Consider that in the West, life expectancy is very high, and people are very wealthy in historical perspective. This is the default position—to end up prematurely dead or poor (in an absolute, not relative, sense) you need to either take a lot of risk or be otherwise very unlucky. Sure, life could be better. But most (Western) folks have it OK as it is—yet they’re not rational by OB standards.
LW readers seek a great deal of rationality, which is above and beyond what is required for an OK life in a human society. But remember that LW’s prophets have extraordinary goals (Eliezer put a temporary moratorium on the discussion of his, but Robin has futarchy, as far as I understand). If your goal is simply to live well, you can allow yourself to be average. If your goal is to live better than average, you need some thinking tricks, but not much. If you want to tackle an Adult Problem (TM), then you have to start the journey. (Also if you’re curious or want to be strong for strength’s sake. But your life definitely will not depend on it!)
Cryonics seems to be an exception, but in most cases we’ll do best by listening to the collective advice of domain experts. And we shouldn’t believe that we can magically do better.
It is not economically feasible to outsmart or even match everyone. And even in an Adult Problem (TM), you can’t hope to do it all by yourself. The lone hero who single-handedly defeats the monster, saves the world and gets the girl is a myth of movies and video games. In reality, he needs allies, supplies, transportation, weapon know-how, etc.
If you want to contribute, your best bet is to focus on a specific field. And you’ll be much more productive if your background (which includes a lot of institutions) provides better support, evidence- and theory-wise. If we strive to improve institutions in general, that’s a net gain for all of us, no matter what field we pursue. That’s Robin’s point, as I understand it.
And?… (Well, Everett’s QM interpretation comes to mind.)
There may be many dissenting choices (with cryonics being the only important one, I think), but there is a huge number of conforming choices. Are we better (than experts, not laymen) at predicting the weather? Building cars? Flying to the moon? Running countries? Studying beetles?
And, ironically enough, I picked most of the interesting dissenting opinions from OB. In this sense, isn’t OB is an institution of general clear thinking, to which people defer? To take that thought to the extreme—if our beloved Omega takes up a job as an oracle for humanity, and we can just ask him any question at any time and be confident in his answer, what should happen to our pursuit of rationality?
if our beloved Omega takes up a job as an oracle for humanity, and we can just ask him any question at any time and be confident in his answer, what should happen to our pursuit of rationality?
(Well, Everett’s QM interpretation comes to mind.)
Most of the QM guys I know personally believe in this (although they specialise in quantum computing, which makes NO SENSE if you use the Copenhagen interpretation). I also know a philosopher who likes the Bohmian mechanics viewpoint, but that certainly puts him in a minority.
Consider that in the West, life expectancy is very high, and people are very wealthy in historical perspective. This is the default position—to end up prematurely dead or poor (in an absolute, not relative, sense) you need to either take a lot of risk or be otherwise very unlucky. Sure, life could be better. But most (Western) folks have it OK as it is—yet they’re not rational by OB standards.
LW readers seek a great deal of rationality, which is above and beyond what is required for an OK life in a human society. But remember that LW’s prophets have extraordinary goals (Eliezer put a temporary moratorium on the discussion of his, but Robin has futarchy, as far as I understand). If your goal is simply to live well, you can allow yourself to be average. If your goal is to live better than average, you need some thinking tricks, but not much. If you want to tackle an Adult Problem (TM), then you have to start the journey. (Also if you’re curious or want to be strong for strength’s sake. But your life definitely will not depend on it!)
Cryonics seems to be an exception, but in most cases we’ll do best by listening to the collective advice of domain experts. And we shouldn’t believe that we can magically do better.
It is not economically feasible to outsmart or even match everyone. And even in an Adult Problem (TM), you can’t hope to do it all by yourself. The lone hero who single-handedly defeats the monster, saves the world and gets the girl is a myth of movies and video games. In reality, he needs allies, supplies, transportation, weapon know-how, etc.
If you want to contribute, your best bet is to focus on a specific field. And you’ll be much more productive if your background (which includes a lot of institutions) provides better support, evidence- and theory-wise. If we strive to improve institutions in general, that’s a net gain for all of us, no matter what field we pursue. That’s Robin’s point, as I understand it.
Agreed! We should believe that we can non-magically do better.
Cryonics… and whether to spend your money at the margins on healthcare… and...
And?… (Well, Everett’s QM interpretation comes to mind.)
There may be many dissenting choices (with cryonics being the only important one, I think), but there is a huge number of conforming choices. Are we better (than experts, not laymen) at predicting the weather? Building cars? Flying to the moon? Running countries? Studying beetles?
And, ironically enough, I picked most of the interesting dissenting opinions from OB. In this sense, isn’t OB is an institution of general clear thinking, to which people defer? To take that thought to the extreme—if our beloved Omega takes up a job as an oracle for humanity, and we can just ask him any question at any time and be confident in his answer, what should happen to our pursuit of rationality?
dunno, ask Omega
Most of the QM guys I know personally believe in this (although they specialise in quantum computing, which makes NO SENSE if you use the Copenhagen interpretation). I also know a philosopher who likes the Bohmian mechanics viewpoint, but that certainly puts him in a minority.