Two links that might foster discussion:

http://www.philosophersnet.com/games/

Fun online rationality and anti-bias oriented games. I particularly enjoyed "Staying Alive" (testing conceptions of selfhood). And

http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/20086

Great discussion, I hadn't seen Gendler before but Bloom is always good. Reminded me a little of the IAT discussion here a few months ago.

it would appear to the average person that most rational types are only moderately successful while all the extremely wealthy people are irrational. due to not seeing the whole sample space (that larger proportion of rational people enjoy moderate success vs a tiny fraction of irrational people who enjoy major success) I don't think a lot of our arguments gain traction with people. Most people infer from outliers as a matter of course.

Now combine this with the idea that signaling rationality is also signaling that we think we deserve more status and decision making capability than we have (remember in politics people act as if we live in bands of 100 and political ideas actually mean something) and it starts making sense why we make people nervous and they might reject us out of hand.

So am I just ragging on rationality, trotting out a flawed reason not to be rational? No. I'm saying that something we know a lot about applies to us as well: successful ideologies are the ones that allow people to signal palatable goals while pursuing their selfish top level goal (grab resources, have children) (and that applies even if they're unaware of their top level goal vis-a-vis adaptation executor not fitness maximizer). We have to keep this in mind while proselytizing. A bare appeal to "achieving your goals more effectively" doesn't work if the person knows on some level that their stated goals are not their actual goals. They don't need a system for achieving their stated goals.

The argumentation is not particularly rigorous and resorts to lots of name calling. Voted down because this guy does not appear to be worth engaging.

Robin's debate with Eliezer over the future of AI is much more thoughtful.

It may come as a shock, but in my case, being rational is not my highest priority. I haven't actually come up with a proper wording for my highest priority yet, but one of my major goals in pursuing that priority is to facilitate a universal ability for people to pursue their own goals (with the normal caveats about not harming or overly interfering with other people, of course). One of the primary reasons I pursue rationality is to support that goal.

Once I realized that achieving anything, no matter what, required my being rational, I quickly bumped "being rational" to the top of my to-do list.

Is it impossible to be an x-rationalist and still value people?

'People' do not lend themselves to any particular utility. The Master of the Way treats people as straw dogs.

[A] piece of fiction has to conform to certain popular prejudices entertained by tens of millions of idiots in order to have a really big fan base.

I am listening, but not agreeing quite yet. What are the prejudices in Star Wars or Star Trek?

Restating your point in different words: Popular prejudice is conducive to having lots of fans and the more fans you have the more fanatics will be in the fanbase. "Bad" creeps in because of the popular prejudice.

This makes sense, but going the other way sure doesn't: Having a set of fanatics does not imply a large fan base, nor does it imply lots of popular prejudices.

I also claim that something can have a large fan base without popular prejudices and something can have popular prejudices without having a fan base. I do agree that with a bigger pool of fans you are probably picking up more fanatics.

So, yeah, I guess the loose correlation makes sense. But it is right?

If there's even a tiny spark, it can be fanned into flame. But if there's no spark there's nothing to build on. I strongly suspect that some degree of rationality is present in your utility function, but if not, your case is hopeless.

Out of curiosity, can someone who does not have a grain of rationality in them ever become more rational? In other words, can someone be so far gone that they literally can never be rational?

I am honestly having trouble picturing such a person. Perhaps that is because I never thought about it that way before.

I don't want to catch flies.

A lot more people talk about existential risks, often in a very animated way, than do anything about them.

I think probably the vast majority of people interested in existential risk want to signify both that they are good caring people, and that they are hard-headed intelligent rationalists and not the sort of muddled peace-and-love types who would go around waving "FUR IS MURDER" signs.

Probably doesn't actually work as far as getting friends and lovers is concerned, but it's a good self-signal.

But how many altruists can there really be, relative to status seekers?

I don't know why people of above average intelligence want to make everyone else feel like useless proles

Isn't it obvious? Almost everyone is a "useless prole", as you put it, and even the people who aren't have to sweat blood to avoid that fate.

Recognizing that unpleasant truth is the first step towards becoming non-useless - but most people can't think usefully enough to recognize it in the first place, so the problem perpetuates itself.

I know I'm usually a moron. I've also developed the ability to distinguish quality thinking from moronicity, which makes it possible for me to (slowly, terribly slowly) wean myself away from stupid thinking and reinforce what little quality I can produce. That's what makes it possible for me to occasionally NOT be a moron, at least at a rate greater than chance alone would permit.

It's the vast numbers of morons who believe they're smart, reasonable, worthwhile people that are the problem.