But at least if your aim is existential risk reduction, there seems to be increasing marginal returns to increasing rationality/sanity; better to help yourself or another skilled rationalist gain a rationality step, then to help two beginners gain a much lower step.
Could you elaborate on this? I understand how having only a bit of rationality won’t help you much, because you’ll have so many holes in your thinking that you’re unlikely to complete a complex action without taking a badly wrong step somewhere, but I mentally envisioned that leveling out at a point (for no good reason.)
It might level out at some point—just not at the point of any flesh-and-blood human I’ve spent much time with. For example, among the best rationalists I know (and SIAI has brought me into contact with many serious aspiring rationalists), I would expect literally everyone to be able to at least double their current effectiveness if they had (in addition to their current rationality subskills) the rationality/sanity/self-awareness strengths of the other best rationalists I know.
Have you spent much time with non-flesh-and-blood humans?
Joking aside, what does the last part of your post mean? Are you saying that if the current rationalists you know were able to combine the strengths of others as well as their own strengths they would be substantially more effective?
Could you elaborate on this? I understand how having only a bit of rationality won’t help you much, because you’ll have so many holes in your thinking that you’re unlikely to complete a complex action without taking a badly wrong step somewhere, but I mentally envisioned that leveling out at a point (for no good reason.)
It might level out at some point—just not at the point of any flesh-and-blood human I’ve spent much time with. For example, among the best rationalists I know (and SIAI has brought me into contact with many serious aspiring rationalists), I would expect literally everyone to be able to at least double their current effectiveness if they had (in addition to their current rationality subskills) the rationality/sanity/self-awareness strengths of the other best rationalists I know.
Have you spent much time with non-flesh-and-blood humans?
Joking aside, what does the last part of your post mean? Are you saying that if the current rationalists you know were able to combine the strengths of others as well as their own strengths they would be substantially more effective?