There’s too much individualism in the current LessWrong rationality. I remember a folk tale I read, describing the adventures of two individuals named something like Solves-Problems-By-Himself and Asks-Others-For-Help. Given the task of preserving meat from rotting, the former shielded the meat from the sun with large leaves and dripped water on it. The latter gave away the meat in exchange for an identical piece delivered at the end of the contest.
It was sort of cultural-shock jarring to me when I read it, because “obviously” producing the “identical” piece shouldn’t be counted as having preserved the original. But we have too many lone-hero-genius stories, and not enough “so-and-so was stumped so he asked his sister” sort of stories.
There’s too much individualism in the current LessWrong rationality. I remember a folk tale I read, describing the adventures of two individuals named something like Solves-Problems-By-Himself and Asks-Others-For-Help. Given the task of preserving meat from rotting, the former shielded the meat from the sun with large leaves and dripped water on it. The latter gave away the meat in exchange for an identical piece delivered at the end of the contest.
It was sort of cultural-shock jarring to me when I read it, because “obviously” producing the “identical” piece shouldn’t be counted as having preserved the original. But we have too many lone-hero-genius stories, and not enough “so-and-so was stumped so he asked his sister” sort of stories.