The popularity of LW rationality among high IQ people is probably strongly influenced by a quasi-aesthetic judgment that being correct is valuable unto itself. Most people (of all IQs) would also prefer to be right, but they also want to be successful, and they probably want to be successful more than they want to be right. Being successful and being rational both require effort, and the most efficient way to become successful for a low IQ individual is probably not through rationality training, but through more direct and applicable prescriptions, like reading How to Win Friends and Influence People, learning money management skills, networking, or whatever else is well-known and directly applicable to their situation. Thus, it is likely rational for low IQ people not to highly value direct rationality training, which doesn’t appeal to their comparative advantages.
Everyone appreciates decreased effort, right? Much of rationality could easily be reframed as methods to avoid wasting effort. The rest should follow kind of naturally, if rationality is indeed a coherent system of thought.
Yeah. There is some low-hanging fruit that helps you avoid wasting effort. But that is largely covered in books like Win Friends and Influence People and other such self help-y titles. LW is much deeper dive into rationality and I don’t think it would benefit some large % of the population in terms of avoiding wasting effort or increasing wealth or happiness.
I’m not talking about the low-hanging fruit. As you say, those are covered. My reasoning is this:
If rationality is systematized winning, every rationality technique can be described as a method for winning. Preferably with a group of examples from wildly unrelated contexts, to emphasize the universality of the method.
Every win can be reformulated as an avoidance of loss, which makes it gain subjective importance due to loss aversion.
Effort is loss.
So I think any aspect of rationality should seem more valuable if reframed in this way, which would help people who do not have that “quasi-aesthetic judgment that being correct is valuable unto itself” 9eB1 mentioned appreciate rational methods.
If you disagree, give me three elements of rationality that you don’t think can be reframed as methods to avoid wasting effort, and I’ll try to do just that.
I’m not sure what that you are responding to. In the context of this article, I meant only that some huge chunk of the population will likely never experience increased wealth, happiness, etc. by reading deeply into LW or other intensive rationality training because they don’t have big IQs. Simple heuristics and common biases are useful to know… beyond that, I see limited value.
For example, there is a rational way to dunk a basketball—avoiding wasting effort & optimizing to a successful outcome—but it isn’t particularily useful to 99.X% of the population.
The popularity of LW rationality among high IQ people is probably strongly influenced by a quasi-aesthetic judgment that being correct is valuable unto itself. Most people (of all IQs) would also prefer to be right, but they also want to be successful, and they probably want to be successful more than they want to be right. Being successful and being rational both require effort, and the most efficient way to become successful for a low IQ individual is probably not through rationality training, but through more direct and applicable prescriptions, like reading How to Win Friends and Influence People, learning money management skills, networking, or whatever else is well-known and directly applicable to their situation. Thus, it is likely rational for low IQ people not to highly value direct rationality training, which doesn’t appeal to their comparative advantages.
Everyone appreciates decreased effort, right? Much of rationality could easily be reframed as methods to avoid wasting effort. The rest should follow kind of naturally, if rationality is indeed a coherent system of thought.
Yeah. There is some low-hanging fruit that helps you avoid wasting effort. But that is largely covered in books like Win Friends and Influence People and other such self help-y titles. LW is much deeper dive into rationality and I don’t think it would benefit some large % of the population in terms of avoiding wasting effort or increasing wealth or happiness.
I’m not talking about the low-hanging fruit. As you say, those are covered. My reasoning is this:
If rationality is systematized winning, every rationality technique can be described as a method for winning. Preferably with a group of examples from wildly unrelated contexts, to emphasize the universality of the method.
Every win can be reformulated as an avoidance of loss, which makes it gain subjective importance due to loss aversion.
Effort is loss.
So I think any aspect of rationality should seem more valuable if reframed in this way, which would help people who do not have that “quasi-aesthetic judgment that being correct is valuable unto itself” 9eB1 mentioned appreciate rational methods.
If you disagree, give me three elements of rationality that you don’t think can be reframed as methods to avoid wasting effort, and I’ll try to do just that.
This is not my idea. Rolf Dobelli did something very similar to that, and wrote an international bestseller this way.
I’m not sure what that you are responding to. In the context of this article, I meant only that some huge chunk of the population will likely never experience increased wealth, happiness, etc. by reading deeply into LW or other intensive rationality training because they don’t have big IQs. Simple heuristics and common biases are useful to know… beyond that, I see limited value.
For example, there is a rational way to dunk a basketball—avoiding wasting effort & optimizing to a successful outcome—but it isn’t particularily useful to 99.X% of the population.
The problem is a lot of irrationality can also be reformulated as avoiding wasted effort.