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Guess I'm a rationalist now

scottaaronson.blog

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Re: Guess I'm a rationalist now

#31

Post by amarcheschi »

wffurr wrote: post #19
amarcheschi wrote: post #8

They call themselves rationalist, yet they don't have very rational opinions if you ask them about scientific racism [1] [1] https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/how-to-stop-worrying-and-le...

I am not sure precisely it not very rational about that link. Did you have a specific point you were trying to make with it?

Yes, that they're not "rational".

If you take a look at the biodiversity survey here https://reflectivealtruism.com/2024/12/27/human-biodiversity...

1/3 of the users at acx actually support flawed scientific theories that would explain iq on a scientific basis. The Lynn study on iq is also quite flawed https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IQ_and_the_Wealth_of_Nations

If you want to read about human biodiversity, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Biodiversity_Institute

As I said, it's not very rational of them to support such theories. And of course as you scratch the surface, it's the old 20th century racist theories, and of course those theories are supported by (mostly white men, if I had to guess) people claiming to be rational

Re: Guess I'm a rationalist now

#32

Post by ineedaj0b »

contrarian1234 wrote: post #9

The article made me think deeper about what rubs me the wrong way about the whole movement I think there is some inherent tension btwn being "rational" about things and trying to reason about things from first principle.. And the general absolutist tone of the community. The people involved all seem very... Full of themselves ? They don't really ever show a sense of "hey, I've got a thought, maybe I haven't considere…

rationalism got pretty lame the last 2-3 years. imo the peak was trying to convince me to donate a kidney.

post-rationalism is where all the cool kids are and where the best ideas are at right now. the post rationalists consistently have better predictions and the 'rationalists' are stuck arguing whether chickens suffer more getting factory farmed or chickens cause more suffering eating bugs outside.

they also let SF get run into the ground until their detractors decided to take over.

Re: Guess I'm a rationalist now

#33

Post by simianparrot »

t_mann wrote: post #24

> “You’re [X]?! The quantum physicist who’s always getting into arguments on the Internet, and who’s essentially always right, but who sustains an unreasonable amount of psychic damage in the process?” > “Yes,” I replied, not bothering to correct the “physicist” part. Didn't read much beyond that part. He'll fit right in with the rationalist crowd...

No actual person talks like that —- and if they really did, they’ve taken on the role of a fictional character. Which says a lot about the clientele either way.

I skimmed a bit here and there after that but this comes off as plain grandiosity. Even the title is a line you can imagine a hollywood character speaking out loud as they look into the camera, before giving a smug smirk.

Re: Guess I'm a rationalist now

#35

Post by zaphar »

pbiggar wrote: post #25
Fraterkes wrote: post #14

[flagged]

[flagged]

I'm not a Rationalist, however, nothing you said in your first paragraph is factual and therefore the resultant thesis isn't supported. In fact it ignores nearly 2-3000 years of history and ignores a whole bunch of surrounding context.

Re: Guess I'm a rationalist now

#36

Post by loose-cannon »

felipeerias wrote: post #26
contrarian1234 wrote: post #9

The article made me think deeper about what rubs me the wrong way about the whole movement I think there is some inherent tension btwn being "rational" about things and trying to reason about things from first principle.. And the general absolutist tone of the community. The people involved all seem very... Full of themselves ? They don't really ever show a sense of "hey, I've got a thought, maybe I haven't considere…

The problem with trying to reason everything from first principles is that most things didn’t actually came about that way. Both our biology and other complex human affairs like societies and cultures evolved organically over long periods of time, responding to their environments and their competitors, building bit by bit, sometimes with an explicit goal but often without one. One can learn a lot from unicellular org…

Reducibility is usually a goal of intellectual pursuits? I don't see that as a fault.

Re: Guess I'm a rationalist now

#39

Post by gooseus »

I've never thought ill of Scott Aaronson and have often admired him and his work when I stumble across it.

However, reading this article about all these people at their "Galt's Gultch", I thought — "oh, I guess he's a rhinoceros now"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhinoceros_(play)

Here's a bad joke for you all — What's the difference between a "rationalist" and "rationalizer"? Only the incentives.

Re: Guess I'm a rationalist now

#40

Post by hiAndrewQuinn »

contrarian1234 wrote: post #9

The article made me think deeper about what rubs me the wrong way about the whole movement I think there is some inherent tension btwn being "rational" about things and trying to reason about things from first principle.. And the general absolutist tone of the community. The people involved all seem very... Full of themselves ? They don't really ever show a sense of "hey, I've got a thought, maybe I haven't considere…

>Maybe it's actually going to be rather benign and more boring than expected

Maybe, but generally speaking, if I think people are playing around with technology which a lot of smart people think might end humanity as we know it, I would want them to stop until we are really sure it won't. Like, "less than a one in a million chance" sure.

Those are big stakes. I would have opposed the Manhattan Project on the same principle had I been born 100 years earlier, when people were worried the bomb might ignite the world's atmosphere. I oppose a lot of gain-of-function virus research today too.

That's not a point you have to be a rationalist to defend. I don't consider myself one, and I wasn't convinced by them of this - I was convinced by Nick Bostrom's book Superintelligence, which lays out his case with most of the assumptions he brings to the table laid bare. Way more in the style of Euclid or Hobbes than ... whatever that is.

Above all I suspect that the Internet rationalists are basically a 30 year long campaign of "any publicity is good publicity" when it comes to existential risk from superintelligence, and for what it's worth, it seems to have worked. I don't hear people dismiss these risks very often as "You've just been reading too many science fiction novels" these days, which would have been the default response back in the 90s or 2000s.

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