Requires (non-mental) effort.

Rationalists often presume that it is possible to do much better than average by applying a small amount of optimization power. This is true in many domains, but can get you in trouble in certain places (see: the valley of bad rationality).

Rationalists often fail to compartmentalize, even when it would be highly useful.

Rationalists are often overconfident (see: SSC calibration questions) but believe they are well calibrated (bias blind spot, also just knowing about a bias is not enough to unbias you)

Rationalists don't even lift bro.

Rationalists often fail to take marginal utility arguments to their logical conclusion, which is why they spend their time on things they are already good at rather than power leveling their lagging skills (see above). (Actually, I think we might be wired for this in order to seek comparative advantage in tribal roles.)

Rationalists often presume that others are being stupidly irrational when really the other people just have significantly different values and/or operate largely in domains where there aren't strong reinforcement mechanisms for systematic thought or are stuck in a local maximum in an area where crossing a chasm is very costly.

This may be true if you want to go into research or in primarily reputation-based fields like politics and law. In engineering or technology, you'll be totally fine and get a reasonable job with a degree from other universities. Maybe in the US it's not worth the fees, but that's a different matter and does not apply in many countries.

I studied at Cambridge (which, btw, is definitely better than Oxford :-)).[1] Being in the Cambridge area when I got out of academia meant that there were plenty of jobs around that suited me. (Obviously that's a good thing in itself, but perhaps if I'd been somewhere else then I'd have moved to, say, London and had a different range of job opportunities.)

Pretty much every job I've taken I've found out about because someone at my new employer knew me. In some cases those were people who studied with me. Does that count as an effect of having been at a good university? I don't know -- if I'd been somewhere else, presumably other people would have known me, and maybe they'd have been even more impressed for want of strong competition :-). But there are lots of Cambridge people in Cambridge jobs, for obvious reasons.

The point here is that lots of things useful to my career have arisen from my having gone to a good university -- but not in the obvious way (people looking at my history and saying "oooh, Cambridge PhD, must be very smart").

[1] It occurs to me that there is a slight danger of that being taken more seriously than I intend it, so let me mention that Oxford and Cambridge are traditional rivals and that of course I would say Cambridge is obviously better. My actual opinion is that Cambridge is somewhat better for maths, science, technology, engineering, while Oxford is better for classics, history, politics, etc. If you want to be prime minister, go to Oxford. If you want to start a billion-dollar tech company, go to Cambridge. I'm not sure how they compare for intermediate fields like philosophy and law.

do graduates from there have better prospects than graduates of 'University of X, YZ'?

Yes, they do.

There are basically three tiers: the elite (top 10-12 schools), the middle (top 50-100 or so), and the don't-bother (the rest).

What do you actually want to do with your life? There are careers like politics where personal connection that are gathered during university years are very important.

There are other careers such as starting a startup where personal connections with high status people might not be central and a lot of the YC founders don't have them.

Either there's some sort of self-selection, or do graduates from there have better prospects than graduates of 'University of X, YZ'?

Why "either or"?

What are the differences between the 'big names' of higher education, in comparison to other places?

For example, I often hear about MIT, Oxford, and to a lesser extent, Cambridge. Either there's some sort of self-selection, or do graduates from there have better prospects than graduates of 'University of X, YZ'?

In a little bit of unintended self-reflection I noticed that I have a strange binary way of thinking of higher education. It feels that if I don't go to one of the top n, my effort is wasted. Not sure why.

I'm just becoming somewhat paranoid regarding the real world after reading HPMOR because I always get a 'how much do I really know?' feeling. I'm not sure how my impressions were formed and I better double-check how well does the ideas in my mind reflect the real-world truth but at the same time I'm not even sure what's a reliable indicator.

Post-high education LWers, do you think the place you studied at had a significant effect on your future prospects?

[Link] Slashdot "New Study Shows Why Big Pharma Hates Medical Marijuana"

Christopher Ingraham writes in the Washington Post that a new study shows that painkiller abuse and overdose are significantly lower in states with medical marijuana laws and that when medical marijuana is available, pain patients are increasingly choosing pot over powerful and deadly prescription narcotics.

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I agree with your observations about girls and had the same experiences.

But I also believe in optimisation power of intelligence in reaching any goal.

I am going to create a map of SexTech by the way - about all current and future technologies in relationship, sex and love.

Assuming this is all true...it's not at all clear that cooperation is my best move.

I refuse to sacrifice my life to protect billionaires who would not do the same for me. I won't labor under pointlessly annoying conditions to protect an ownership class that despises the technological progress and growth that I worked to create.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but...scientists get less sex than criminals.

In my personal experience...all of my ex-girlfriends had sex with someone who doesn't share my values -- a criminal, a future lawyer/financier, or an actual Owner with inherited wealth -- before meeting me, and lied to me about it. I experienced mental anguish and other negative consequences as a result of this bad system.

It's not illegal to always defect in prisoner's dilemmas. It's illegal to punish people who always defect in prisoner's dilemmas.

Fuck this; I'm out.