I fail to see how finding more already-rationalists with a track record would benefit LW specifically*, unless those individuals are public figures of some renown that can attract public attention to LW and related organisations or can directly contribute content, insight and training methods. Perhaps I’m just missing some evidence here, but my priors place the usefulness of already-rationalists within the same error margin as non-rationalists who are public figures that would bother to read / post on LW.
Paying attention to (rationalists with track records outside rationality)** seems like it would be mostly useful for demonstrating to aware but uninterested/unconvinced people that training rationality and “raising the sanity waterline” are effective strategies that do have real-world usefulness outside “philosophical”*** word problems.
* Any more than, say, anyone else or people with any visible track record who are also public figures.
** Perhaps someone could coin a term for this? It seems like a personspace subgroup relevant enough to have a less annoying label. Perhaps something playing on Beisutsukai or a variation of the Masked Hero imagery?
*** Used here in the layman’s definition of “philosophical”: airy, cloud-head, idealist, based on pretty assumptions and “clean” models where everything just works the way it’s “supposed to” rather than how-things-are-in-real-life. AKA the “Philosophy is a stupid waste of time” view.
I think the idea here is to find people who have found the types of rationality that lead to actual life success—found a replicable method for succeeding at things. Such an individual is expected to be a rationalist and to have a track record of achievement.
I fail to see how finding more already-rationalists with a track record would benefit LW specifically*, unless those individuals are public figures of some renown that can attract public attention to LW and related organisations or can directly contribute content, insight and training methods. Perhaps I’m just missing some evidence here, but my priors place the usefulness of already-rationalists within the same error margin as non-rationalists who are public figures that would bother to read / post on LW.
Paying attention to (rationalists with track records outside rationality)** seems like it would be mostly useful for demonstrating to aware but uninterested/unconvinced people that training rationality and “raising the sanity waterline” are effective strategies that do have real-world usefulness outside “philosophical”*** word problems.
* Any more than, say, anyone else or people with any visible track record who are also public figures.
** Perhaps someone could coin a term for this? It seems like a personspace subgroup relevant enough to have a less annoying label. Perhaps something playing on Beisutsukai or a variation of the Masked Hero imagery?
*** Used here in the layman’s definition of “philosophical”: airy, cloud-head, idealist, based on pretty assumptions and “clean” models where everything just works the way it’s “supposed to” rather than how-things-are-in-real-life. AKA the “Philosophy is a stupid waste of time” view.
I think the idea here is to find people who have found the types of rationality that lead to actual life success—found a replicable method for succeeding at things. Such an individual is expected to be a rationalist and to have a track record of achievement.