Why don’t rationalists win more?
The following list comes from a presentation I gave at a Slate Star Codex meetup in 2018.
Possible factors
- Thinkers vs. doers: selection effects [1] and a mutually-reinforcing tendency to talk instead of doing [2].
- Theoretical models spread without selection [2].
- Inability and unwillingness to cooperate [2].
- People who are more interested in instrumental rationality leave the community [2].
- Focusing on the future leads to a lack of immediate plans [2].
- Pessimism due to a focus on problems [1].
- Success mostly depends on specific skills, not general rationality [1].
- Online communities are fundamentally incapable of increasing instrumental rationality (“a chair about jogging”) [3].
Sources
- “Why Don’t Rationalists Win?” Adam Zerner. 2015.
- “The Craft & The Community—A Post-Mortem & Resurrection”. bendini. 2017.
- “Self-Improvement or Shiny Distraction: Why Less Wrong is anti-Instrumental Rationality”. Patri Friedman. 2010.
See also
- “What Is Rationalist Berkeley’s Community Culture?”. Zvi Mowshowitz. 2017.
- “Slack Club”. The Last Rationalist. 2019.
- “Where are All the Successful Rationalists?” Applied Divinity Studies. 2020.