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Guess I'm a rationalist now

scottaaronson.blog

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Re: Guess I'm a rationalist now

#171

Post by parpfish »

js8 wrote: post #89
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 people involved all seem very... Full of themselves ? Kinda like Mensa?

When I was a kid I wanted to be in Mensa because being smart was a big part of my identity and I was constantly seeking external validation.

I’m so glad I didn’t join because being around the types of adults that make being smart their identity surely would have had some corrosive effects

Re: Guess I'm a rationalist now

#172

Post by kragen »

retRen87 wrote: post #91

He already had a rationalist “coming out” like ages ago. Dude just make up your mind https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=2537

While this was an interesting and enjoyable read, it doesn't seem to be a “rationalist ‘coming out’”. On the contrary, he's just saying he would have liked going to a ‘rationalist’ meeting.

Re: Guess I'm a rationalist now

#173

Post by tuveson »

NoGravitas wrote: post #130
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…

I've always seen the breathless Singularitarian worrying about AI Alignment as a smokescreen to distract people from thinking clearly about the more pedestrian hazards of AI that isn't self-improving or superhuman, from algorithmic bias, to policy-washing, to energy costs and acceleration of wealth concentration. It also leads to so-called longtermism - discounting the benefits of solving current real problems and fo…

My feeling has been that it’s a lot of people that work on B2B SaaS that are sad they hadn’t gotten the chance to work on the Manhattan Project. Be around the smartest people in your field. Contribute something significant (but dangerous! And we need to talk about it!) to humanity. But yeah computer science in the 21st century has not turned out to be as interesting as that. Maybe just as important! But Jeff Bezos important, not Richard Feynman important.

Re: Guess I'm a rationalist now

#174

Post by achierius »

loose-cannon wrote: post #64
colordrops wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What the person you are replying to is saying that some things are not reducible, i.e. the the vast array of complexity and detail is all relevant.

That's a really hard belief to justify. And what implications would that position have? Should biologists give up?

Concretely we know that there exist irreducible structures, at least in mathematics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classification_of_finite_simpl...

The largest of the finite simple groups (themselves objects of study as a means of classifying other, finite but non-simple groups, which can always be broken down into simple groups) is the Monster Group -- it has order 808017424794512875886459904961710757005754368000000000, and cannot be reduced to simpler "factors". It has a whole bunch of very interesting properties which thus can only be understood by analyzing the whole object in itself.

Now whether this applies to biology, I doubt, but it's good to know that limits do exist, even if we don't know exactly where they'll show up in practice.

Re: Guess I'm a rationalist now

#175

Post by kragen »

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...

Why would you comment on the post if you stopped reading near its beginning? How could your comments on it conceivably be of any value? It sounds like you're engaging in precisely the kind of shallow dismissal the site guidelines prohibit.

Re: Guess I'm a rationalist now

#176

Post by wizzwizz4 »

amarcheschi wrote: post #58
derangedHorse wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing about the article you posted in your first comment seems racist. You could argue that believing in the conclusions of Richard Lynn’s work makes someone racist, but to support that claim, you’d need to show that those who believe it do so out of willful ignorance of evidence that his science is flawed.

Scott itself makes a point of the study being debated. It's not. It's not debated. It's pseudo science,or "science" made with so many questionable points that it's hard to call it "science". He links to a magazine article written by a researcher that has been fired, not surprisingly, for his pseudo scientific stances on racism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noah_Carl Saying in 2025 that the study is still debated is…

It is debated: just not by serious scholars or academics. (Which doesn't necessarily make it wrong; but "scientific racism is bunk, and its proponents are persuasive" is a model whose high predictive power has served me well, so I believe it's wrong regardless.)

Re: Guess I'm a rationalist now

#177

Post by cogman10 »

impossiblefork wrote: post #162
philipov wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yep, the biggest threat posed by AI comes from the capitalists who want to own it.

I actually think the people developing AI might well not get rich off it. Instead, unless there's a single winner, we will probably see the knowledge on how to train big LLMs and make them perform well diffuse throughout a large pool of AI researchers, with the hardware to train models reasonably close to the SotA becoming more quite accessible. I think the people who will benefit will be the owners of ordinary but h…

It smacks of a goldrush. The winners will be the people selling shovels (nVidia) and housing (AWS). It may also be the guides showing people the mountains (Cursor, OpenAI, etc).

I suspect you'll see a few people "win" or strike it rich with AI, the vast majority will simply be left with a big bill.

Re: Guess I'm a rationalist now

#178

Post by mitthrowaway2 »

the_af wrote: post #157
baxtr wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My main problem with the movement is their emphasis on Bayesianism in conjunction with an almost total neglect of Popperian epistemology. In my opinion, there can’t be a meaningful distinction made between rational and irrational without Popper. Popper injects an epistemic humility that Bayesianism, taken alone, can miss. I think that aligns well with your observation.

What really confuses me is that many in this so called "rationalist" clique discuss Bayesianism as an "ism", some sort of sacred, revered truth. They talk about it in mystical terms, which matches the rest of their cult-like behavior. What's the deal with that?

That's specific to Yudkowsky, and I think that's just supposed to be humor. A lot of people find mathematics very dry. He likes to dress it up as "what if we pretend math is some secret revered knowledge?".

Re: Guess I'm a rationalist now

#179

Post by jrm4 »

mitthrowaway2 wrote: post #178
the_af wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What really confuses me is that many in this so called "rationalist" clique discuss Bayesianism as an "ism", some sort of sacred, revered truth. They talk about it in mystical terms, which matches the rest of their cult-like behavior. What's the deal with that?

That's specific to Yudkowsky, and I think that's just supposed to be humor. A lot of people find mathematics very dry. He likes to dress it up as "what if we pretend math is some secret revered knowledge?".

Yeah but these feels like "more truth is said in jest etc etc"

Re: Guess I'm a rationalist now

#180

Post by genewitch »

camgunz wrote: post #76
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…

Yeah I don't know or really care about Rationalism or whatever. But I took Aaronson's advice and read Zvi Mowshowitz' Childhood and Education #9: School is Hell [0], and while I share many of the criticisms (and cards on the table I also had pretty bad school experiences), I would have a hard time jumping onto this bus. One point is that when Mowshowitz is dispelling the argument that abuse rates are much higher for…

My wife is LMSW (not CPS!) and sees ~5 people a day. 153,922 population in the metro area. Mind you, this is adults, but they're all mandated to show up.

there's only ~3300 counties in the USA.

i'll let you extrapolate how CPS can handle "4000/day". Like, 800 people with my wife's qualifications and caseload is equivalent to 4000/day. there's ~5000 caseworkers in the US per statistia:

> In 2022, there were about 5,036 intake and screening workers in child protective services in the United States. In total, there were about 30,750 people working in child protective services in that year.

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