A math student/coder I met at an entrepreneurship event told me Less Wrong had good ideas but was “too pretentious”.
This person might have been in the same place as a math grad student I know. They read a little Less Wrong and were turned off. Then they attended a LW-style rationality seminar and responded positively, because it was more “compassionate”. What they mean is this: A typical epistemology post on Less Wrong might sound something like
There are laws of probability; you can’t just make up beliefs.
(That’s not a quote.) Whereas the seminar sounded more like
We’ll always have uncertainty, and we’ll never be perfectly calibrated, but we can aspire to be better-calibrated.
Similarly, an instrumental-rationality post here might sound like
To the extent you fail to maximize some utility function, you can be Dutch-booked. Give me a penny to switch between these two gambles; give me another penny to switch back again. There: You have given me your two cents on the matter.
Whereas the seminar sounds more like
You must decide alone. But you are not alone.
Of course, both approaches are good and necessary, and you can find both on Less Wrong.
This person might have been in the same place as a math grad student I know. They read a little Less Wrong and were turned off. Then they attended a LW-style rationality seminar and responded positively, because it was more “compassionate”. What they mean is this: A typical epistemology post on Less Wrong might sound something like
(That’s not a quote.) Whereas the seminar sounded more like
Similarly, an instrumental-rationality post here might sound like
Whereas the seminar sounds more like
Of course, both approaches are good and necessary, and you can find both on Less Wrong.