I agree with Yvain - the pyramid on Mars would radically change our beliefs, make us re-evaluate all of history and archaeology and geology, and reprioritize national science funding.

I like your last point - that you feel better than everyone else now, because you do get real science, and so you'd hate to have everything change around.

That was my first thought, because you know it's very sexy on LW and OB to attribute your thinking to status signalling.

But I don't think that's it. I'm going to reclaim the rational high ground. I've seen lots of examples of the kinds of theories of the world that lead to pyramids on Mars, lost civilizations in the Atlantic, hollow Earth, auras, divination, etc.

They're ugly theories. The pyramid on Mars is not enticing, because it would lend support to ugly theories and pull the rug out from under beautiful theories.

(If the pyramids on Mars were built by an ancient Martian civilization, then, fine. But if they were built by spacefaring aliens who visited the Egyptians - or, worse yet, by spacefaring Egyptians - not so fine. A human face on Mars would be even worse.)

(Gene transfer by bacterial conjugation is a little bit ugly, because it makes it a lot harder to predict things from evolutionary theory, and to make all sorts of inferences. I was going to give that as an example, but realized it isn't the same thing at all. It makes the empirical realization of your theory messier, but it doesn't force you to adopt a different, uglier theory.)

No, I don't think the choice of examples is bad - I had another draft where I used understanding the pathogenesis of some common disease as an example, which is even more clearly beneficial.

My point is that even when rational analysis tells us that something will be very useful, the "sense of curiosity" can disagree. Otherwise, we'd all be fascinated by immunology because of its high probability of giving us a cure for cancer and AIDS. Likewise, discovering that Stonehenge was built by aliens would be practically useless unless it provided some way of contacting the aliens or using their technology, but it would still be considered "interesting".

That's why I didn't include "gives a practical benefit" as a criterion. Instead I said "changes a lot of beliefs", which a better understanding of photosynthesis wouldn't, and "teaches you something that other people want to know", which photosynthesis again wouldn't (lots of people would want the improved solar technology, but not many people would care how it worked).

As a total sidenote, your choice of examples is bad. If someone solved photosynthesis in a way that output useful engineerable technologies, it would change your life, and the lives of almost everybody else.

Solar power cheap and powerful enough to run most of our technology would be a massive sea change.

Using the martial arts metaphor, at least Mensa appears to be more about having a lot of muscle, not about fighting skills, and there isn't a strong agenda to improve either.

You don't like Less Wrong reader?

Neither do I, really.

I don't think the outcome of this thread will be to produce an agreed upon name by vote. Its sort of like the French trying to keep their language from being polluted by English words- this just isn't how things get named.

There seems to be a lot of hesitancy in considering this community a movement with aspirations of anything but improving ourselves. If that's the case I suspect there will never be a standardized name. People will call themselves different things. If on the other hand this site leads to advocating outside the confounds of lesswrong.com the name we end up adopting will as likely as not be chosen by our opponents. Even if that isn't the case what we call ourselves will be decided more or less organically. If we people use rationalist a lot maybe that will be it. I'll likely not use among some of the company I keep.

And to contradict the preceding paragraphs... is there something wrong with Bayesians?

I would suggest "utilitarian", but it seems to me that people here use this to mean something else. Does anyone care to explain the distinction?

A point further in favor, dysrationalia accumulates in groups much as the small advantages you describe do.

Mensa and AMA members may not have superpowers(to pick two weakly rationalist groups), but they also don't spend millions of dollars sponsoring attempts to locate Noah's Ark, or traces of the Jewish tribe that the LDS church believes existed in South America.

I think the 'identity' we're ascribing to the nascent community here is more complicated than any existing labels. Maybe we could build one, but I don't think there is one now.

I generally label myself contextually, in response to kinds of evaluation being made in the conversation or missive:

When I'm trying to emphasize my commitment to quantifiable, established knowledge or highlight my rejection of a concept of school of thought I feel falls outside that, I call myself a Scientist.

When the discussion centers on reflective beliefs, conceptual methodology, or worldviews, I call myself a Rationalist.

During discussions about effectiveness, organization, and the feasibility of actions, when I want to highlight my tendency to evaluate ends and means for costs and details, I call myself an Engineer.

To highlight my consequentialist evaluation of actions in ethical and moral judgements, I call myself a Pragmatist.

Discussions get too abstract or ungrounded, without units or direct examples, so to get back to more useful areas I call myself a Realist.

Often I find myself in discussions with multiple persons, whose rhetoric seems to have retreated into armed camps, so to coax them to engage in constructive exchange and give myself an opportunity to get a look at their best data as opposed to their best arguments, I describe myself as Willing to Be Persuaded.

I think the 'identity' we're ascribing to the nascent community here is more complicated than any existing labels. Maybe we could build one, but I don't think there is one now.

I generally label myself contextually, in response to kinds of evaluation being made in the conversation or missive:

When I'm trying to emphasize my commitment to quantifiable, established knowledge or highlight my rejection of a concept of school of thought I feel falls outside that, I call myself a Scientist.

When the discussion centers on reflective beliefs, conceptual methodology, or worldviews, I call myself a Rationalist.

During discussions about effectiveness, organization, and the feasibility of actions, when I want to highlight my tendency to evaluate ends and means for costs and details, I call myself an Engineer.

To highlight my consequentialist evaluation of actions in ethical and moral judgements, I call myself a Pragmatist.

Discussions get too abstract or ungrounded, without units or direct examples, so to get back to more useful areas I call myself a Realist.

Often I find myself in discussions with multiple persons, whose rhetoric seems to have retreated into armed camps, so to coax them to engage in constructive exchange and give myself an opportunity to get a look at their best data as opposed to their best arguments, I describe myself as Willing to Be Persuaded.