What are rationalists worst at?

post by Gordon Seidoh Worley (gworley) · 2022-04-06T23:00:08.600Z · LW · GW · No comments

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    26 Evenflair
    8 Rubix
    7 ChristianKl
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If we want to become stronger [? · GW], not just individually but as a community, it's worth checking in on what things we're worst at so we can pay attention to those things and become better at them. So, what are the things that LessWrong-style rationalists are worst at on average as of now?

Bonus points if you have concrete interventions to suggest for getting better at those things.

Answers

answer by [deleted] · 2022-04-07T04:07:13.170Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Coordination.

answer by Rubix · 2022-04-06T23:24:10.777Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

I'm not sure if I'm a Less Wrong-style rationalist, but I feel unequipped to speak to anyone else's weaknesses!

Among the things I'm bad at, here's a few things that get me camaraderie-about-being-bad-at-things from other rationalists:

  • deliberately being present in the moment, for many moments in a row, as a persistent life habit
  • engaging productively with doctors about my medical problems
  • procuring and eating good food that makes me happy
  • presenting myself with approachable confidence in social interactions

Edit: of these four, I have more of a lead on the first; I think Logan's naturalism studies have a lot more to teach me. (https://www.lesswrong.com/s/evLkoqsbi79AnM5sz [? · GW] , https://www.loganstrohl.com/nature-study)

↑ comment by ChristianKl · 2022-04-07T12:58:31.328Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

When it comes to the first three I would expect that people in our community are more extreme on average. Some people focused attention on getting good on those points.

The average LessWronger probably meditates more than the average person. 

answer by ChristianKl · 2022-04-07T13:01:51.505Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

From my local community and also from what I see online about the wider community, it seems that we are generally bad at networking. 

In most cases, if I need a professional, I don't have good recommendations from fellow rationalists about where I should go. 

A meta-problem might be that we are bad at thinking about trust. We are generally quite open to interacting with people without them having to put in a lot of work to demonstrate that they are trustworthy but on the other hand we often don't know how to tell whether we should recommend one person to fellow rationalists. 

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