As a contrarian rationalist, I can assure you that my attitudes are the results of my personality & upbringing, not some bold brave conscious decision. I was always different, enough that conforming wouldn’t have worked, so finding true & interesting & positive-attention-capturing ways to be different was my best path. The result is that I’m biased towards contrarian theses, which I think is useful for improving group rationality in most cases, but still isn’t rational.
As a contrarian rationalist, I can assure you that my attitudes are the results of my personality & upbringing, not some bold brave conscious decision. I was always different, enough that conforming wouldn’t have worked, so finding true & interesting & positive-attention-capturing ways to be different was my best path. The result is that I’m biased towards contrarian theses, which I think is useful for improving group rationality in most cases, but still isn’t rational.