The best cure against such prideful attitudes is to ask yourself what you have to show in terms of practical accomplishments and status if you’re so much more rational and intellectually advanced than ordinary people. If they are so stupid and delusional to be deserving of such intolerance and contempt, then an enlightened and intellectually superior person should be able to run circles around them and easily come out on top, no?
Now, if you actually have extremely high status and extraordinary accomplishments, then I guess you can justify your attitudes of contemptuous superiority. (Although an even higher status is gained by cultivating attitudes of aristocratic generosity and noblesse oblige.) If not, however, and if you’re really good at “losing to evidence,” as you put it, this consideration should be enough to make your attitudes more humble.
I don’t think it follows from being “more rational and intellectually advanced” that you would be more accomplished and have higher status. This is especially true if you’re surrounded by incompetents. For example, how would a rational person achieve high status if the majority of people making status judgments are irrational? To “run circles around them” by exploiting their foolishness would require such a high-level of understanding of human psychology that it far out strips merely being “more rational and intellectually advanced.” It’s quite possible (perhaps likely) that greater intelligence and rationality would be a huge detriment in a society of incompetents. This would be true until science progressed to the point that we had a complete enough understanding of psychology to exploit or reform them. There’s nothing in rationality that makes a rational person automatically able to understand and exploit the irrational.
The kind of “rationality” we’re talking about is the kind that lets you win. If I notice that there are people who have more money than me, are happier than me, have better friends and friendships than me, are more able to achieve their goals — who acquired all those things through virtue or behaving a particular way, and not by chance — and if I haven’t bothered to determine what those virtues and behaviors are, and whether they tend to actually work, and how I can implement them myself — why, then, I’m not such a hotshot rationalist after all.
I’m talking about winning. In practical terms, I don’t think anyone is going succeed in making great strides in success or status in general society without acquiring a great deal of knowledge about human psychology, so I doubt that winning will look like social or economic success in the short-term. I think when you speak of those “who acquired all those things through virtue or behaving a particular way, and not by chance” you betray a false dichotomy. Those aren’t the only two options. The third option is that the game is rigged.
We live in a society that intentionally confines “winning” to a small, highly-controlled, socially maligned group so that its fruits can be exploited by the larger majority who are unconcerned with such things. It’s more than an issue of what individuals do and do not do, our society and its institutions are designed to reward and punish behaviour in a way that’s at odds with rationality. Doing well in our society is indeed a product of “behaving in a particular” way in the most general sense of that term but is not a factor of anyone doing anything one could simply learn to do or do better.
The only way to find success in our situation is by understanding human psychology at a deep level and having a much fuller operational understanding of it than we have now. It would be either a process of extreme reform (i.e., replacing the whole of society) or one of exploitation and subterfuge (essentially treating people as a means to an end).
We live in a society that intentionally confines “winning” to a small, highly-controlled, socially maligned group so that its fruits can be exploited by the larger majority who are unconcerned with such things.
This sentence makes me think that we’re probably talking about entirely different things. I indicated in the grandparent that I consider people who are wealthy and happy and who have good friends to be “winning”; I don’t believe such people are maligned; surely the opposite is the case. Perhaps we’re talking about different things.
Presumably you consider “winning” a self-directed act, so not everybody who is wealthy, happy and has good friends is necessarily a winner, they can also get lucky or be favoured in a rigged game. Furthermore, the majority of people, even the ones who have lived arguably self-directed lives, did not do so in the methodical way we’re proposing to do so. Living a good life is, typically, a non-transferrable skill. “Winning”, as I interpret it, is about creating a transferrable skill for achieving such goals. It’s about identifying the things you or somebody like you need do to achieve such goals in a systematic way. What you, as a rationalist, would do in order to win is not necessarily the same as what those people you hold as exemplars of the state you hope to achieve have done. People who live good lives aren’t maligned, that’s true, but people who pursue goals in a systematic, transferable way are maligned.
I agree that ultimately the outcome should be to be wealthy, happy, socially successful, etc. I simply disagree on how easy that is. If somebody came to me and told me they’ve made great strides in rationality, I wouldn’t expect them to be rich and happy and to have the best of friends. I wouldn’t expect them to have made great scientific breakthroughs. I’d expect them to have something to show for it but I’d expect that it would be a modest accomplishment and likely only recognised by their peers. I suspect if we took a poll on Less Wrong—if we could agree on who are the best rationalists and tallied up their achievements—those achievements would be in line with my expectations.
Why is this? Because most success in our society is much more like, say, becoming a successful politician than becoming a successful athlete. One might suppose that I can become a successful athlete, given the right genes, simply by training hard and being acknowledged for my skill. But to become a successful politician I’d have to pretend to be somebody I’m not almost every waking moment of my life. That’s what I mean by committing subterfuge in a rigged game. Many rationalists appear to think everything in life is like becoming a successful athlete—I can just look at what other people do and do that or do it better—but I think that’s wrong. Almost everything is like becoming a successful politician. I need to look at what other people do, figure out what is salient in their behaviour and then find a way to exploit it to my own ends in an environment where rationality (i.e. systemic, transferable pursuit of a goal) is maligned or even punished, and that’s a hard problem. That’s a problem that involves considerably more advanced knowledge of human psychology than we have now.
You are right that being more rational doesn’t automatically imply the ability to exploit others. But this may miss the point. Loup-vaillant says not that he is more rational than the others, but that he feels superior because of that. Although rationality and intelligence aren’t directly linked to status, the superiority feeling is part of the status game, and feeling superior when one’s status is about average can be viewed as a sort of false belief.
There’s more than one status game though. For example, a high status scientist might nonetheless have a low social status generally, especially if his or her high status is in an esoteric field. Wouldn’t it make sense for a rational person to reject the status judgments of the irrational and instead look for status among his peers? We might expect loup-vaillant to have some accomplishments that would set him apart from the irrational masses in the eyes of his peers—that he’s not all talk—but I doubt this would set the bar very high. He’d then be free to feel superior to most people.
It’s possible to feel superior to most people because you can recite Koran by heart even if you are a homeless beggar. It’s possible to feel superior because you can solve a Rubik’s cube faster than anybody else. There will always be some peers who would award you high status for unusual accomplishments. If that’s what you want, there are hardly any objections to be made. But from my experience, the superiority feeling quickly fades away when I realise that it is based on status game which the “inferiors” don’t wish to participate in.
I did not interpret his article as “I am superior to all”, but as “Help, I act as I am superior to all!”. I probably got that totally wrong, though, as like most of the times.
Unfortunately, those two are related. My acting superior generally comes from a genuine feeling of being right. And it happen often enough to raise alarm bells even I can hear.
The best cure against such prideful attitudes is to ask yourself what you have to show in terms of practical accomplishments and status if you’re so much more rational and intellectually advanced than ordinary people. If they are so stupid and delusional to be deserving of such intolerance and contempt, then an enlightened and intellectually superior person should be able to run circles around them and easily come out on top, no?
Now, if you actually have extremely high status and extraordinary accomplishments, then I guess you can justify your attitudes of contemptuous superiority. (Although an even higher status is gained by cultivating attitudes of aristocratic generosity and noblesse oblige.) If not, however, and if you’re really good at “losing to evidence,” as you put it, this consideration should be enough to make your attitudes more humble.
I don’t think it follows from being “more rational and intellectually advanced” that you would be more accomplished and have higher status. This is especially true if you’re surrounded by incompetents. For example, how would a rational person achieve high status if the majority of people making status judgments are irrational? To “run circles around them” by exploiting their foolishness would require such a high-level of understanding of human psychology that it far out strips merely being “more rational and intellectually advanced.” It’s quite possible (perhaps likely) that greater intelligence and rationality would be a huge detriment in a society of incompetents. This would be true until science progressed to the point that we had a complete enough understanding of psychology to exploit or reform them. There’s nothing in rationality that makes a rational person automatically able to understand and exploit the irrational.
Analyse their status assessing mechanism.
Find exploits and hacks.
Munchkin …uh… I mean optimize away.
(profit?)
The kind of “rationality” we’re talking about is the kind that lets you win. If I notice that there are people who have more money than me, are happier than me, have better friends and friendships than me, are more able to achieve their goals — who acquired all those things through virtue or behaving a particular way, and not by chance — and if I haven’t bothered to determine what those virtues and behaviors are, and whether they tend to actually work, and how I can implement them myself — why, then, I’m not such a hotshot rationalist after all.
I’d agree that mere Traditional Rationality may not help one get ahead.
I’m talking about winning. In practical terms, I don’t think anyone is going succeed in making great strides in success or status in general society without acquiring a great deal of knowledge about human psychology, so I doubt that winning will look like social or economic success in the short-term. I think when you speak of those “who acquired all those things through virtue or behaving a particular way, and not by chance” you betray a false dichotomy. Those aren’t the only two options. The third option is that the game is rigged.
We live in a society that intentionally confines “winning” to a small, highly-controlled, socially maligned group so that its fruits can be exploited by the larger majority who are unconcerned with such things. It’s more than an issue of what individuals do and do not do, our society and its institutions are designed to reward and punish behaviour in a way that’s at odds with rationality. Doing well in our society is indeed a product of “behaving in a particular” way in the most general sense of that term but is not a factor of anyone doing anything one could simply learn to do or do better.
The only way to find success in our situation is by understanding human psychology at a deep level and having a much fuller operational understanding of it than we have now. It would be either a process of extreme reform (i.e., replacing the whole of society) or one of exploitation and subterfuge (essentially treating people as a means to an end).
This sentence makes me think that we’re probably talking about entirely different things. I indicated in the grandparent that I consider people who are wealthy and happy and who have good friends to be “winning”; I don’t believe such people are maligned; surely the opposite is the case. Perhaps we’re talking about different things.
Presumably you consider “winning” a self-directed act, so not everybody who is wealthy, happy and has good friends is necessarily a winner, they can also get lucky or be favoured in a rigged game. Furthermore, the majority of people, even the ones who have lived arguably self-directed lives, did not do so in the methodical way we’re proposing to do so. Living a good life is, typically, a non-transferrable skill. “Winning”, as I interpret it, is about creating a transferrable skill for achieving such goals. It’s about identifying the things you or somebody like you need do to achieve such goals in a systematic way. What you, as a rationalist, would do in order to win is not necessarily the same as what those people you hold as exemplars of the state you hope to achieve have done. People who live good lives aren’t maligned, that’s true, but people who pursue goals in a systematic, transferable way are maligned.
I agree that ultimately the outcome should be to be wealthy, happy, socially successful, etc. I simply disagree on how easy that is. If somebody came to me and told me they’ve made great strides in rationality, I wouldn’t expect them to be rich and happy and to have the best of friends. I wouldn’t expect them to have made great scientific breakthroughs. I’d expect them to have something to show for it but I’d expect that it would be a modest accomplishment and likely only recognised by their peers. I suspect if we took a poll on Less Wrong—if we could agree on who are the best rationalists and tallied up their achievements—those achievements would be in line with my expectations.
Why is this? Because most success in our society is much more like, say, becoming a successful politician than becoming a successful athlete. One might suppose that I can become a successful athlete, given the right genes, simply by training hard and being acknowledged for my skill. But to become a successful politician I’d have to pretend to be somebody I’m not almost every waking moment of my life. That’s what I mean by committing subterfuge in a rigged game. Many rationalists appear to think everything in life is like becoming a successful athlete—I can just look at what other people do and do that or do it better—but I think that’s wrong. Almost everything is like becoming a successful politician. I need to look at what other people do, figure out what is salient in their behaviour and then find a way to exploit it to my own ends in an environment where rationality (i.e. systemic, transferable pursuit of a goal) is maligned or even punished, and that’s a hard problem. That’s a problem that involves considerably more advanced knowledge of human psychology than we have now.
You are right that being more rational doesn’t automatically imply the ability to exploit others. But this may miss the point. Loup-vaillant says not that he is more rational than the others, but that he feels superior because of that. Although rationality and intelligence aren’t directly linked to status, the superiority feeling is part of the status game, and feeling superior when one’s status is about average can be viewed as a sort of false belief.
There’s more than one status game though. For example, a high status scientist might nonetheless have a low social status generally, especially if his or her high status is in an esoteric field. Wouldn’t it make sense for a rational person to reject the status judgments of the irrational and instead look for status among his peers? We might expect loup-vaillant to have some accomplishments that would set him apart from the irrational masses in the eyes of his peers—that he’s not all talk—but I doubt this would set the bar very high. He’d then be free to feel superior to most people.
It’s possible to feel superior to most people because you can recite Koran by heart even if you are a homeless beggar. It’s possible to feel superior because you can solve a Rubik’s cube faster than anybody else. There will always be some peers who would award you high status for unusual accomplishments. If that’s what you want, there are hardly any objections to be made. But from my experience, the superiority feeling quickly fades away when I realise that it is based on status game which the “inferiors” don’t wish to participate in.
I did not interpret his article as “I am superior to all”, but as “Help, I act as I am superior to all!”. I probably got that totally wrong, though, as like most of the times.
Unfortunately, those two are related. My acting superior generally comes from a genuine feeling of being right. And it happen often enough to raise alarm bells even I can hear.