Cultural transmission of knowledge is the secret of our success.
Children comprise a culture. They transmit knowledge of how to insult and play games, complain and get attention. They transmit knowledge on how to survive and thrive with a child’s priorities, in a child’s body, in a culture that tries to guarantee that the material needs of children are taken care of.
General national cultures teach people very broad, basic skills. Literacy, the ability to read and discuss the newspaper. How to purchase consumer goods. How to cope with boredom. What to do if your life was in danger. Perhaps how to meet people.
All people are involved in some sort of personal culture. This comprises their understanding of the personalities of our coworkers, friends and relations; technical or social knowledge of use on the job; awareness of their own preferences and possessions.
A general-rationality culture transmits skills to help us find and enter into environments that depend on sound thinking, technology, and productivity, and where the participants are actively trying to improve their own community.
That general-rationality culture may ultimately push people into a much narrower specialized-rationality culture, such as a specific technical career, or a specific set of friendships that are actively self-improving. This becomes our personal culture.
To extend the logic further, there are nested general and specialized rational cultures within a single specialized culture. For example, there are over 90,000 pediatricians in the USA. That career is a specialized rational culture, but it also has a combination of “how to approach general pediatrics in a rational manner” and “specialized rational cultures within pediatrics.”
It may turn out that, at whatever level of specialization a person is at, general-purpose rationality is:
Overwhelmingly useful at a specific point in human development, and then less and less so as they move further down a specialized path.
Constantly necessary, but only as a small fraction of their overall approach to life.
Less and less necessary over time as their culture improves its ability to coordinate between specialties and adapt to change.
Defined by being self-eliminating. The most potent instrumental and epistemic rationality may be best achieved by moving furthest down a very specialized path. The faster they exchange general knowledge and investments for more specialized forms, the better they achieve our goals, and the more they can say we were being rational in the first place. Rationality is known by the tendency of its adherents to become very specialized and very comfortable and articulate about why they ended up so specialized. They have a weird job and they know exactly why they’re doing it.
How much of rationality is specialized?
Cultural transmission of knowledge is the secret of our success.
Children comprise a culture. They transmit knowledge of how to insult and play games, complain and get attention. They transmit knowledge on how to survive and thrive with a child’s priorities, in a child’s body, in a culture that tries to guarantee that the material needs of children are taken care of.
General national cultures teach people very broad, basic skills. Literacy, the ability to read and discuss the newspaper. How to purchase consumer goods. How to cope with boredom. What to do if your life was in danger. Perhaps how to meet people.
All people are involved in some sort of personal culture. This comprises their understanding of the personalities of our coworkers, friends and relations; technical or social knowledge of use on the job; awareness of their own preferences and possessions.
A general-rationality culture transmits skills to help us find and enter into environments that depend on sound thinking, technology, and productivity, and where the participants are actively trying to improve their own community.
That general-rationality culture may ultimately push people into a much narrower specialized-rationality culture, such as a specific technical career, or a specific set of friendships that are actively self-improving. This becomes our personal culture.
To extend the logic further, there are nested general and specialized rational cultures within a single specialized culture. For example, there are over 90,000 pediatricians in the USA. That career is a specialized rational culture, but it also has a combination of “how to approach general pediatrics in a rational manner” and “specialized rational cultures within pediatrics.”
It may turn out that, at whatever level of specialization a person is at, general-purpose rationality is:
Overwhelmingly useful at a specific point in human development, and then less and less so as they move further down a specialized path.
Constantly necessary, but only as a small fraction of their overall approach to life.
Less and less necessary over time as their culture improves its ability to coordinate between specialties and adapt to change.
Defined by being self-eliminating. The most potent instrumental and epistemic rationality may be best achieved by moving furthest down a very specialized path. The faster they exchange general knowledge and investments for more specialized forms, the better they achieve our goals, and the more they can say we were being rational in the first place. Rationality is known by the tendency of its adherents to become very specialized and very comfortable and articulate about why they ended up so specialized. They have a weird job and they know exactly why they’re doing it.