Edit: This comment was written in response to why, if rationality is supposedly so helpful, it isn’t commonplace by now.
A lot of the information that makes LW’s brand of rationality more distinct (cognitive biases, various systematic bayesian statistical techniques, decision theory stuff, etc.) is really new.
Like, Heuristics and Biases came out in 1982 (though they did the research a decade or so before hand), Jaynes didn’t describe/justify the maximum entropy distribution until 1957, the Solomonoff prior wasn’t until 1960, and the AI research that gave people a concrete way to think about thinking didn’t really start until the 1950s. Causality was published in 2000.
So it hasn’t really had the time to become widely adopted, or fleshed out yet.
Before then though, less strict rationality has actually helped a lot of people. Europe took over the world because of the Renaissance, for instance. The Romans took over because of superior military organization (a particularly brutal form of instrumental rationality).
The Persians built and maintained (for a while, anyway) the Achaemenid Empire largely because of their superior logistical and diplomatic skill, backed up by the army that they built.
The Byzantines maintained the remnants of the Roman Empire for a few hundred years based mostly on their diplomacy.
Actually, it seems like almost none of this relates any more. I guess I’ll leave it up for posterity’s sake, but the current topic is harder. I guess I should wait longer before responding to things.
Edit: This comment was written in response to why, if rationality is supposedly so helpful, it isn’t commonplace by now.
A lot of the information that makes LW’s brand of rationality more distinct (cognitive biases, various systematic bayesian statistical techniques, decision theory stuff, etc.) is really new.
Like, Heuristics and Biases came out in 1982 (though they did the research a decade or so before hand), Jaynes didn’t describe/justify the maximum entropy distribution until 1957, the Solomonoff prior wasn’t until 1960, and the AI research that gave people a concrete way to think about thinking didn’t really start until the 1950s. Causality was published in 2000.
So it hasn’t really had the time to become widely adopted, or fleshed out yet.
Before then though, less strict rationality has actually helped a lot of people. Europe took over the world because of the Renaissance, for instance. The Romans took over because of superior military organization (a particularly brutal form of instrumental rationality).
The Persians built and maintained (for a while, anyway) the Achaemenid Empire largely because of their superior logistical and diplomatic skill, backed up by the army that they built.
The Byzantines maintained the remnants of the Roman Empire for a few hundred years based mostly on their diplomacy.
Oops, edits crossed in midstream. This reply made a lot more sense in conjunction with the original post as it was originally written.
Edit: Haha, yes.
Yup, so much more sense. :P
Actually, it seems like almost none of this relates any more. I guess I’ll leave it up for posterity’s sake, but the current topic is harder. I guess I should wait longer before responding to things.