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Guess I'm a rationalist now

scottaaronson.blog

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Re: Guess I'm a rationalist now

#381

Post by lukas099 »

This is vibe-based, but I think the Rationalists get more vitriol than they deserve. Upon reflecting, my hypothesis for this is threefold:

1. They are a community—they have an in-group, and if you are not one of them you are by-definition in the out-group. People tend not to like being in other peoples' out-groups.

2. They have unusual opinions and are open about them. People tend not to like people who express opinions different than their own.

3. They're nerds. Whatever has historically caused nerds to be bullied/ostracized, they probably have.

Re: Guess I'm a rationalist now

#382

Post by Matticus_Rex »

the_af wrote: post #297
mariusor wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you just know they actually mean "MoreRight". I'm not affiliated with the rationalist community, but I always interpreted "Less Wrong" as word-play on how "being right" is an absolute binary: you can either be right, or not be right, while "being wrong" can cover a very large gradient. I expect the community wanted to emphasize how people employing the specific kind of Bayesian iterative reasoning they were prosely…

> I'm not affiliated with the rationalist community, but I always interpreted "Less Wrong" as word-play on how "being right" is an absolute binary: you can either be right, nor not be right, while "being wrong" can cover a very large gradient. I know that's what they mean at the surface level, but you just know it comes with a high degree of smugness and false modesty. "I only know that I know nothing" -- maybe, but…

So much projection.

Re: Guess I'm a rationalist now

#383

Post by dennis_jeeves2 »

thomasjudge wrote: post #290
djoldman wrote: post #210

Just to confirm, this is about: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationalist_community and not: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationalism right?

Along these lines I am sort of skimming articles/blogs/websites about Lightcone, LessWrong, etc, and I am still struggling with the question...what do they DO?

[dead]

Re: Guess I'm a rationalist now

#384

Post by geysersam »

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote: post #83
derangedHorse wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it not a joke? I’m pretty sure it was.

It doesn’t really read like a joke but maybe. Regardless, I guess I can at least be another voice saying it didn’t land. It reads like someone literally said that to him verbatim and he literally replied with a simple, “Yes.” (That said, while it seems charitable to assume it was a joke but that doesn’t mean it’s wrong to assume that.)

I'm certain it's a joke. Have you seen any Scott Aaronson lecture? He can't help himself from joking in every other sentence

Re: Guess I'm a rationalist now

#385

Post by stickfigure »

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…

> They don't really ever show a sense of "hey, I've got a thought, maybe I haven't considered all angles to it, maybe I'm wrong - but here it is".

Have you ever read Scott Alexander's blog (Slate Star Codex, now Astral Codex X)? It's full of doubt and self-questioning. The guy even keeps a public list of his mistakes:

https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/mistakes

I'll admit my only touchpoint to the "rationalist community" is this blog, but I sure don't get "full of themselves" from that. Quite the contrary.

Re: Guess I'm a rationalist now

#386

Post by mananaysiempre »

mariusor wrote: post #291
the_af wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The moment you think something like "I am more correct than this other person because I am a rationalist" is the moment you fail as a rationalist. It's very telling that some of them went full "false modesty" by naming sites like "LessWrong", when you just know they actually mean "MoreRight". And in reality, it's just a bunch of "grown teenagers" posting their pet theories online and thinking themselves "big thinke…

> you just know they actually mean "MoreRight". I'm not affiliated with the rationalist community, but I always interpreted "Less Wrong" as word-play on how "being right" is an absolute binary: you can either be right, or not be right, while "being wrong" can cover a very large gradient. I expect the community wanted to emphasize how people employing the specific kind of Bayesian iterative reasoning they were prosely…

> I always interpreted "Less Wrong" as word-play on how "being right" is an absolute binary

Specifically (AFAIK) a reference to Asimov’s description[1] of the idea:

> [W]hen people thought the earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together.

[1] https://skepticalinquirer.org/1989/10/the-relativity-of-wron...

Re: Guess I'm a rationalist now

#387

Post by mitthrowaway2 »

megaman821 wrote: post #372
kypro wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are few things I hold strong opinions on, but where I do if they're also out of step with what most people think I am very vocal about them. I see this in rationalist spaces too – it doesn't really make sense for people to talk about things that they believe in strongly but that 95%+ of the public also believe in (like the existence of air), or that they don't have a strong opinion on. I am a very vocal doomer…

How confident should other people be that random people in conversation or commentors on the internet are at accurately predicting the future? I strongly believe that nearly 100% are wrong in both major and minor ways. Also, when you say you have a strong belief, does that mean you have emptied you retirement accounts and you are enjoying all you can in the moment until the end comes?

I'm not kypro, but what counts as "strong belief" depends a lot on the context.

For example, I won't cross the street without 99.99% confidence that I will survive. I cross streets so many times that a lower threshold like 99% would look like insanely risky dart-into-traffic behaviour.

If an asteroid is heading for earth, then even a 25% probability of apocalyptic collision is enough that I would call it very high, and spend almost all my focus attempting to prevent that outcome. But I wouldn't empty my retirement account for the sake of hedonism because there's still a 75% chance I make it through and need to plan my retirement.

Re: Guess I'm a rationalist now

#388

Post by flufluflufluffy »

ajkjk wrote: post #355
cassepipe wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read the whole tree of responses under this comment and I could only convince myself that when people have no arguments they try to make you look bad. Most of criticisms are just "But they think they are better than us !" and the rest is "But sometimes they are wrong !" I don't know about the community and couldn't care less but their writings have brought me some almost life saving fresh air in how to think about…

Here's a theory of what's happening, both with you here in this comment section and with the rationalists in general. Humans are generally better at perceiving threats than they are at putting those threats into words. When something seems "dangerous" abstractly, they will come up with words for why---but those words don't necessarily reflect the actual threat, because the threat might be hard to describe. Neverthele…

Holy heck this is so well put and does the exact thing where it puts into words how I feel which is hard for me to do myself.

Re: Guess I'm a rationalist now

#389

Post by dennis_jeeves2 »

gadders wrote: post #292
exoverito wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Human ethnic groups are measurably different in genetic terms, as based on single nucleotide polymorphisms and allelic frequency. There are multiple PCA plots of the 1000 Genomes dataset which show clear cluster separation based on ancestry: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Example-Ancestry-PCA-plo... We know ethnic groups vary in terms of height, hair color, eye color, melanin, bone density, sprinting ability, la…

As we all know, genetics and evolution only apply from the neck down.

True, nature is egalitarian although only intracranialy.

Re: Guess I'm a rationalist now

#390

Post by im3w1l »

troyastorino wrote: post #276
jandrese wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They remind me of the "Effective Altruism" crowd who get completely wound up in these hypothetical logical thought exercises and end up coming to insane conclusions that they feel trapped in because they got there using pure logic. Not realizing that their initial conditions were highly artificial so any conclusion they reach is only of academic value. There is a term for this. "Getting stuck up your own butt." It wo…

The overlap between the Effective Altruism community and the Rationalist community is extremely high. They’re largely the same people. Effective Altruism gained a lot of early attention on LessWrong, and the pessimistic focus on AI existential risk largely stems from an EA desire to avoid “temporal-discounting” bias. The reasoning is something like: if you accept that future people count just as much as current peopl…

I think most everyone can agree with this: Being 100% rigorous and rational, reasoning from first principles and completely discarding received wisdom is a great trait in a philosopher but a terrible trait in a policymaker. Because for the former, exploring ideas for the benefit of future generations is more important than whether they ultimately reach the right conclusion or not.
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