Leveling Up in Rationality: A Personal Journey

I agree: this post felt like a self-congratulatory collection of applause lights. (I wonder if the habit of linking to previous posts every other word is an indicator of this. Most people aren't going to follow those links, they're just going to think, "Ah yes, a link to a Sequence post. That must be an accepted thing!")

I also think there's a worrying tendency towards ideology here. Luke suggests that "levelling up" in rationality led him to a bunch of beliefs, which are, coincidentally, fairly widely accepted views around here. Cue a round of back-slapping as we all congratulate ourselves on how rational we are.

But rationality doesn't necessarily lead you anywhere: the evidence should do that. And if the evidence starts pointing somewhere else, you should move. And so I'm a bit wary of the tendency to draw too close a link between any particular beliefs and rationality. You never want to be in the situation where you're trying to persuade someone of your views and you find yourself saying "But it's the rational thing to believe!" instead of presenting the evidence.

Also: hints of the No True Scotsman fallacy.

When genuine curiosity tore down those walls, it didn't take long for the implications of my atheism to propagate.

Woe betide you who don't come to the same conclusions as Luke: your curiousity clearly isn't genuine!

Now this may all sound a bit harsh, but frankly I really wish Luke would stop writing posts like this and start doing some hard-headed thinking about some actual problems.

I don't necessarily think that this post was written in the same spirit as the previous one. 'Can the Chain Still Hold You' was one of lukeprog's more abstract, ideology-related posts, whereas this one, though it may be 'yay, rationality', is at least very specific in what it's yay-ing about.

I disagree. The previous post spoke in parables about animals with questionable applicability to humans, this one said "here is what I did to pop out of my Evangelical bubble and make my life better."

I'm usually confused by these kinds of comments. Reflections on rationality a year out had even less content and was less well-written and less detailed, but was massively upvoted. Kevin hit the nail on the head with his comment on my Existential Risk post:

I'd like to point out some lukeprog fatigue here, if anyone else wrote this article it would have way more points by now.

Also, this is a personal contribution to the long-running "What good is rationality?" discussion on LessWrong.

I wouldn't call Can the Chain Still Hold You? a "Yay rationality" post; more just generally inspirational. But yeah, I'm with you.

Fittingly, this website provides several examples of how even when talking about rationality, we (humans) still have a tendency to lapse. One of the most annoying: most of the metaethics sequence seems to be designed to make the reader feel good about Yudkowsky's metaethical position, rather than argue for it and/or explain it.

(acknowledging that Kaj only said his posting exudes a vibe, not that the vibe reveals his actual state)

I don't have any reason to suspect lukeprog of overconfidence or overexuberance. He really is more successful and happy than he'd have been without thinking about how to optimize both, and then acting on those thoughts. It's been a long time now; illusions would have crashed.

If you're forgiving enough of yourself, it doesn't grate as much to hear someone congratulating themselves. It's annoying when someone wastes time by falsely signaling their great success via some questionable method, but I've noticed that when I feel under-appreciated by others, I can become excessively skeptical about others' bragging. (apologies if the psychoanalysis isn't relevant to you; it definitely is to me).

The antidote to excessive cheerleading is more focused, concrete advice toward the 5-second end of the spectrum. If you're encouraging luke to mix it up, I'd agree, in that it's probably best for all of us, whether or not we're posting. Too much thinking for too long at a high level of abstraction can become self-rewarding and divorced from reality.

I like this post personally, and as well as being enjoyable to read I think it can serve two practical purposes:

• It provides a useful starting point for people entering the community who aren't already aware of the ideas discussed, and points them towards further reading. Its easy to forget how common the question "whats the point of being rational" really is. Providing evidence that we can provide something more than philosophical masturbation is a good thing for attracting people into the community.

• Its also nice to be reminded occasionally that this all has a point and a purpose, particularly when one loses focus or hope. Personally Its reminded me of what I've gained and what more I have to do.

I agree. Whatever the reason is for me being annoyed or uncomfortable about lukeprog's writing on occasion is probably not because it is Applause Lights. It may even be that he is following Best Practices and I should just adjust to it.

On the other hand, I think I get the feeling that when someone links to something external, they are trying to activate a cognitive shortcut. It's like being fast-talked by a car salesman, I'm being given a reference instead of a whole concept. I'm afraid that I will accept something without actually forming a complete mental model of it. I get the same sensation when someone uses footnote references to something that is unexplained or not apparent.

That's the problem with scholarship -- it can be tricky to recreate an idea in the mind of another, because the other mind needs time to adjust to whatever you adjusted to. So if you dump something large and complex on someone it can end up seeming like an appeal to authority, even when there are good reasons -- because a good reason usually needs time and deliberate attention to be understood.

Also, one has to keep in mind that having dependencies on many sources can make something less persuasive -- say you have five sources that independently seem 90% persuasive -- your result now only seems 59% persuasive.

On an unrelated note, it is kind of weird to me when people use lukeprog's first name instead of complete username because it is also my first name (and a couple other LWers.) This may just be because Luke is a kind of uncommon name, and I have not previously had to get used to it referring to someone else.

What Tim Ferris has nailed is goal-directed behavior. He's a master of instrumental rationality, in many ways.

I'll chime in to support Tim Ferriss. I read the 4-Hour Workweek in college and started a few businesses based on the model he described. One of them worked fairly well and is now my primary source of (largely passive) income. I've also had excellent results from the 4-Hour Body.

More generally, his general writings on "lifestyle design" (basically applied Epicureanism) are a great if not really mind-blowing source of insight. He is a fantastic salesmen, but being good at sales is actually not a bad or scummy thing, in my opinion. He has helped a lot of people, (like me) and I think he deserves credit for that.

Ferris strikes me as a master instrumental rationalist, but not necessarily a great purveyor of advice. Everything he does seems well-optimized to enhance his own reputation. The main purpose of his advice is to make him look like a guru rather than level up his readers. Ferris is a good example (substituting in your own values, unless you also want to be seen as a badass guru), if not a great teacher.

I have mixed feelings about Tim Ferriss. His books have plenty of legitimate advice, but he tends to understate the difficult of doing the things he talks about because "X made easy" is better for selling books than "how to do X effectively if you're willing to put a ton of work into it for long-term payoffs."

What do you mean by "scummy"?

I, too, like this post for it's value in pointing others to when trying to explain the value of rationality.

This has been discussed before, but linking to the Sequences and saying "read that" always feels like a dodge to me, so I find real value in this post.

It seems like part of what that lukeprog has to do is balance between the regular readers of this site and new(ish) readers of this site.

What were the reactions of your friends?

Yes, I think it's possible to be good and learned in philosophy. "Learned" (LURN-EDD) presumably means something like "Knows about lots of philosophers and their arguments." "Good" presumably means something like "consistently gets correct or improved answers on tough philosophical problems." Being a good philosopher is more important than be a learned philosopher, but most universities focus on producing philosophers that are learned but not good.

I've been prototyping a "fitocracy" equivalent for intellectual tasks but its self reporting rather than accreditted. Its mainly for my own amusement at the moment, but have been thinking of trying to set it up properly.