A key social concept was cached out in a mathematical description, which is really useful. Connecting practical knowledge to our models of reality that are most reliable (mathematics) is a central rationalist skill.
The post (and comments) helped point me to the feeling of fairness (which feels close to me to the feeling of verifying that a technical explanation has been offered), which is a valuable thing to have a concept-handle (‘local validity’) for.
As with the rest of Eliezer’s posts, it was well-written and exciting to read.
Biggest hesitations I had with curating this:
Many people may have read it before on facebook.
In general I will be less likely to curate facebook re-posts, but this one seemed especially important.
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I also feel the desire to add that, while I (and others on the mod team) make decisions on which posts to curate and write down my reasons like this, this doesn’t mean I have a stronger understanding of rationality than some of the other writers on the site—especially Eliezer, original creator of the site and author of the A to Z of rationality.
Nonetheless, given that it is me (and not e.g. Eliezer, Scott, others) who is putting time into reading a vast swathe of writing and choosing which posts to curate, I think it makes sense for to write up how I think the post connects to rationality as I see it, and whatever other reasons bore on my decision to curate the post. This doesn’t mean I’m right, or that I don’t expect others would do it better than me, it just means that because I’m in fact the person who’s doing the work, the transparency of my decision-making is useful for users trying to understand the norms on the site. I (and other mods) will have a different take on rationality than some of the older writers in this community, and that’s basically the only way it could be. As a great writer on this site once said, you have no choice but to form your own opinions.
I’ve curated this post for these reasons:
A key social concept was cached out in a mathematical description, which is really useful. Connecting practical knowledge to our models of reality that are most reliable (mathematics) is a central rationalist skill.
The post (and comments) helped point me to the feeling of fairness (which feels close to me to the feeling of verifying that a technical explanation has been offered), which is a valuable thing to have a concept-handle (‘local validity’) for.
As with the rest of Eliezer’s posts, it was well-written and exciting to read.
Biggest hesitations I had with curating this:
Many people may have read it before on facebook.
In general I will be less likely to curate facebook re-posts, but this one seemed especially important.
---
I also feel the desire to add that, while I (and others on the mod team) make decisions on which posts to curate and write down my reasons like this, this doesn’t mean I have a stronger understanding of rationality than some of the other writers on the site—especially Eliezer, original creator of the site and author of the A to Z of rationality.
Nonetheless, given that it is me (and not e.g. Eliezer, Scott, others) who is putting time into reading a vast swathe of writing and choosing which posts to curate, I think it makes sense for to write up how I think the post connects to rationality as I see it, and whatever other reasons bore on my decision to curate the post. This doesn’t mean I’m right, or that I don’t expect others would do it better than me, it just means that because I’m in fact the person who’s doing the work, the transparency of my decision-making is useful for users trying to understand the norms on the site. I (and other mods) will have a different take on rationality than some of the older writers in this community, and that’s basically the only way it could be. As a great writer on this site once said, you have no choice but to form your own opinions.