Sometimes the whole business about rationality can be like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. And then Less Wrong is about how you can upgrade your sledgehammer into a pile driver, or build a machine that can slice the nut into atomically thin layers. Can’t we just use a nutcracker like everyone else does?
I think I agree about this—part of the wisdom of rationality is knowing when to delegate. Rational thought is hard work, and it’s dog slow compared with every other technique your brain is capable of. Feel free to use the nutcracker if it’s good enough. Often the correct role for the rational mind is the critic—the one who comments on the work of others, and asks whether ‘good enough’ really was as good as it ought to have been—but lets everyone else get on with the real work. And so he should—often the others are better at it. To give a specific example, your rational mind should critique your conversation, but not normally construct it. It is there as the teacher rather than the doer. It constructs the brain’s reaction, but shouldn’t actually do the work because it’s slow and hesitant. The exception is those jobs where nothing else will do at all.
I like less wrong the way it is. Some jobs only need a nut cracker. Others are like digging out miners trapped a mile underground, and you want the heaviest equipment you can find, and even then you can expect it to take months to make a dent. Anyone bringing a nutcracker to that kind of job isn’t going to do more than get in everyone else’s way.
Sometimes the whole business about rationality can be like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. And then Less Wrong is about how you can upgrade your sledgehammer into a pile driver, or build a machine that can slice the nut into atomically thin layers. Can’t we just use a nutcracker like everyone else does?
I think I agree about this—part of the wisdom of rationality is knowing when to delegate. Rational thought is hard work, and it’s dog slow compared with every other technique your brain is capable of. Feel free to use the nutcracker if it’s good enough. Often the correct role for the rational mind is the critic—the one who comments on the work of others, and asks whether ‘good enough’ really was as good as it ought to have been—but lets everyone else get on with the real work. And so he should—often the others are better at it. To give a specific example, your rational mind should critique your conversation, but not normally construct it. It is there as the teacher rather than the doer. It constructs the brain’s reaction, but shouldn’t actually do the work because it’s slow and hesitant. The exception is those jobs where nothing else will do at all.
I like less wrong the way it is. Some jobs only need a nut cracker. Others are like digging out miners trapped a mile underground, and you want the heaviest equipment you can find, and even then you can expect it to take months to make a dent. Anyone bringing a nutcracker to that kind of job isn’t going to do more than get in everyone else’s way.