Less Wrong/Rationality Symbol or Seal?

I found a picture, and not many agreed with my views below, so here it is.

For reasons related to clippy.

I couldn't find a picture, but I have a badge somewhere so someone has a picture.

But then... lots are upvoting this symbol, maybe some might want to do their own interpretation... I bet it would be better if they don't see the original first ;-)

I didn't mean to suggest there's anything wrong with identifying as part of an online community. I just don't don't think we should identify commitment to rationality with outward displays of membership in any given community. It seems to me like committing to rationality is the sort of thing you do while reading a book, not the sort of thing you do while walking around in a mall.

Even so, though, in my opinion people should in general be careful about trying to turn this place into too much of a subculture. There are a lot of people it would alienate to varying degrees, myself included.

Please, no! A paperclip symbol has worse (purely abstract philosophical) connotations than a swastika!

This is hilarious.

Sorry, I will fix that.

Saying "It is important to me to be rational," shows that it is important to me to to say "It is important for me to be rational," so the words show most strongly that it is important to me to seem like rationality is important to me, even though the words mean that rationality is important to me.

So if I put on my business cards "I am committed to rationality", I display a commitment to seeming to be committed to rationality, and this thing I am actually showing my commitment to is describable as "rationality".

If I don't have much of a commitment to rationality but do have a commitment to "rationality", then I only have the appearance of a commitment to actual rationality. This isn't a commitment, it is a "commitment".

If I don't actually put anything on my business cards and merely say it's a good idea and that I will do it, I'm not truly committed to "rationality", i.e. seeming rational. So I only have a false commitment to "rationality", a "commitment" to it.

The problem with icons and other speech is that saying words with meanings merely expresses that meaning, it doesn't embody it, though it does embody a different meaning. This is why no icon can express a commitment to rationality, only behaving in certain ways can, with behavior including speech.

If one is going to a bar, a photo ID embodies a commitment to rationality, and if one is in a cash only toll lane, money embodies a commitment to rationality; an icon designed to express rationality usually won't embody it outside of artificial scenarios such as one in which a crazy person is going around kicking everyone without the icon.

"I'm wearing this t-shirt for the signalling."

I agree. I would buy a lesswrong shirt or even one with the SIAI logo. I would prefer if the shirts were sold on/linked from the SIAI website though, so that lesswrong doesn't seem/become commercial.

I have this bizarre preference that SIAI stuff be sold on the SIAI website and lesswrong stuff be sold on the lesswrong website so that the two maintain a healthy distance!

SIAI shirts and stuff on Zazzle.

Well yeah - it's math. And unlabeled math at that. It's practically a secret handshake.

But without the unifying idea of how an ideally rational agent works, which isn't easy for everyone to understand, rationality is a collection of tips and funny stories, difficult to find a visual for. Perhaps a visual illustrating an obvious, measured failure of rationality would work. But that would still require words, and so would be out of place in other contexts with words, like business cards.

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