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?
- The Craft & The Community—A Post-Mortem & Resurrection.
- Self-Improvement or Shiny Distraction: Why Less Wrong is anti-Instrumental Rationality.
Tags: rationality.