Are there a lot of people in the rationalist community who think that conscious thought and decision making can’t do major things?
It’s not that they think it cannot do major things at all. They don’t expect to do be able to do them overnight, and yes “major changes to subconscious programming overnight” is one of the things I’ve seen to be possible if you hit the right buttons. And of course, if you can do major things overnight, there are some even more major things you find yourself being able to do at all, and you couldn’t before.
This might be a violation of superrationality. If you hack yourself, in essence a part of you is taking over the rest. But if you do that, why shouldn’t part of an AI hack the rest of it and take over the universe?
It’s not that they think it cannot do major things at all. They don’t expect to do be able to do them overnight, and yes “major changes to subconscious programming overnight” is one of the things I’ve seen to be possible if you hit the right buttons. And of course, if you can do major things overnight, there are some even more major things you find yourself being able to do at all, and you couldn’t before.
This might be a violation of superrationality. If you hack yourself, in essence a part of you is taking over the rest. But if you do that, why shouldn’t part of an AI hack the rest of it and take over the universe?