Ah, so you mean within the rationalist (and adjacent) community; how can we make sure that we instinctively copy our most rational members, as opposed to random or even least rational ones.
When I reflect on what I do by default… well, long ago I perceived “works at MIRI/CFAR” as the source of prestige, but recently it became “writes articles I find interesting”. Both heuristics have their advantages and disadvantages. The “MIRI/CFAR” heuristic allows me to outsource judgment to people who are smarter than me and have more data about their colleagues; but it ignores people outside Bay Area and those who already have another job. The “blogging” heuristic allows me to judge the thinking of authors; but it ignores people who are too busy doing something important or don’t wish to write publicly.
But what if a reputation for rationality can be cultivated separately from tangible accomplishments?
Here is how to exploit my heuristics:
Be charming, and convince people at MIRI/CFAR/GiveWell/etc. to give you some role in their organization; it could be a completely unimportant one. Make your association known.
Have good verbal skills, and deep knowledge of some topic. Write a blog about that topic and the rationalist community.
Looking at your list: Option a) if someone doesn’t live in Bay Area, it could be quite simple to add a few rationalist celebrities as friends on Facebook, and then pretend that you have some deeper interaction with them. People usually don’t verify this information, so if no one at your local meetup is in regular contact with them, the risk of exposure is low. Your prestige is then limited to the local meetup.
Options b) and c) would probably lead to a big debate. Arguably, “metarationality” is an example of “actually, all popular rationalists are doing it wrong, this is the true rationality” claim.
Option d) was tried by Intentional Insights, Logic Nation, and I have heard about people who try to extract free work from programmers at LW meetups. Your prestige is limited to the few people you manage to recruit.
Rationalist community has a few people in almost undefeatable positions (MIRI and CFAR, Scott Alexander), who have the power to ruin the reputation of any pretender, if they collectively choose so. Someone trying to get undeserved prestige needs to stay under their radar, or infiltrate them, because trying to replace them by a paralell structure would be too much work.
At this point, for someone trying to get into a position of high prestige, it would be much easier to simply start their own movement, built on different values. However, should the rationalist community become more powerful in the future, this equation may change.
Ah, so you mean within the rationalist (and adjacent) community; how can we make sure that we instinctively copy our most rational members, as opposed to random or even least rational ones.
When I reflect on what I do by default… well, long ago I perceived “works at MIRI/CFAR” as the source of prestige, but recently it became “writes articles I find interesting”. Both heuristics have their advantages and disadvantages. The “MIRI/CFAR” heuristic allows me to outsource judgment to people who are smarter than me and have more data about their colleagues; but it ignores people outside Bay Area and those who already have another job. The “blogging” heuristic allows me to judge the thinking of authors; but it ignores people who are too busy doing something important or don’t wish to write publicly.
Here is how to exploit my heuristics:
Be charming, and convince people at MIRI/CFAR/GiveWell/etc. to give you some role in their organization; it could be a completely unimportant one. Make your association known.
Have good verbal skills, and deep knowledge of some topic. Write a blog about that topic and the rationalist community.
Looking at your list: Option a) if someone doesn’t live in Bay Area, it could be quite simple to add a few rationalist celebrities as friends on Facebook, and then pretend that you have some deeper interaction with them. People usually don’t verify this information, so if no one at your local meetup is in regular contact with them, the risk of exposure is low. Your prestige is then limited to the local meetup.
Options b) and c) would probably lead to a big debate. Arguably, “metarationality” is an example of “actually, all popular rationalists are doing it wrong, this is the true rationality” claim.
Option d) was tried by Intentional Insights, Logic Nation, and I have heard about people who try to extract free work from programmers at LW meetups. Your prestige is limited to the few people you manage to recruit.
Rationalist community has a few people in almost undefeatable positions (MIRI and CFAR, Scott Alexander), who have the power to ruin the reputation of any pretender, if they collectively choose so. Someone trying to get undeserved prestige needs to stay under their radar, or infiltrate them, because trying to replace them by a paralell structure would be too much work.
At this point, for someone trying to get into a position of high prestige, it would be much easier to simply start their own movement, built on different values. However, should the rationalist community become more powerful in the future, this equation may change.