Here are some tentative guesses about this whole rationality and success business.
Let’s set aside “rationality” for a minute and talk about mental habits. Everyone seems to agree that having the right habits is key to success, perhaps most famously the author of 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. But if you look at the 7 habits the Covey identifies (“Be Proactive”, “Begin with the End in Mind”, “Put First Things First”, “Think Win/Win”, “Seek First to Understand, Then Be Understood”, “Synergize”, and “Sharpen the Saw”) they don’t look too much like what gets discussed on Less Wrong. So what gives?
I think part of the problem is the standard pattern-matching trap. Perhaps books like Covey’s genuinely do address the factors that the vast majority of people need to work on in order to be more successful. But analytical folks tend not to read these books because
they’re part of a genre that’s sullied its reputation by overpromising
even when they don’t overpromise, analytical people are rarely part of the target audience, and the books do things like give incorrect folk explanations for stuff that actually happens to work (but the analytical people don’t try the stuff because they can tell the stated explanation for why it works is bogus)
they tend to distrust their emotions, and a good part of how the books work, when they do, is by manipulating your emotions to elevate your mood and make it easier for you to get to work or implement changes
analytical people typically manage to figure out stuff up to the level discussed in popular books for themselves, and don’t do further careful study because they’ve written off the genre
So in the same way that pure math grad students are smarter than psychology grad students, even though good psychology research is probably higher-value than good pure math research, Less Wrong has focused on a particular set of mental habits that have the right set of superficial characteristics: mental habits related to figuring out what’s true. But figuring out what’s true isn’t always that important for success. See Goals for which Less Wrong does (and doesn’t) help. (Although the focus has gradually drifted towards more generally useful mental habits since the site’s creation, I think.)
A big problem with addressing these more generally useful habits through the internet is that people who get good enough at applying them are liable to decide that surfing the internet is a waste of time and leave the conversation. I’m quite interested if anyone has any suggestions for dealing with this problem.
So when Holden Karnofsky says something like “rationality is a strong (though not perfect) predictor of success”, maybe he is claiming that mental habits that make you better at figuring out what’s true are actually quite useful in practice. (Or maybe by “rationality” he meains “instrumental rationality”, in which case his statement would be true by definition.) Perhaps the reason Stephen Covey doesn’t write about that stuff is because it’s too advanced or controversial for him or his audience?
(Disclaimer: I haven’t read The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, although I did read the version for teenagers when I was a teenager.)
I really enjoyed The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. (By contrast, I tried reading some @pjeby stuff yesterday and it had all the problems you describe cranked up to 11 and I found it incredibly difficult to keep reading.)
I don’t think the selection bias thing would be a problem if the community was focused on high-priority instrumental rationality techniques, since at any level of effectiveness becoming more effective should be a reasonably high priority. (By contrast, if the community is focused on low-priority techniques it’s not that big a deal (that was my attitude toward OvercomingBias at the beginning) and when it gets focused on stuff like cryo/MWI/FAI I find that an active turnoff.)
I think there’s a decent chance epistemic rationality, ceteris paribus, makes you less likely to be traditionally successful My general impression from talking to very successful people is that very few of them are any good at figuring out what’s true; indeed, they often seem to have set up elaborate defense mechanisms to make sure no one accidentally tells them the truth.
I tried reading some @pjeby stuff yesterday and it had all the problems you describe cranked up to 11
Technically, John was describing the problems of analytical readers, rather than the problems of self-help writers. ;-)
I have noticed, though, that some of my early writing (e.g. 2010 and before) is very polarizing in style: people tend to either love it or hate it, and the “hate it” contingent seems larger on LW than anywhere else.
However, most of the people who’ve previously said on LW that they hate my writing, seemed to enjoy this LW post, so you may find something of use there.
So when Holden Karnofsky says something like “rationality is a strong (though not perfect) predictor of success”, maybe he is claiming that mental habits that make you better at figuring out what’s true are actually quite useful in practice. (Or maybe by “rationality” he meains “instrumental rationality”, in which case his statement would be true by definition.)
Of course, instrumental rationality is not a perfect predictor of success either. There are always stochastic factors with the potential to lead to bad outcomes. How strong a predictor it is depends on the size of such factors.
Here are some tentative guesses about this whole rationality and success business.
Let’s set aside “rationality” for a minute and talk about mental habits. Everyone seems to agree that having the right habits is key to success, perhaps most famously the author of 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. But if you look at the 7 habits the Covey identifies (“Be Proactive”, “Begin with the End in Mind”, “Put First Things First”, “Think Win/Win”, “Seek First to Understand, Then Be Understood”, “Synergize”, and “Sharpen the Saw”) they don’t look too much like what gets discussed on Less Wrong. So what gives?
I think part of the problem is the standard pattern-matching trap. Perhaps books like Covey’s genuinely do address the factors that the vast majority of people need to work on in order to be more successful. But analytical folks tend not to read these books because
they’re part of a genre that’s sullied its reputation by overpromising
even when they don’t overpromise, analytical people are rarely part of the target audience, and the books do things like give incorrect folk explanations for stuff that actually happens to work (but the analytical people don’t try the stuff because they can tell the stated explanation for why it works is bogus)
they tend to distrust their emotions, and a good part of how the books work, when they do, is by manipulating your emotions to elevate your mood and make it easier for you to get to work or implement changes
analytical people typically manage to figure out stuff up to the level discussed in popular books for themselves, and don’t do further careful study because they’ve written off the genre
So in the same way that pure math grad students are smarter than psychology grad students, even though good psychology research is probably higher-value than good pure math research, Less Wrong has focused on a particular set of mental habits that have the right set of superficial characteristics: mental habits related to figuring out what’s true. But figuring out what’s true isn’t always that important for success. See Goals for which Less Wrong does (and doesn’t) help. (Although the focus has gradually drifted towards more generally useful mental habits since the site’s creation, I think.)
A big problem with addressing these more generally useful habits through the internet is that people who get good enough at applying them are liable to decide that surfing the internet is a waste of time and leave the conversation. I’m quite interested if anyone has any suggestions for dealing with this problem.
So when Holden Karnofsky says something like “rationality is a strong (though not perfect) predictor of success”, maybe he is claiming that mental habits that make you better at figuring out what’s true are actually quite useful in practice. (Or maybe by “rationality” he meains “instrumental rationality”, in which case his statement would be true by definition.) Perhaps the reason Stephen Covey doesn’t write about that stuff is because it’s too advanced or controversial for him or his audience?
(Disclaimer: I haven’t read The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, although I did read the version for teenagers when I was a teenager.)
I really enjoyed The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. (By contrast, I tried reading some @pjeby stuff yesterday and it had all the problems you describe cranked up to 11 and I found it incredibly difficult to keep reading.)
I don’t think the selection bias thing would be a problem if the community was focused on high-priority instrumental rationality techniques, since at any level of effectiveness becoming more effective should be a reasonably high priority. (By contrast, if the community is focused on low-priority techniques it’s not that big a deal (that was my attitude toward OvercomingBias at the beginning) and when it gets focused on stuff like cryo/MWI/FAI I find that an active turnoff.)
I think there’s a decent chance epistemic rationality, ceteris paribus, makes you less likely to be traditionally successful My general impression from talking to very successful people is that very few of them are any good at figuring out what’s true; indeed, they often seem to have set up elaborate defense mechanisms to make sure no one accidentally tells them the truth.
Technically, John was describing the problems of analytical readers, rather than the problems of self-help writers. ;-)
I have noticed, though, that some of my early writing (e.g. 2010 and before) is very polarizing in style: people tend to either love it or hate it, and the “hate it” contingent seems larger on LW than anywhere else.
However, most of the people who’ve previously said on LW that they hate my writing, seemed to enjoy this LW post, so you may find something of use there.
It’s the …
INFOMERCIAL STYLE!
… of formatting. Doesn’t work for everyone ;-)
Of course, instrumental rationality is not a perfect predictor of success either. There are always stochastic factors with the potential to lead to bad outcomes. How strong a predictor it is depends on the size of such factors.