As everyone else says, take “Sequences” out of the title. (“The Sequences: 2006-2009″ is a strong contender for Worst Book Title Ever unless you want no one other than existing LWers to read it, and anyone who has advised you otherwise should never again be asked for book-naming advice.)
“Rationality” is probably too cumbersome a word (possible exception: what if that were the whole title?); “thinking” or “thought” or “reason” might be OK.
“How to Win”? (I worry that that’s dishonest; it’s insufficiently well established so far that rationalists—in the sense of people who think in the ways Eliezer advises—do actually win in the real world.)
“Thinking: right and wrong”? (Riffing off Kahneman’s title, of course. Might be mistaken for a political book—indeed, it wouldn’t be a bad title for a smug conservative/libertarian treatise.)
To my ear (eye), “Thinking: Right and Wrong” sounds like a pretentious high school logic textbook. The effect is more schoolmarmy than bold, confrontational, or crisp. Most of our target audience won’t get the pun, and even many of those who do may be turned off by the suggestion that this Eliezer guy knows the One True Right Way to Think. I’m not saying that’s a reasonable response; I’m saying it’s an unreasonable enough one that the people inclined to have it are probably in more desperate need of the contents of this eBook than are the Kahneman fanboys and fangirls.
Since it’s an ebook, I suggest a set of hashtags or summary keywords that trigger the responses for people to look up themselves, such as “rationality, heuristics, biases, artificial intelligence.”
I really like Thinking: Right and Wrong, but if there is a danger that Right be misconstrued as conservative, then how about a variant? This is my only suggestion and it doesn’t sound as good but there must be better:
As everyone else says, take “Sequences” out of the title. (“The Sequences: 2006-2009″ is a strong contender for Worst Book Title Ever unless you want no one other than existing LWers to read it, and anyone who has advised you otherwise should never again be asked for book-naming advice.)
“Rationality” is probably too cumbersome a word (possible exception: what if that were the whole title?); “thinking” or “thought” or “reason” might be OK.
“How to Win”? (I worry that that’s dishonest; it’s insufficiently well established so far that rationalists—in the sense of people who think in the ways Eliezer advises—do actually win in the real world.)
“Thinking: right and wrong”? (Riffing off Kahneman’s title, of course. Might be mistaken for a political book—indeed, it wouldn’t be a bad title for a smug conservative/libertarian treatise.)
[EDITED to fix a typo.]
Thinking: Right and Wrong
is great.
To my ear (eye), “Thinking: Right and Wrong” sounds like a pretentious high school logic textbook. The effect is more schoolmarmy than bold, confrontational, or crisp. Most of our target audience won’t get the pun, and even many of those who do may be turned off by the suggestion that this Eliezer guy knows the One True Right Way to Think. I’m not saying that’s a reasonable response; I’m saying it’s an unreasonable enough one that the people inclined to have it are probably in more desperate need of the contents of this eBook than are the Kahneman fanboys and fangirls.
I like “Thinking, Right and Wrong”.
Since it’s an ebook, I suggest a set of hashtags or summary keywords that trigger the responses for people to look up themselves, such as “rationality, heuristics, biases, artificial intelligence.”
Another suggestion: “Thinking 001”
I really like Thinking: Right and Wrong, but if there is a danger that Right be misconstrued as conservative, then how about a variant? This is my only suggestion and it doesn’t sound as good but there must be better:
Thinking: Good and Bad
“Thinking: Wrong and Less Wrong”.
… but it’s a bit of an in-joke. Or an in-not-exactly-joke.