Rationality Merchandise - First Set

post by Gleb_Tsipursky · 2015-11-05T06:12:50.943Z · LW · GW · Legacy · 85 comments

Contents

  Links to Clothing with Slogans:
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85 comments

As part of my broader project of promoting rationality to a wide audience, we developed clothing with rationality-themed slogans. This apparel is suited for aspiring rationalists to wear to show their affiliation with rationality, to remind themselves and other aspiring rationalists to improve, and to spread positive memes broadly.

 

My gratitude to all those who gave suggestions about and voted on these slogans, both on LW itself and the LW Facebook group. This is the first set of seven slogans that had the most popular support from Less Wrongers, and more will be coming soon.

 

The apparel is pretty affordable, starting at under $15. All profits will go to funding nonprofit work dedicated to spreading rationality to a broad audience.

 

Links to Clothing with Slogans:

1) Less Wrong Every Day

This slogan conveys a key aspiration of every aspiring rationalist - to grow less wrong every day and have a clearer map of the territory. This is not only a positive meme, but also a clear sign of affiliation with rationality and the Less Wrong community in particular.

 

2) Growing Mentally Stronger

This slogan conveys the broad goal of rationality, namely for its participants to grow mentally stronger. This shirt helps prime the wearer and those around the wearer to focus on growing more rational, both epistemically and instrumentally. It is more broadly accessible than something like "Less Wrong Every Day."

 

3) Living On Purpose

This slogan conveys the intentional nature of how aspiring rationalists live their life, with a clear set of terminal goals and strategies to reach those goals.

 

4) Please Provide An Example

This slogan and its variants received a lot of support from aspiring rationalists tired of discussions and debates with people who talked in broad abstract terms and failed to provide examples. It automatically reminds those who you are talking with, both aspiring rationalists and non-rationalists, to be concrete and specific in their engagement with you, and minimizes wasted airtime and inefficient discussions.

 

5) I Notice I'm Confused

This slogan reminds the wearer and those around the wearer of the vital skill of noticing confusion for growing aware of gaps between one's map and the reality of the territory. Moreover, in field testing this design, this slogan proved especially fruitful for prompting conversations about rationality from those curious about this slogan.

 

6) Glad To Change My Mind

This slogan conveys and reinforces one of the most fundamental aspects of rationality - the eagerness and yearning to change one's mind based on evidence. The slogan is an especially impactful way of conveying rationality broadly, as the sentiment of updating beliefs based on evidence is something that many intelligent people wish for society. Thus, it helps attract intellectually-oriented people into discussions about rationality.

 

7) Changed Your Mind? Achievement Unlocked!

This slogan has the same benefits as the above slogan, except being more outwardly oriented and expressing the message in a more meme-style format.

 

Other ideas for slogans that had support, in no particular order (Note that we limited the number of words to 4 longer words or 7 shorter words to fit on a T-shirt, and some of these combine Effective Altruism and Rationality):

 

• How Much Do You Believe That?
• Reach Your Goals Using Science
• Truth Is Not Partisan
• Glad To Give Citations
• What is True is Already So
• Reality Doesn’t Take Sides
• In Math We Trust
• In Reason We Trust
• Seeking Constructive Feedback
• Make New Mistakes Only
• Constantly Optimizing
• Absence Of Evidence Is Evidence Of Absence
• Rationality: Accurate Beliefs + Winning Decisions
• I Chose This Rationally
• Combining Heart And Head
• Effective Altruism
• Doing the Most Good Per Dollar
• Optimizing QALYs
• Superdonor
• Making My Life Meaningful
• Purpose Comes from Within

 

I would appreciate feedback on the current designs. As you get and wear them, I'd appreciate learning about your experience wearing them, to learn what kind of reaction you get. So far, we've had quite positive reports from our field tests of the merchandise, with good conversations prompted by wearing these slogans.

 

Also, please share which of the additional slogans are your favorites, so we can get them done sooner. If you have additional ideas for slogans, list them in comments below, and remember the guidelines of 4 longer words to 7 short words, and making them accessible to a broad audience to spread rationality memes.

 

Besides clothing, what other kind of merchandise would you like to buy?

 

Look forward to your feedback! If you want to contact me privately about the merchandise or the broader project of spreading rationality to a broad audience, my email is gleb@intentionalinsights.org

 

 

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