It occurs to me that perhaps “professional rationalist” is a bit of an oxymoron. In today’s society, a professional rationalist is basically someone who is paid to come up with publishable results in the academic fields related to rationality, such as decision theory and game theory.
I’ve always hated the idea of being paid for my ideas, and now I think I know why. When you’re being paid for you ideas, you better have “good” ideas or you’re going to starve (or at least suffer career failure). But good ideas can’t be produced on a schedule, so the only way to guarantee academic survival is to learn the art of self-promotion. Your papers better make your mediocre ideas look good, and your good ideas look great. And having doubts about your ideas isn’t going to help your career, even if they are rationally justified.
Given this reality, how can any professional rationalist truly be rational?
Paradigmatic career-making ideas and papers are rare and take years or decades to produce. But academia doesn’t run on that coin—just regular papers and small ideas.
Is it too much to suggest that 1 every few months is possible for someone who ought to be a professional rationalist, who reads the literature carefully and thinks through all their ideas, who keeps a pad & pen handy to jot down random notes, who listens to the occasional off-kilter but insightful student questions, and so on?
That is 4 ideas a year, and over a graduate student’s 4-year term, 16 possible papers. Not counting any prevarication.
It occurs to me that perhaps “professional rationalist” is a bit of an oxymoron. In today’s society, a professional rationalist is basically someone who is paid to come up with publishable results in the academic fields related to rationality, such as decision theory and game theory.
I’ve always hated the idea of being paid for my ideas, and now I think I know why. When you’re being paid for you ideas, you better have “good” ideas or you’re going to starve (or at least suffer career failure). But good ideas can’t be produced on a schedule, so the only way to guarantee academic survival is to learn the art of self-promotion. Your papers better make your mediocre ideas look good, and your good ideas look great. And having doubts about your ideas isn’t going to help your career, even if they are rationally justified.
Given this reality, how can any professional rationalist truly be rational?
“How long did it take you to learn this new thing?”
Paradigmatic career-making ideas and papers are rare and take years or decades to produce. But academia doesn’t run on that coin—just regular papers and small ideas.
Is it too much to suggest that 1 every few months is possible for someone who ought to be a professional rationalist, who reads the literature carefully and thinks through all their ideas, who keeps a pad & pen handy to jot down random notes, who listens to the occasional off-kilter but insightful student questions, and so on?
That is 4 ideas a year, and over a graduate student’s 4-year term, 16 possible papers. Not counting any prevarication.