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I love the word "aspiring." It feels...aspirational. Humble.
I don't like "Less Wronger" or other names that are about the affiliation rather than the thing itself.
In response to
What's in a name? That which we call a rationalist…
A week ago I would have thought this was a silly discussion. As I've thought more about LW's group nature, I've realized that this kind of cultural thing does matter.
It feels group-narcissistic to waste time on this, but the small difference this makes will be magnified over years and hundreds of thousands of repetitions. E.g.: at some point a major news outlet will do an article on OB/LW, and it will repeatedly use whatever the self-moniker is, and impressions of OB/LW will be slightly altered. (Parallel: I can't stop being marginally more negative on Google because their employees call themselves "googlers.")
The name will also subtly affect internal psychology and self-perception, and act as a slight magnet or a slight repellent over time.
It's worth taking the time to think about this and work on it, even if it takes a couple of weeks. Don't give up if the right answer doesn't show up in the next twelve hours.
In response to
Rational Groups Kick Ass
Concrete examples would be much appreciated here.
There are three specific examples linked to; I agree that I could/should have done more.
Rational Groups Kick Ass
Reply to: Extreme Rationality: It's Not That Great
Belaboring of: Rational Me Or We?
Related to: A Sense That More Is Possible
The success of Yvain's post threw me off completely. My experience has been opposite to what he describes: x-rationality, which I've been working on since the mid-to-late nineties, has been centrally important to successses I've had in business and family life. Yet the LessWrong community, which I greatly respect, broadly endorsed Yvain's argument that:
There seems to me to be approximately zero empirical evidence that x-rationality has a large effect on your practical success, and some anecdotal empirical evidence against it.
So that left me pondering what's different in my experience. I've been working on these things longer than most, and am more skilled than many, but that seemed unlikely to be the key.
The difference, I now think, is that I've been lucky enough to spend huge amounts of time in deeply rationalist organizations and groups--the companies I've worked at, my marriage, my circle of friends.
And rational groups kick ass.
An individual can unpack free will or figure out that the Copenhagen interpretation is nonsense. But I agree with Yvain that in a lonely rationalist's individual life, the extra oomph of x-rationality may well be drowned in the noise of all the other factors of success and failure.
But groups! Groups magnify the importance of rational thinking tremendously:
- Whereas a rational individual is still limited by her individual intelligence, creativity, and charisma, a rational group can promote the single best idea, leader, or method out of hundreds or thousands or millions.
- Groups have powerful feedback loops; small dysfunctions can grow into disaster by repeated reflection, and small positives can cascade into massive success.
- In a particularly powerful feedback process, groups can select for and promote exceptional members.
- Groups can establish rules/norms/patterns that 1) directly improve members and 2) counteract members' weaknesses.
- Groups often operate in spaces where small differences are crucial. Companies with slightly better risk management are currently preparing to dominate the financial space. Countries with slightly more rational systems have generated the 0.5% of extra annual growth that leads, over centuries, to dramatically improved ways of life. Even in family life, a bit more rationality can easily be the difference between gradual divergence and gradual convergence.
And we're not even talking about the extra power of x-rationality. Imagine a couple that truly understood Aumann, a company that grokked the Planning Fallacy, a polity that consistently tried Pulling the Rope Sideways.
When it comes to groups--sized from two to a billion--Yvain couldn't be more wrong.
In response to
Great Books of Failure
Judgement Day by Nathaniel Branden. (I think this is the same book as My Years With Ayn Rand.)
Hero becomes Ayn Rand's closest confidant, co-builder of Objectivism, lover; gets drummed out.
Message: every cause wants to be a cult; the enormous power of personal charisma; an excellent antidote for the recalcitrant Objectivist in your life.
In response to
Great Books of Failure
Inventing Money, by Nicholas Dunbar
Subject: The failure of Long Term Capital Management. See also gjm's recommendation of Lowenstein, but Dunbar supplies a briefer and more financially sophisticated treatment.
Lessons: The danger of leverage, which is one potentially very expensive form of overconfidence. The world contains more risks than anyone, no matter how clever, can think of to hedge against. LTCM, contrary to popular belief, did in fact hedge against Russia defaulting on its own bonds, through currency forward contracts. What they failed to hedge against was Russia then suspending payment on the forward contracts, and hiding its hard currency.
I disagree strongly that "the danger of leverage" is the key message of LTCM. The key message for rationalists has to do with the subtle nature of correlation; the key message for risk managers has to do with the importance of liquidity.
"The danger of leverage" also isn't much of a message. That's like saying the message of the Iraq War is "the danger of foreign policy."
Does "popular belief" hold that LTCM wasn't hedged? Anyone who believes that is very far from learning anything from the LTCM story.
In response to
Great Books of Failure
Not to focus exclusively on markets, and it's not a book, but this page of a Michael Lewis piece from Portfolio.com is a crucial read (and short!):
I was shocked to learn that when the big Wall Street firms all became public companies, which is arguably the most important precursor event to the current unpleasantness, many people knew this was a terrible idea!
There are at least two parts to the failure message: think carefully about the public company structure and how it changes your institutions' incentives; and listen to the wise.
The rest of the piece is entertaining but not on point to the current discussion and not a must-read.
In response to
Great Books of Failure
What are the best books about the fall of the Roman Empire?
This seems like one of the most important failures in history, and most important to understand.
I just started Peter Heather's book, but haven't read enough to say anything except that the writing is a bit clunky.
In response to
Great Books of Failure
A Demon Of Our Own Design by Richard Bookstaber
This book came out two years ago but reads like it was just written.
The lesson is similar to e.g. When Genius Failed but it gets into the grit a bit more and is more detailedly insightful about markets. Bookstaber has worked in markets rather than just writing about them, and it shows.
Dull in spots, but that's fairly standard in books like this, since you can't sell a 130-page book.
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How about examples from your own work, marriage, or circle of friends?
I wanted to avoid the anecdotes-ain't-data writeoff and to avoid making the post too much about me specifically. Is that a mistake?