As far as I can tell, LW-style rationality appears to be heavily based on the “outside view”, i.e. the view that you would take if you knew the outcomes of past endeavors similar to the one you’re looking at, but not the specific details. By definition, the outside view gives the most probable outcome, but when specific details start to overwhelm generalities, it can fail quite spectacularly. Pratchett was not at all a member of a representative sample; indeed from what I’ve read of him he seemed quite exceptional. So it’s reasonable to say that although “work on being a better student and looking for ways to make more money early on” might have been good advice for a normal student, it wouldn’t have been such good advice for Pratchett. The existence of a few extraordinary counterexamples doesn’t obviate the fact that the advice still works for a majority of ordinary people.
There’s some evidence that in many respects LW people are also not normal or ordinary people, statistically speaking. (Though of course not generally as remarkable—in outcome, at least—as Pratchett.)
As far as I can tell, LW-style rationality appears to be heavily based on the “outside view”, i.e. the view that you would take if you knew the outcomes of past endeavors similar to the one you’re looking at, but not the specific details. By definition, the outside view gives the most probable outcome, but when specific details start to overwhelm generalities, it can fail quite spectacularly. Pratchett was not at all a member of a representative sample; indeed from what I’ve read of him he seemed quite exceptional. So it’s reasonable to say that although “work on being a better student and looking for ways to make more money early on” might have been good advice for a normal student, it wouldn’t have been such good advice for Pratchett. The existence of a few extraordinary counterexamples doesn’t obviate the fact that the advice still works for a majority of ordinary people.
There’s some evidence that in many respects LW people are also not normal or ordinary people, statistically speaking. (Though of course not generally as remarkable—in outcome, at least—as Pratchett.)