I like winning just fine, but even if it turns out that devoting myself to ever finer-grained rationalism confers no significant winnings, I will still consider it a valuable thing in and of itself to be rational.
What Eliezer means by “winning” is “achieving your goals, whatever they may be”. If one of your most important goals is to be an (epistemic) rationalist, then devoting yourself to ever finer-grained (epistemic) rationalism will confer significant winnings.
That seems circular to the point of absurdity. If rationalism is whatever makes you win and winning is achieving your goals and my goal is to be rational...
That’s why I cut at “and my goal is to be rational”. Instrumental rationality is systematized winning, winning is steering the future into regions that are higher in your preference ordering. If the possession of truth is also fun, that’s just secondary fuel for our epistemic rationality.
What Eliezer means by “winning” is “achieving your goals, whatever they may be”. If one of your most important goals is to be an (epistemic) rationalist, then devoting yourself to ever finer-grained (epistemic) rationalism will confer significant winnings.
That seems circular to the point of absurdity. If rationalism is whatever makes you win and winning is achieving your goals and my goal is to be rational...
That’s why I cut at “and my goal is to be rational”. Instrumental rationality is systematized winning, winning is steering the future into regions that are higher in your preference ordering. If the possession of truth is also fun, that’s just secondary fuel for our epistemic rationality.