Rationalist house

There is a term for unconventional strategies outside of behavioural norms that provide benefits: positive deviance. It's also a catchy and awesome-sounding term that, in the unlikely event of this concept ever making it to air, wouldn't tar the term "rationalist" with connotations of not showering, goo diets, and saying whatever unfiltered thought passes through your mind.

That said, I like this as an intellectual exercise, so:

• Ergonomics (standing desks, DVORAK, Vibram Five-Fingers, etc.)
• Quantified Self
• Nootropics / biohacking
• Time-management / productivity

Outsiders will probably see this as a show about stupid people who fall for random fads, because it's not widely known that this particular set of fads is somehow associated with "rationality".

My aim was to have each episode straw man a rationality behaviour and then steelman it. Where by the end of the episode it saves the day; makes someone happy; achieves a goal - or some other .

A Disney-like educational show for grown ups? I'm under the impression that this kind of plot works well for children shows, but isn't exactly interesting to an adult audience. Relevant TVTropes links: Anvilicious, Author Tract, Eigen Plot, Asspull, and of course Mary Sue.

Moreover, even if the show turns out to be entertaining, there is a very real chance to screw it up into a freak show and tar the word "rationality" much like Ayn Rand tarred the word "objective".
Steelmanning the weird "rationalist" habits you listed in a convincing way would quite difficult, given that most of them are indeed questionable practices.

The first thing I thought of when I read this is Chris Traeger from Parks and Recreation, who is for being health conscious what Ron Swanson is for being libertarian. (In general, Parks and Rec has a very friendly way of being over the top, which I think is a huge part of its appeal.)

I wonder what inhabitants of actual rationalist houses have to say about this.

Can it be MealSquares instead of Soylent? :D

As an experienced writer and someone who has experience in TV and Film I can say that this concept would really work especially if you had a different scenario each episode and then also had a cast of characters who represented different spectrums of rational living. So for example:

Character A: Biohacker Character B: Quantified Self Character C: Time efficiency expert

and so on, find someone who has taken up a particular area of rationalist living and then create your scenarios:

Ergonomics (I love my Vibrams please and thank you!) Quantified Self Time Efficiency Consciousness Bio-showering Sleep cycles Religion/atheist

Then each week you would have your characters explore each area from their unique perspective and watch the fun. The test would be not only to highlight the different way that people live but also what they decide to adopt as apart of their rationalist thinking. You could take the characters to different experts that would teach them how to live in that manner and then give them a challenge. So for example:

Week 1: Bio-showers Characters go to a bio-shower expert and learn to bio shower. Characters then live 3 days on only bio-showering after extreme physical activity, sedentary activity, and medium intensity activity and after bio-showering then going to close quarters environments like a library, a subway/bus, or a store. Then track the reactions of people and how it all works out.

You could also find out how far the characters are willing to go to live a fully rational life. Cut in some personal interviews and you have a show. I would recommend 6 characters with 3 men and 3 women.

Feel free to contact....

Doesn't Big Bang Theory already exist?

Come on, the audience will decide they are crazy anyway. Why not have fun with it? Like, a bunch of would-be superheroes without special powers live in the same house. They all agree that the world can be optimized and that it is not really important to be given credit for it, they agree that they have to have a platform of beliefs to start from, and a Bayesian way of updating the beliefs, and regular reviews...

And the rest of the show is them trying to live up to their goals, with lots and lots of failure and rare but joyful victories. Like, one of them wants to do charity, selects an (interesting though weird) homeless person to help and accidentally creeps the homeless out. (Insert a self-defense scene, police, parents whoddon't understand but want their rationalist kid be happy, because if only s/he were happy s/he would not do this kind of stupid stuff.) In the end, have the rationalist just as accidentally, for him/her, invent effective altruism. (Maybe when s/he is being bailed out by comrades.)

Because it's not exactly about soylent, is it?

If you are still looking for collaborators of any nature to work on this project, please send me a message. I'd be interested in talking with you to see if there is any way I could contribute.

What's this not showering thing? I've never heard of that one.