Side-stepping the issue of whether rationalists actually “win” or “do not win” in the real world, I think a-priori there are some reasons to suspect that people who exhibit a high degree or rationality will not be among the most successful.
For example: people respond positively to confidence. When you make a sales pitch for your company/research project/whatever, people like to see you that you really believe in the idea. Often, you will win brownie points if you believe in whatever you are trying to sell with nearly evangelical fervor.
One might reply: surely a rational person would understand the value of confidence and fake it as necessary? Answer: yes to the former, no to the latter. Confidence is not so easy to fake; people with genuine beliefs either in their own grandeur or in the greatness of their ideas have a much easier time of it.
Robert Kurzbans’ book Why Everyone (Else) Is a Hypocrite: Evolution and the Modular Mind is essentially about this. The book may be thought of as a long-winded answer to the question “Why aren’t we all more rational?” Rationality skills seem kinda useful for bands of hunter-gatherers to possess, and yet evolution gave them to us only in part. Kurzban argues, among other things, that those who are able to genuinely believe certain fictions have an easier time persuading others, and therefore are likely to be more successful.
For example: people respond positively to confidence. When you make a sales pitch for your company/research project/whatever, people like to see you that you really believe in the idea. Often, you will win brownie points if you believe in whatever you are trying to sell with nearly evangelical fervor.
CFAR’s Valentine manages to have a very high charisma. He also manages to get out of his way to tell people not to believe him too much and explicetly that that he’s not certain.
Based on my current fledgling understanding, this seems to look something like taking a larger perspective, like imagining looking back at this moment 30 years hence and noticing what does and does not matter. (I think that’s akin to tucking your hips, which is a movement in service of posture but isn’t strictly part of the posture.) I imagine this is enormously easier when one has a well-internalized sense of something to protect.
Having this strong sense of something worth to protect seems to be more important than believing that individual ideas are necessarily correct.
You don’t develop a strong sense of something worth by doing debaising techniques but at the same time it’s a major part of rationality!CFAR and rationality!HPMOR. At the same time there are people in this community plagued by akrasia who don’t have that strong sense on an emotional level.
I agree with your point about the value of appearing confident, and that it’s difficult to fake.* I think it’s worth bringing up, but I don’t think it’s a particularly large component of success. Depending on the field, but I still don’t think there’s really many fields where it’s a notably large component of success (maybe sales?).
*I’ve encountered it. I’m an inexperienced web developer, and people sometimes tell me that I should be more confident. At first this has very slightly hurt me. Almost negligibly slight. Recently, I’ve been extremely fortunate to get to work with a developer who also reads LW and understands confidence. I actually talked to him about this today, and he mirrored my thoughts that with most people, appearing more confident might benefit me, but that with him it makes sense to be honest about my confident levels (like I have been).
Side-stepping the issue of whether rationalists actually “win” or “do not win” in the real world, I think a-priori there are some reasons to suspect that people who exhibit a high degree or rationality will not be among the most successful.
For example: people respond positively to confidence. When you make a sales pitch for your company/research project/whatever, people like to see you that you really believe in the idea. Often, you will win brownie points if you believe in whatever you are trying to sell with nearly evangelical fervor.
One might reply: surely a rational person would understand the value of confidence and fake it as necessary? Answer: yes to the former, no to the latter. Confidence is not so easy to fake; people with genuine beliefs either in their own grandeur or in the greatness of their ideas have a much easier time of it.
Robert Kurzbans’ book Why Everyone (Else) Is a Hypocrite: Evolution and the Modular Mind is essentially about this. The book may be thought of as a long-winded answer to the question “Why aren’t we all more rational?” Rationality skills seem kinda useful for bands of hunter-gatherers to possess, and yet evolution gave them to us only in part. Kurzban argues, among other things, that those who are able to genuinely believe certain fictions have an easier time persuading others, and therefore are likely to be more successful.
CFAR’s Valentine manages to have a very high charisma. He also manages to get out of his way to tell people not to believe him too much and explicetly that that he’s not certain.
In http://lesswrong.com/lw/mp3/proper_posture_for_mental_arts/ he suggests:
Having this strong sense of something worth to protect seems to be more important than believing that individual ideas are necessarily correct.
You don’t develop a strong sense of something worth by doing debaising techniques but at the same time it’s a major part of rationality!CFAR and rationality!HPMOR. At the same time there are people in this community plagued by akrasia who don’t have that strong sense on an emotional level.
I agree with your point about the value of appearing confident, and that it’s difficult to fake.* I think it’s worth bringing up, but I don’t think it’s a particularly large component of success. Depending on the field, but I still don’t think there’s really many fields where it’s a notably large component of success (maybe sales?).
*I’ve encountered it. I’m an inexperienced web developer, and people sometimes tell me that I should be more confident. At first this has very slightly hurt me. Almost negligibly slight. Recently, I’ve been extremely fortunate to get to work with a developer who also reads LW and understands confidence. I actually talked to him about this today, and he mirrored my thoughts that with most people, appearing more confident might benefit me, but that with him it makes sense to be honest about my confident levels (like I have been).
Not sure...I think confidence, sales skills, and ability to believe and get passionate about BS can be very helpful in much of the business world.