined to write.
I'm aware Ozy Frantz had one or two guest posts on SSC as well, and that sometimes they and Scott had a dynamic where they were sometimes responding to posts on each others' blogs, and that was interesting. AFAIK, that was mostly while they were dating. I don't know what the status of Ozy ever being a guest author on SSC, or not, is.
I don't know if it was in the comments of here or an SSC post, but when talking about the rationalist diaspora and where the community goes from here, Scott has said he would welcome blog posts from guest authors, and mentioned several people he'd be willing to have on the site, or had already invited to make a guest post. Naturally, the guest authors he mentioned were already once-prominent LW bloggers--I forget who he mentioned besides Eliezer, who declined, but there were almost a dozen others. Scott's writing is so impressive I wouldn't be surprised if even some of his close friends, our friends, who hundreds of us think are often writers just as good or sometimes better than Scott, are personally too intimidated to post on SSC.
Well, that's one hypothesis. Sometimes posts are so top-notch on SSC guest authors might feel they're not up to snuff. Another hypothesis is that, for prominent authors, LW was a forum which exhausted all the low-hanging fruit, and wasn't receptive to juicier, edgier, topics, like the culture and politics Scott writes about. However, with that level of exposure on a personal blog, writing on more controversial topics, earns a lot more scrutiny. SSC isn't without its share of contentious posts. Maybe all that politicking, having the patience to grit your teeth and exercise the principle of charity in the face of hundreds of commentators, is a skill Scott has that's harder for the rest of us to hack. Maybe other diaspora authors know this, and don't think they can thrust themselves into the spotlight without getting burned out.
I think if the LW/rationalist community made an effort to publicly laud the authors of various blogs we like, they'd feel like it's more worth the effort if respected readers want more. I don't know if that'll work. However, I know that if there was a thread were dozens of people were commenting that they liked my blog, even though they usually didn't speak up about it, and that each of those comments had dozens of upvotes or whatnot, I'd be more inclined to write.
I was speaking about safety researchers.
In that case, yeah, it's still shaky, albeit less so than if Musk wasn't involved.
By the way if OpenAI were suggested before Musk, it would likely be regarded as such shaky idea.
Do you mean the whole field of AI would regard OpenAI as a shaky idea before Musk, or just safety-conscious AI researchers?
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Posting links to TFP and having Eugine downvote by sockpuppets everyone who provides a different opinion... I guess it would be time for all non-NR LessWrong readers (approximately 99% of them) to finally pack their bags and leave. :(
Yeah, I'm not going to be posting links from TFP, then. Thanks for the feedback.