I don’t think the typical reader would interpret the title and opening paragraphs as claiming that you and Rob haven’t tried to study and model what works in practice?
My intent was to play off an analogy Yudkowsky made between “rational-ists” (those who study rationality) and “physics-ists” (those who study physics). I’m saying that I don’t want the study of rationality itself as a subject matter to be conflated with any particular set of discourse norms, because I think different discourse norms have different use-cases, much like how different motor designs or martial arts have different use-cases. That’s totally compatible with you and Rob having put a lot of work into studying and modeling what actually works in practice!
The martial arts analogy seems apt: if I point out that different styles of martial arts exist, I’m not saying that some particular karate master (whose post happened to inspire mine) hasn’t tried to study what works. I’m saying that ju-jitsu, boxing, tai quan dao, &c. also exist. The subject matter of “fighting” is bigger than what any one karate master knows.
(We might have a substantive disagreement about this, if you don’t think a competing school of “rationalists” could have grounds to contest your guidelines?)
There are other flaws with it beyond that, but repeated past experience shows that further engagement would be extremely un-worthwhile
If you think it would help readers not be misled by my mistakes, feel free to point out the other flaws, too! Writing a comment under my post doesn’t put you under any obligation to engage with me.
Thanks for commenting!
I don’t think the typical reader would interpret the title and opening paragraphs as claiming that you and Rob haven’t tried to study and model what works in practice?
My intent was to play off an analogy Yudkowsky made between “rational-ists” (those who study rationality) and “physics-ists” (those who study physics). I’m saying that I don’t want the study of rationality itself as a subject matter to be conflated with any particular set of discourse norms, because I think different discourse norms have different use-cases, much like how different motor designs or martial arts have different use-cases. That’s totally compatible with you and Rob having put a lot of work into studying and modeling what actually works in practice!
The martial arts analogy seems apt: if I point out that different styles of martial arts exist, I’m not saying that some particular karate master (whose post happened to inspire mine) hasn’t tried to study what works. I’m saying that ju-jitsu, boxing, tai quan dao, &c. also exist. The subject matter of “fighting” is bigger than what any one karate master knows.
(We might have a substantive disagreement about this, if you don’t think a competing school of “rationalists” could have grounds to contest your guidelines?)
If you think it would help readers not be misled by my mistakes, feel free to point out the other flaws, too! Writing a comment under my post doesn’t put you under any obligation to engage with me.