TL;DR: A rationalist Tim Ferris/Bill Gates/J.K.Rowling will be more effective in spreading rationality than a rationalist Billy Graham. Also, the more the better.
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There is a lot of talk about creating more rationalists recently. But we also know that pushing our beliefs on others directly tends to activate their memetic immune system. Wouldn’t a better approach be to create winners (in the conventional sense, as in, making loads of money, producing awesome things) who will then be able to effectively pull rather than push; “Want to win like me? Become more rational. Here’s the material that helped me win”.
Given that the basis of our epistemology is empiricism, this should be a convincing argument to us as well. If someone was to invent a process or system of thought that would reliably lead to more win, other things being equal, I have a hard time imagining why this community would not adopt it. That makes it not-Dark arts in my book. In fact, I think a large portion of the effectiveness of the Sequences and HP:MoR is that the readers detect a high awesomeness factor in Eliezer personally and would like to have more of that themselves.
In that sense, perhaps rather than guiding the best rationalists here to devote their lives to existential risk prevention, FAI research, or rationality outreach, we should be encouraging at least some* of them to use rationality to win big/become more awesome -in mainstream terms-, so they can operate as living case studies, directly visible and verifiable from our target audience’s point of view. The more rationality is directly responsible for the win, the better. By acting as a living proof of rationality, they may be do more for spreading rationality and averting existential risks than if they worked at that directly. (And if they fail, then we need to examine why these failures occurred and improve our methods until we get it right; another reason to invest effort in short-term wins rather than putting all our eggs in the long-term win basket.)
* The ratio of people that should devote their energies to short-term success to those who should focus on long-term success (FAI research etc.) is not 100% but it is also not 0%, at least not by default. The ratio should depend on how imminent we consider a singularity to be, and the average winner’s [0 → success] interval as well as the impact we predict that success to have in creating more rationalists. This next generation of rationalists should again will divide among those working to become examples and those working directly on long-term outcomes. The goal presumably is to make rationality self-propagating and eventually to help correct humanity’s resource allocation towards the more rational (e.g. avoiding existential risk among other things).
There is a lot of talk by financially successful people about how they became successful. We should understand if and how that talk actually affects behavior. My impression is that it does surprisingly little. Essentially, I am not convinced about the assertion that Bill Gates is better at changing behavior than Billy Graham. On the other hand, being able to point to successful examples who publicly endorse the pointing will undoubtedly help.
I think that engaging in value creation seems important as part of outreach. I believe that someone who designs amazing video games, for example, wins a lot of influence with their audience. In addition, they can make an effort to structure their game such that popular discussion about the game has a certain flavor, and that people who play the game engage with certain ideas while playing. (And they can carefully construct an online environment where fans of the game crystallize into a community.) The same can be said of the author of fiction, a designer of successful academic competitions or programs, or a designer of online learning materials.
I believe a smart rationalist who sets out to design the best online destination for may be able to succeed for a broad range of foo, and that this success can be much more rapidly obtained and is if anything more valuable for spreading rationality than spectacular financial success.
I think that by the standards of a high school version of myself (and presumably of a reasonable number of other high schoolers) I am already reasonably successful. I was accepted at MIT, and have developed a good enough research record while at MIT to probably get into any graduate school I want. Can this sort of success be used to influence high school students in the near term? I have some evidence that I can implicitly leverage my situation to get some high school students to come to a summer program I run. Would the success of such a program be more or less helpful than traditional financial success?
I’ve also done well academically but I am talking about success on a different order of magnitude, repeated for several people and causally related to an increase in rationality, not merely a halo effect.
For instance, Paul Graham has been incredibly successful in guiding the world towards his preferred outcomes (Hacker News, YCombinator, Startup Visa, lots more), and his first step was to build and sell a startup for approx $150m. Not everyone will agree with what he has to say, but with a calling card like that, they have to take his point of view seriously, and he’s good at leveraging his success to create more Paul Grahams (making himself even more successful in the process). That’s the sort of thing I have in mind.
Edit: To summarize, if Paul Graham is making a killing with domain-specific rationality, surely we should be raking in the billions or at least doing as well with general rationality? If not, why?
I understand what you mean by successful. I am not particularly successful by society’s standards, nor by my current standards.
I agree that if a handful of overtly rationalist, spectacularly successful entrepreneurs emerged, it would lend incredible credibility to outreach efforts. After thought, I agree this would be more helpful than almost any other form of success. But there isn’t any evidence that being rational (or even being identical to a wildly successful entrepreneur) can let you make $100M reliably. I hope it does, and I’m sure plenty of rational (in the style of LW) people will try.
People have been analogizing the art of rationality to punching and the art of overcoming akrasia to kicking. This is a way of explaining why rationality alone is incomplete. Others have seen the lack of spectacular results by rationalists as evidence of its non-utility. I can improve on this and offer new analogies that are closer parallels.
Rationality is not like punching, it is like blocking. As has been said, it is the art of not being stupid. As such, it is neither necessary nor sufficient for success. (Luck)x(Perseverance)x(Talent)=Success, and rationality decreases the amount of luck that is needed without providing perseverance (overcoming akrasia, striking) or talent (natural athleticism).
Regarding health, a hunter-gather lifestyle is healthier than a primitive farming one. Farming took over the world by being better for its societies, not its societies’ individuals. Yet, only farming could have provided the infrastructure that gives us modern medicine. By analogy, there’s hope yet for formal rationality. Gradually improving systemization will eventually outstrip what has evolved to be the natural path to success, so long as it can keep improving.
TL;DR: A rationalist Tim Ferris/Bill Gates/J.K.Rowling will be more effective in spreading rationality than a rationalist Billy Graham. Also, the more the better.
--
There is a lot of talk about creating more rationalists recently. But we also know that pushing our beliefs on others directly tends to activate their memetic immune system. Wouldn’t a better approach be to create winners (in the conventional sense, as in, making loads of money, producing awesome things) who will then be able to effectively pull rather than push; “Want to win like me? Become more rational. Here’s the material that helped me win”.
Given that the basis of our epistemology is empiricism, this should be a convincing argument to us as well. If someone was to invent a process or system of thought that would reliably lead to more win, other things being equal, I have a hard time imagining why this community would not adopt it. That makes it not-Dark arts in my book. In fact, I think a large portion of the effectiveness of the Sequences and HP:MoR is that the readers detect a high awesomeness factor in Eliezer personally and would like to have more of that themselves.
In that sense, perhaps rather than guiding the best rationalists here to devote their lives to existential risk prevention, FAI research, or rationality outreach, we should be encouraging at least some* of them to use rationality to win big/become more awesome -in mainstream terms-, so they can operate as living case studies, directly visible and verifiable from our target audience’s point of view. The more rationality is directly responsible for the win, the better. By acting as a living proof of rationality, they may be do more for spreading rationality and averting existential risks than if they worked at that directly. (And if they fail, then we need to examine why these failures occurred and improve our methods until we get it right; another reason to invest effort in short-term wins rather than putting all our eggs in the long-term win basket.)
* The ratio of people that should devote their energies to short-term success to those who should focus on long-term success (FAI research etc.) is not 100% but it is also not 0%, at least not by default. The ratio should depend on how imminent we consider a singularity to be, and the average winner’s [0 → success] interval as well as the impact we predict that success to have in creating more rationalists. This next generation of rationalists should again will divide among those working to become examples and those working directly on long-term outcomes. The goal presumably is to make rationality self-propagating and eventually to help correct humanity’s resource allocation towards the more rational (e.g. avoiding existential risk among other things).
There is a lot of talk by financially successful people about how they became successful. We should understand if and how that talk actually affects behavior. My impression is that it does surprisingly little. Essentially, I am not convinced about the assertion that Bill Gates is better at changing behavior than Billy Graham. On the other hand, being able to point to successful examples who publicly endorse the pointing will undoubtedly help.
I think that engaging in value creation seems important as part of outreach. I believe that someone who designs amazing video games, for example, wins a lot of influence with their audience. In addition, they can make an effort to structure their game such that popular discussion about the game has a certain flavor, and that people who play the game engage with certain ideas while playing. (And they can carefully construct an online environment where fans of the game crystallize into a community.) The same can be said of the author of fiction, a designer of successful academic competitions or programs, or a designer of online learning materials.
I believe a smart rationalist who sets out to design the best online destination for may be able to succeed for a broad range of foo, and that this success can be much more rapidly obtained and is if anything more valuable for spreading rationality than spectacular financial success.
I think that by the standards of a high school version of myself (and presumably of a reasonable number of other high schoolers) I am already reasonably successful. I was accepted at MIT, and have developed a good enough research record while at MIT to probably get into any graduate school I want. Can this sort of success be used to influence high school students in the near term? I have some evidence that I can implicitly leverage my situation to get some high school students to come to a summer program I run. Would the success of such a program be more or less helpful than traditional financial success?
I’ve also done well academically but I am talking about success on a different order of magnitude, repeated for several people and causally related to an increase in rationality, not merely a halo effect.
For instance, Paul Graham has been incredibly successful in guiding the world towards his preferred outcomes (Hacker News, YCombinator, Startup Visa, lots more), and his first step was to build and sell a startup for approx $150m. Not everyone will agree with what he has to say, but with a calling card like that, they have to take his point of view seriously, and he’s good at leveraging his success to create more Paul Grahams (making himself even more successful in the process). That’s the sort of thing I have in mind.
Edit: To summarize, if Paul Graham is making a killing with domain-specific rationality, surely we should be raking in the billions or at least doing as well with general rationality? If not, why?
I understand what you mean by successful. I am not particularly successful by society’s standards, nor by my current standards.
I agree that if a handful of overtly rationalist, spectacularly successful entrepreneurs emerged, it would lend incredible credibility to outreach efforts. After thought, I agree this would be more helpful than almost any other form of success. But there isn’t any evidence that being rational (or even being identical to a wildly successful entrepreneur) can let you make $100M reliably. I hope it does, and I’m sure plenty of rational (in the style of LW) people will try.
People have been analogizing the art of rationality to punching and the art of overcoming akrasia to kicking. This is a way of explaining why rationality alone is incomplete. Others have seen the lack of spectacular results by rationalists as evidence of its non-utility. I can improve on this and offer new analogies that are closer parallels.
Rationality is not like punching, it is like blocking. As has been said, it is the art of not being stupid. As such, it is neither necessary nor sufficient for success. (Luck)x(Perseverance)x(Talent)=Success, and rationality decreases the amount of luck that is needed without providing perseverance (overcoming akrasia, striking) or talent (natural athleticism).
Regarding health, a hunter-gather lifestyle is healthier than a primitive farming one. Farming took over the world by being better for its societies, not its societies’ individuals. Yet, only farming could have provided the infrastructure that gives us modern medicine. By analogy, there’s hope yet for formal rationality. Gradually improving systemization will eventually outstrip what has evolved to be the natural path to success, so long as it can keep improving.