Yes, if I’m in an environment where being associated with LW is potentially costly, I ought to avoid having my real identity linked to LW. The same goes for pretty much every other website and organization in the world.
How would one go about being a rationalist “with the serial numbers filed off”.
My first suggestion would be to drop the whole formulation of “being a rationalist,” which is more about identity than practice. I find that when I think about X as an identity rather than a practice, it starts to feel important that I express my affiliation with X, that I associate with other X-identifiers, that I talk about myself as an X, and so forth. In an environment like you describe, that’s counterproductive. (Personally, I find it counterproductive in general, but YMMV.) Relatedly, our hypothetical hotheaded youth should take care not to indulge in the impulse to declare their superiority to the people around them by virtue of their greater rationality.
My second suggestion is basically the one I gave before: when I infer opportunities to achieve my goals, and the expected cost of taking those opportunities is one I am willing to pay, and the expected value of those opportunities is positive, I should take them.
Yes, if I’m in an environment where being associated with LW is potentially costly, I ought to avoid having my real identity linked to LW. The same goes for pretty much every other website and organization in the world.
My first suggestion would be to drop the whole formulation of “being a rationalist,” which is more about identity than practice. I find that when I think about X as an identity rather than a practice, it starts to feel important that I express my affiliation with X, that I associate with other X-identifiers, that I talk about myself as an X, and so forth. In an environment like you describe, that’s counterproductive. (Personally, I find it counterproductive in general, but YMMV.) Relatedly, our hypothetical hotheaded youth should take care not to indulge in the impulse to declare their superiority to the people around them by virtue of their greater rationality.
My second suggestion is basically the one I gave before: when I infer opportunities to achieve my goals, and the expected cost of taking those opportunities is one I am willing to pay, and the expected value of those opportunities is positive, I should take them.