I think it’s a bit hard to answer this question, because we have to unpack what the “should” is doing in this question.
If the question were something like “what do most experienced rationalists know?” it would be easier to answer because it would just be descriptive and we could go down the list of things most people in the rationality community for at least some period of time and acknowledged by the community in some way to be “experienced” (say, 5 years and >2500 LW karma, just to purpose some concrete proposal if you were to ask this question). As it stands, though, asking “should” means this is asking for a norm, prescription, or plan to apply to rationalists to qualify as experienced.
And I think therein lies the problem. I can think of no necessary and sufficient knowledge a rationalist should know, since so much of work makes someone “good” and “experienced” at rationality is in the practice of it, and you can find folks who are good rationalists who never heard of LessWrong and might be quite skilled at practicing the art of rationality but not know particular things that could let them communicate those skills in ways that would be recognizable to rationalists on LessWrong.
But I guess if I really step back and take this question to be something like “what are some things that appear to have been helpful for experienced rationalists to have learned in order to become so experienced” then I think I can answer (look for my answer in the comments section).
I think it’s a bit hard to answer this question, because we have to unpack what the “should” is doing in this question.
If the question were something like “what do most experienced rationalists know?” it would be easier to answer because it would just be descriptive and we could go down the list of things most people in the rationality community for at least some period of time and acknowledged by the community in some way to be “experienced” (say, 5 years and >2500 LW karma, just to purpose some concrete proposal if you were to ask this question). As it stands, though, asking “should” means this is asking for a norm, prescription, or plan to apply to rationalists to qualify as experienced.
And I think therein lies the problem. I can think of no necessary and sufficient knowledge a rationalist should know, since so much of work makes someone “good” and “experienced” at rationality is in the practice of it, and you can find folks who are good rationalists who never heard of LessWrong and might be quite skilled at practicing the art of rationality but not know particular things that could let them communicate those skills in ways that would be recognizable to rationalists on LessWrong.
But I guess if I really step back and take this question to be something like “what are some things that appear to have been helpful for experienced rationalists to have learned in order to become so experienced” then I think I can answer (look for my answer in the comments section).