I made a comment related to this on the SSC post about the rationalists I met in person in the Bay Area. I think it’s the continued and extended version of what you stated above with some people in the Bay Area calling themselves rationalists while being in the 20% LW-ish (or lower) crowd. I primarily focused on the overcoming biases and getting stronger parts.
“I witnessed some trends in rationalists during a visit in the Bay Area recently that make far more sense to me now when seen through the lens of your generation descriptions. The instrumental rationalists seemed to fit into 3 Generation type groups.
Generation 1 agreed with 50% or greater of The Sequences and attempt to use the ideas from it, CFAR, and other sources in their daily lives to improve themselves. They seemed to take all of it quite seriously.
Generation 2 possessed a mild respect for CFAR, less respect for The Sequences themselves (and likely read next to none of it), made sure to make a comment of disdain for EY almost as if it was a prerequisite to confirm tribe membership (maybe part of the “i’m not one of THOSE rationalists”?), and had a larger interest in books that their friends recommended for overall self-improvement.
Generation 3 hadn’t read any of The Sequences, had read only a few blog posts, loosely understood some of the terms being regularly thrown around (near/far mode, far mode, object level, inside/outside view, map/territory etc.) but didn’t know the definitions well enough to actually use the mental actions of the techniques themselves, and considered themselves rationalists via group affiliation, showing up to events, and having friendships rather than being rationalists due to becoming more rational themselves and attempting to optimize their own lives and brains.
I had limited exposure to the Bay Area and would be very interested if anyone else thinks these categories actually match the territory there. This also leaves out epistemic rationalists (some of whom I met) who don’t fit into the three generations presented above.”
It is interesting how a community built around the Sequences gradually changed into a community of people who treat mentioning the Sequences almost as a faux pas.
With the consequence that the ideas mentioned in the Sequences are more mentioned than used (well, those few of them that are mentioned at all), and rationality becomes a question of group affiliation.
There is an analogy with Christianity, except that what took Christianity 2000 years, we managed to achieve in 2000 days. Truly, the progress is accelerating exponencially, and the Singularity is near!
I made a comment related to this on the SSC post about the rationalists I met in person in the Bay Area. I think it’s the continued and extended version of what you stated above with some people in the Bay Area calling themselves rationalists while being in the 20% LW-ish (or lower) crowd. I primarily focused on the overcoming biases and getting stronger parts.
It is interesting how a community built around the Sequences gradually changed into a community of people who treat mentioning the Sequences almost as a faux pas.
With the consequence that the ideas mentioned in the Sequences are more mentioned than used (well, those few of them that are mentioned at all), and rationality becomes a question of group affiliation.
There is an analogy with Christianity, except that what took Christianity 2000 years, we managed to achieve in 2000 days. Truly, the progress is accelerating exponencially, and the Singularity is near!