What are the good rationality films?

post by Ben Pace (Benito) · 2024-11-20T06:04:56.757Z · LW · GW · 1 comment

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    8 habryka
    4 Ben Pace
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I run a weekly sequences-reading meetup [? · GW] with some friends, and I want to add a film-component, where we watch films that have some tie-in to what we've read.

I got to talking with friends about what good rationality films there are. We had some ideas but I wanted to turn it to LessWrong to find out.

So please, submit your rationalist films! Then we can watch and discuss them :-)

Here are the rules for the thread.

  1. Each answer should have 1 film.
  2. Each answer should explain how the film ties in to rationality.

Optional extra: List some essays in the sequences that the film connects to. Yes, non-sequences posts by other rationalists like Scott Alexander and Robin Hanson are allowed.

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If you are including spoilers for the film, use spoiler tags! Put >! at the start of the paragraph to cover the text, and people can hover-over if they want to read it, like so:

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Answers

answer by habryka · 2024-11-20T06:27:34.609Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

The Truman Show: Great depiction of crisis of faith, noticing your confusion, and generally is about figuring out the truth.

Most relevant sequence posts: Crisis of Faith [LW · GW], Lonely Dissent [LW · GW]

answer by Ben Pace · 2024-11-20T06:32:13.984Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Film: The Big Short

Rationality Tie-in: This is a film about the 2008 Financial Market Crash, and tells the stories of...

...the three groups who noticed it would happen, believed it would happen, and successfully bet on their beliefs. It shows people going through the work of noticing an inconvenient hypothesis, being in an environment where people encouraged them to look away from it, empirically gathering data to test the hypothesis, and interacting with large institutions and bureaucracies that are corrupt and covering up this fact.

I think in most films the main characters of these films would be side-characters, contrarian nerds that the protagonist works with to get the job done, and then he takes the glory. In this story the contrarian nerds are the protagonists, and it's very unpleasant work, but ultimately they have accurate beliefs about the world in a highly adversarial environment.

The Big Short is the filmic equivalent of my spirit-animal.

Rationality writings it is connected to: 

I thought this would be hard, but actually it ties into so much.

  • Lonely Dissent [? · GW]: This film portrays the actual pain and suffering of believing what is true when so much of the world is pressuring you to not believe it, and the truth is itself extremely a lot worse than everyone else believes it to be. Seeing this hopefully helps break your trust in the world to be fine (cf. No Safe Defense, Not Even Science [LW · GW], and Beyond the Reach of God [LW · GW]).
  • Argument Screens Off Authority [? · GW]: Most of the powerful authorities say everything is fine. In this film some of the characters go and empirically test the hypothesis that they are wrong anyway. (Related: Hug the Query [LW · GW], The Proper Use of Humility [? · GW]).
  • Faster Than Science [? · GW]: You need to rely on processes that are faster than waiting for the evidence to become incontrovertible such that everyone is forced to believe it. Yes, you can find out about catastrophes like the housing market crash or FTX by waiting for it all to collapse, but if you want to not face the terrible downfall then you have to notice before it has caused a catastrophe. (Related: Einstein's Arrogance [? · GW], Einstein's Speed [LW · GW])
  • Meditations On Moloch [LW · GW] by Scott Alexander. These men find themselves in a war with Moloch. They win their fight, but the war is lost. (Related: Immoral Mazes [? · GW] by Zvi Mowshowitz.)
↑ comment by TsviBT · 2024-11-20T06:55:05.277Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Cf. Moneyball.

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comment by TsviBT · 2024-11-20T08:25:12.062Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

I'm struggling to think of any. Some runners-up: