Unfortunately, this hasn’t aged very impressively.
Despite the attempts to build the promised dojo (CFAR, Leverage/Paradigm, the EA Hotel, Dragon Army, probably several more that I’m missing), rationalists aren’t winning in this way. The most impressive result so far is that a lot of mid-tier powerful people read Slate Star Codex, but I think most of that isn’t about carrying on the values Eliezer is trying to construct in this sequence—Scott is a good writer on many topics, most of which are at best rationality-adjacent. The second most impressive result is the power of the effective altruism movement, but that’s also not the same thing Eliezer was pointing at here.
The remaining positive results of the 2009 rationality community are a batch of happy group houses, and MIRI chugging along its climb (thanks to hard-to-replicate personalities like Eliezer and Nate).
I think the “all you need is to try harder” stance is inferior to the “try to make a general postmortem of ‘rationalist dojo’ projects in general” stance, and I’d like to see a systematic attempt at the latter, assembling public information and interviewing people in all of these groups, and integrating all the data on why they failed to live up to their promises.
Unfortunately, this hasn’t aged very impressively.
Despite the attempts to build the promised dojo (CFAR, Leverage/Paradigm, the EA Hotel, Dragon Army, probably several more that I’m missing), rationalists aren’t winning in this way. The most impressive result so far is that a lot of mid-tier powerful people read Slate Star Codex, but I think most of that isn’t about carrying on the values Eliezer is trying to construct in this sequence—Scott is a good writer on many topics, most of which are at best rationality-adjacent. The second most impressive result is the power of the effective altruism movement, but that’s also not the same thing Eliezer was pointing at here.
The remaining positive results of the 2009 rationality community are a batch of happy group houses, and MIRI chugging along its climb (thanks to hard-to-replicate personalities like Eliezer and Nate).
I think the “all you need is to try harder” stance is inferior to the “try to make a general postmortem of ‘rationalist dojo’ projects in general” stance, and I’d like to see a systematic attempt at the latter, assembling public information and interviewing people in all of these groups, and integrating all the data on why they failed to live up to their promises.