Good movies for rationalists?
Hi,
what good movies can you suggest that give ideas or inspirations on how to be more rational?
I just watched [Memento](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memento_%28film%29) last night and I was very impressed.
(No spoilers in this post)
The main character is a guy who suffers from amnesia, he forgets everything after a couple minutes so he has developed a system to cope with it. He takes pictures and writes notes. E.g. when staying at a hotel he takes a picture of it and put it in his pocket. So later when he doesnt know where he is staying he searches his pockets, finds the picture of the hotel and then he knows.
What I learned
I identified with the character in the movie because in spite of not having amnesia my memory as everyone elses isn’t perfect either and I have all the quirks(biases) of a normal human brain. I cant exactly remember what I did last Thursday at 3 PM. Do I actually know why I am doing what Im doing or why I believe what I believe? I may have good rationalizations for both, of course, but that doesnt mean they are the real reasons.
I like to read LW but I havent developed much of a system to actually be more rational. If anyone has, I would be eager to read about it.
Practical Advice
What system could I develop to be more rational? One thing that a lot of management experts(e.g. Peter Drucker) have already pointed out is to write down how we actually spend our time because often how we spend it is not how we think we spend it and we end up spending much more time on unproductive activities than we are aware of. How much time went into random internet browsing last week?
I will start an activity log during work: how much time Im spending on what. This will be a first step.
Limitless deserves mention. It’s a movie about a drug that makes people smarter.
When I first heard about it from MinibearRex, my initial reaction was “and, of course, the drug has some terrible drawback that causes the protagonist to lose in the end, because it’s probably caveman science fiction.” His response: “You really ought to see the movie.” It is, in fact, not caveman science fiction, which alone seems like a worthwhile reason for rationalists (and futurists) to see it.
Seconded.
I think a lot of people here will like Primer if they haven’t seen it. Two engineers accidentally invent a time machine and try to make a startup for it, while making money on the stock exchange and getting into nigh-incomprehensible intertemporal plots. The characters behave as rationally as can be expected given their situation—they take sensible precautions to avoid interfering with the timeline, generate and attempt to falsify hypotheses about what kind of time travel they’re dealing with, and how causality might be affected, and other important things that I don’t want to spoil.
You’ll need a graph and several watches to figure out exactly what’s going on though, which can be a plus or a minus depending on your patience and tolerance for obscurantism
I’m not sure I’d say the characters behave rationally. Indeed the interesting human element is the varied ways in which they react to their creation, which basically shows juvenile emotional response and lack of foresight. They’re very good at planning, plotting, and scheming, but utterly fail at the “rationalists win” part.
EDIT: Still, upvoted because it’s a great rationalist’s movie. You should watch it (and re-watch it until you finally understand it) as it presents a great hypothetical and philosophically interesting what-if. Just not a model to emulate.
I don’t think movies are good for much else than entertainment, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Some are good for inspiring certain attitudes and motivations, but the effect isn’t specific for rationality and tends to fade rather quickly. ETA: This has potential to be really bad for rationality, as Trevor correctly suspects.
I think any argument for a movie being better for teaching rationality than actually studying for the two hours is rationalization.
Gattaca inspires me to be the determinator for a while.
You raise an important question that applies to fiction in general.
But consider that EY’s inspiration for AI came from science fiction novels. I was greatly inspired by HPMOR and I wonder if studying science for the equivalent amount of time would have been better. Truth is that even what you study in books fades away, either because you forget much of it or because the excitement also wears off after a while. You could argue that fiction has an advantage because it is much easier to remember stories/characters than raw science.
Could you make a very inspirational and educational movie for rationalists? Probably. Are such movies actually made? Probably not. Good movies are expensive to produce and need to make money. Rationalists are a tiny niche market. Literature doesn’t have this problem to the same extent. Also the time constraints of movies don’t really allow much room for development of ideas.
Moneyball, maybe? (I haven’t seen it though)
I liked the book better (and I liked the book a lot!)
I tend to have a much easier time remembering, and generate more ideas during, information which is presented in a way I find entertaining.
Movies may not strike an ideal balance, but I think there’s a lot to be said for absorbing information presented in an entertaining manner.
I would try to solve this by making non-fiction literature and studying techniques more entertaining.
Well, personally, I read nonfiction almost exclusively these days, but I can’t do much to make the material more entertaining than the author made it.
I’m going to nominate The Man from Earth. The premise of the movie is essentially: If someone claimed they were immortal and did not age (but was otherwise human), what questions could you ask of them to test this?
My first thought was detective/courtroom drama type movies, but these are typically Sherlock Holmes style pseudo-rationality, with lessons you can’t apply to reality.
In general I don’t think movies are good for promoting rationality. The best I can think of are some of the more realistic war movies, eg. Das Boot, Platoon, The Great Escape, which illustrate the “nature doesn’t care” idea, where the characters can do everything perfectly and fail anyway because they were in an impossible situation from the start.
A lot of detective movies overmatch evidence too much. Detective get away with seeing patterns where there are no real pattern.
Or by paying attention to details it is unreasonable to expend effort paying attention to, except in hindsight.
What are some movies that are bad for being more rational? Movies that once seen discourage or impeed being more rational. And not just maybe or sometimes, but most of the time for most people. I can’t think of one film with such magic powers, and I can’t think of a film with magic powers in the other direction either.
I have been inspired by movies, but millions who saw the same films were not inspired (at least not in the same way). That suggests it was a level unlocked in me and not a boss encounter in the film.
Any non-abstract film will include if/then structures. That is rationality. Even ‘God did it’ in a film is an explanation, if a poor one.
There are just too many films like this to pick one.
1) Romantic comedies where the entire plot resolves around a simple misunderstanding that could be solved by a simple conversation b) flawed, mysterious characters change into fuzzy as a result of a relationship
2) Films containing straw vulcans (thereby creating false dichotomy between thinking and feeling)
3) The character took some stupid risks and is now about to fail. Suddenly, Deus ex machina. Lesson? Reality always bails you out somehow.
4) The character is kind of a jerk, but then some cutesy relationship stuff makes him or her change. (Actually, instances of fiction teaching people bad relationship heuristics alone would make up a sizable list)
There is some value in repeatedly seeing situations where dumb actions lead to a lot of heartache, so you can say wait, I’m doing something I know is dumb. But I suspect that most people have enough of that, and are better off seeing positive models.
I think Hollywood is responsible for some huge chunk of the sum total of all relationship problems. To the extent that people learn how to do love from TV & movies, they have a slim chance at fulfillment in romantic relationships.
Given your assertion that “Hollywood is responsible for some huge chunk of the sum total of all relationship problems” I infer that you consider this a substantial extent. Can you summarize your reasons for believing that?
I’m not sure I could provide a comprehensive summary… Um… Generally, I’d say much of what I see as damaging involves the expectations that a movie creates for what a romantic relationships should feel like and look like. People get this unrealistic ideal in their minds and spend their lives trying to make that their reality.
A romantic movie is typically about the courtship stage of the relationship. There is some conflict that needs to be resolved, and then the chips all fall neatly into place as our new lovers kiss and the credit roll. The climax is always “And they lived happily ever after...”
The message is kind of that “love! is magical”. And when love! happens, it fixes things. Serendipity is a real force in the Universe. Soulmates exist. You’ll just know when you know...
The physical universe is not like this. There is a magical-esque feeling neurological component to romantic love, for certain. But soon after, and for the long-haul, love is consistent choice, and often involves a great deal of sacrifice and hard work.
Lots of people don’t get this. They are irrational about love. People seem to have the view that everything else under the sun requires maintenance and practice and effort, where as love should just magically work when it is right. I think they often get this idea from fiction. I think it leads people to be shitty at relationships and disillusioned by love over time. And, in terms of its impact on long-term relationships, to the extent that people learn about what love looks like from TV & movies, I think it is substantial.
Sorry, I don’t think I was clear about my question.
My question was: what makes you think that TV & movies cause these failures? You seem to keep repeating the conclusion, but I don’t understand how you get there.
For example, how do you exclude the possibility that idealizing the “magical-esque feeling neurological component to romantic love” predated TV & movies, and that TV & movies simply recorded that idealization?
I don’t exclude that possibility. In fact, I’d say the “magical component” to romantic love does predate movies and TV. It predates all fiction, I’d imagine. Cave men fell in love and then made drawings about it on the cave walls. And then some other cave men came along and misunderstood the drawing when they compared their comparitively stale relationships with their cave women to the Storybook Romance depicted on the walls.
Even without the recorded idealization, I think people do chase the highs of love and infatuation based on their personal idealizations, and it hurts their chances of finding a fulfilling lorn-term romantic relationship. But Hollywood is loud & everywhere. And lots and lots of people are really bad at distinguishing fiction from reality. So, if you havne’t created an unrealistic view of love on your own, then there are movies and TV shows and books eveywhere ready to help you get infected by irrational expectations.
Sexual attraction (and the central nervous system consequences thereof) predates humans.
However as far as I can recall the concept of “romantic love” and specifically the notion of the sequence romantic love → marriage → live happily ever after, this notion was the product of the European Middle Ages.
Note that outside of the Western countries the idea that one should marry one’s romantic love interest is not widespread.
As far as I know, the idealization of romantic love started in the Middle Ages, but it was of a knight for a high status lady, not part of his marriage, and not supposed to be consummated sexually.
I’m not sure when the idea started that romantic love was supposed to be the basis of marriage.
I’ve heard the same, but I’m not sure how seriously to take the meme. I happened to read some Chrétien de Troyes chivalric romances recently (in translation), and the romantic relationships he depicts, while consistently idealized in character, sometimes conclude in marriage and aren’t exclusively chaste. (Indeed, I’m told de Troyes introduced the character of Lancelot to the Arthurian canon, and we all know what he’s famous for.)
Since de Troyes was writing in the 12th century, I’m inclined to take his work as at least somewhat authoritative.
Yes. Though it seems to me language, and humans’ capacity for it, is what I am ultimately suggesting is at issue with regard to movies influencing our expectations about what romantic love is like in the long term.
As soon as the idealization was recordable—able to be communicated to a non-participant in whatever form the sexual relationship took—then I think the map started to include errors in transmission about how to optimize for long-term fulfillment in romantic relationships. To the extent people had access to the errant map and used it as the primary (or sole) resource for doing long term love right, they were vulnerable to doing it wrong. Movies are just this concept on steroids, and only humans can make movies.
No doubt nature couldn’t care less about whether we’re fulfilled long-term...as long as we’re good at short-term mating and preparing Jr. to be good at it too, then our replicators are probably happy as clams.
I think you’re conflating “sexual” and “romantic”.
I guess. Though I’m not sure there is much harm in doing so in this context.
I think you’re looking for defense of a position that Brillyant isn’t taking. Specifically, you seem to think that Brillyant is claiming that Hollywood invented this. It seems to me that Brillyant is instead claiming that Hollywood blasts this in people’s faces and presents it as normality or the way things should work unless something is wrong with you, and with the persistent strong reach Hollywood has, this message is often converted into individual expectations.
This is quite plausible and fits extremely well with my existing model of reality, much more so than a claim that this unhealthy attitude was generated in the American films industry. Still no specific data, but I have a pretty high prior in favor of it.
Perhaps I’m just confused.
Brillyant said “Hollywood is responsible for some huge chunk of the sum total of all relationship problems.”
To my way of thinking, that seems to pretty clearly be asserting a causal relation.
And to my way of thinking such a causal relationship is inconsistent, for example, with the observation that all relationship problems existed in more or less the same form prior to Hollywood.
More generally: if B existed before A, and continues to exist in more or less the same fashion after A, I see no grounds for saying that A is responsible for B.
Even if A blasts B in people’s faces, or presents B as normality; even if A has a persistent strong reach.
But it apparently seems plausible to both you and Brillyant that Hollywood causes relationship problems despite all of that. So as I say, perhaps I’m confused, either about what y’all are actually claiming, or about how to think about cause and effect.
Perhaps, for example, there was an earlier cause, but now it’s gone, and Hollywood is sustaining an effect that would not exist without it. That’s not logically impossible, but it seems an unjustified speculation.
They might have existed in the same form, but very different levels of prevalence.
Suppose that a disease exists, but is contained in a small local population until one individual exports it, personally infects hundreds of individuals, who infect others until it reaches pandemic status. Would you say that the fact that the disease previously existed in the same form is inconsistent with the individual having a causal relationship with the pandemic?
Not at all, and that would be a fine example of the sort of observation Brillyant could hypothetically make that would justify the actual claim. There are dozens of other similar examples, any or all of which might or might not be the actual observations Brillyant actually made.
What I asked, that started all of this, was for a summary of Brillyant’s actual reasons for making the claim.
What I’ve ended up in instead is an extended conversation about what sorts of observations might in theory justify a claim like that.
Which, while not irrelevant, isn’t really an answer to my question, or if it is I’m just not understanding it. Which continues to lead me to think that I’m simply being unclear, or perhaps confused. It’s probably best for me to tap out here. Thanks for your patience.
Hollywood’s role here is promoting and popularizing a set of existing relationship tropes, not necessarily coming up with those tropes in the first place, and it isn’t the sole champion of these tropes. If an unspoken or explicit agreement took over the majority of Hollywood studios, script writers, and so forth, then we could get a healthier, more realistic set of relationship tropes promoted and popularized, competing with the unhealthy relationship tropes.
What would happen? People’s expectations would be more in line with reality, since the media they consume that shapes their expectations is more in line with reality. They would be more inclined to communicate with each other because they are inundated with examples of people communicating with each other freely to resolve isues. Average relationship health would increase.
The unhealthy tropes would still exist. They’re popular now for some reason, and that reason probably wouldn’t simply disappear, plus they’ve got a lot of inertia, in terms of both existing media and existing mindshare. And if the magical collusion for healthy relationship tropes were merely between Hollywood organizations, then advertising agencies and novellists and songwriters and other media producers would still be able to promote the unhealthy tropes. But removing a major source of reinforcement of the problematic ideas and replacing them with a source of reinforcement of less problematic ideas would result in fewer problems overall.
Again, this is expounding on Brillyant’s point, not offering evidence. I want you to have a clear idea of one of the better forms of that position, but I don’t have the data myself. It should be relatively easy to find evidence for similar issues, specifically eating disorders, but also violence and violence-accepting attitudes toward women.
Thank you. And yes, I agree with this, with the understanding that we’re not saying anything here about the plausibility of that magical collusion.
Not just the collusion, but managing to design a coherent replacement for the current tropes.
Sure? cue reactionaries’ claims about divorce and stuff
Upvoted anyway for an excellent heuristic, even though I’m not sure the premise is correct in this case.
I really wasn’t trying to pick a fight here. I was asking for clarification about what was being said. “I believe Hollywood is responsible for some huge chunk of the sum total of all relationship problems, in part because I believe those problems did not exist before Hollywood” would have been a fine example of such a clarification. .
For myself, I can’t really say that the media is a causal factor. I think it might just be a case of art imitating life, rather than film influencing values.
I would say that most relationships which are depicted as desirable in movies are, in fact, dysfunctional. When I see people watching them without recognizing that the relationship is actually dysfunctional and glossing over unfortunate implications, I feel irritated. It’s also a constant source of values dissonance for me.
Simple stuff, like the notion that people who are alone are necessarily unhappy, sex negativism, black and white thinking (either s/he’s The One or s/he’s a terrible person), etc...and in general, there are so many love stories that do not depict any actual love or even altruistic behavior. Which would be fine, except it’s done with absolutely no self awareness of that fact on the part of the writer or the audience. They think they’re depicting a good situation.
I’d add that romances in movies (which are necessarily constrained in development time by the length of the format) tend to involve characters making grand gestures or major commitments while in a state of limerence without demonstrating fundamental compatibilities which would suggest good long term prospects.
Specific movies would probably be too narrow to be useful, although tropes and plot structure probably have more to do with this than genre. Some genres are worse than others, of course.
I’ve got a variety of issues with the way heroism tends to be constructed in escapist fiction, but I reserve a particular loathing for stories that’re built around a message of “you should accept being special”, when “special” is defined in terms of a unique role or destiny and realizing its potential doesn’t take any onscreen effort on the protagonist’s part. Epistemic irrationality is easy to find in stories, but that sort of plot’s actively corrosive to instrumental rationality, especially for people that’re more than a couple of sigmas out on some relevant real-life metric: the implication is that no matter how much you slack off, you’re fine as long as you recognize your Gandalf or Hagrid when he shows up. Worse, you’re expected to feel a sort of faint ennui while you’re waiting, which neatly explains any natural feelings of boredom or dissatisfaction. Doing your own thing might even constitute a refusal of the call.
There’s an especially pernicious version of this where any suffering the protagonist runs into before embarking on their adventure is counted as a noble sacrifice, one that’ll be doubly rewarded—morally, if not temporally—once the dragon’s slain. I’ll leave spotting that in recent media as an exercise to the reader.
Pretty much any movie with the message “go with your instincts” fits. This is a huge proportion of movies. I try to avoid them, especially romantic comedies. Every time I see one it feels like I have to actively combat the stupidity to avoid brain damage.
I too find rationality lessons (mostly, shedding light on my cognitive processes) in almost all films, even ones which most likely weren’t intended. But I guess that’s got to do with me watching very few films, and would hit very quickly diminishing returns if I started to regularly watch several films per week.
In The Princess Bride, Vizzini loses his contest of wits with Wesley because he doesn’t question his assumptions, which leads to him dying (and falling over comically). It’s not super high-level, but it could be a useful talking point, given that it’s a popular movie and relatively kid-friendly.
My two favorite movies deal with trying to figure out what’s real and what isn’t, which is an important skill as a rationalist.
The two movies are: Total Recall (distinguishing reality from false memories) Inception (distinguishing reality from dreams)
If someone knows other movies that would go in this category, I’d like to know!
The Truman Show.
The Usual Suspects, The Sting, or any other good con movie. (A personal favorite, excellent but little known internationally, is the Argentine film Nine Queens).
“The Others” sortof falls into this category. (Can’t tell you why without spoilers)
This is only a semi-recommendation, but I remember being startled when I saw Toy Soldiers by the basic narrative of “oh look, we’ve been occupied by bad guys. clearly what we need to do is gather a lot of information about their numbers, location, and armament and then figure out a way to get that information to our much stronger allies outside”
Which sounds kind of obvious, but flies in the face of most movie narratives of the same sort.
(Caveat: I saw it like 20 years ago; my memory may well be distorted.)
To clarify: it sounds like you mean http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toy_Soldiers_%281991_film%29 and not http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toy_Soldiers_%281984_film%29 ?
Hah! Yes; yes I do. I hadn’t been aware of the latter.
Given the wikipedia reference to a “bloody attempted rescue” it might be teaching the same lesson via negative example. I’m inclined to doubt it, though.
One movie that certainly portrays a rationalist favorably is Contact. An almost-perfect humanist movie is UFOria, which weaves the two leads’ developing connection with each other and with reality together in a very organic way. Unfortunately, in the last few seconds it seems to wimp out in favor of ontological ambiguity.
Contact is about as anti-rationalist as a movie can get. The main character was right in that she really did violate the known laws of physics, but her reasoning was completely wrong. The government’s public arguments were correct because they correctly valued the prior probability that the known laws of physics are correct. The fact that the main character’s conclusion turned out to be correct anyway is then used to promote religious faith. I very much dislike this movie.
Das experiment—adaptation of Stanford Prison Experiment (most likely)
Compliance—based on real story of real-life crimes that were possible because of human compliance bugs.
Theese are quite darkish movies I guess. But it is really graphic exibition of human folly. And thru empathy it helps to internalise the horror that surround us, and it really motivated me to study heuristics, biases and resarch on debiasing.
I also don’t think that most movies are worth the time from an educational standpoint. But there are some entertaining movies which if watched with a frame of mind where you don’t immediately forget what you saw (e.g. not admiring the special effects and great acting) but think while watching (e.g. reflecting the multiple levels of struture of the movie from dialogs to motivations to topics to plot) then you can take something home while still having fun.
Movies are some of the most complex and dense products on earth and if they weren’t primarily be made to hook you emotionally more would learn from them as complex items.
Here is a list of movies that may be interesting for LWers: http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?MoviesToConsider
Blade Runner is inspirational?
Don’t ask me. I just relay the list as is. Some may see it as that. That much I agree with at least.
Kenneth Branagh’s Much Ado About Nothing for lessons in base rate neglect and confirmation bias,
The Cube (1969) by Jim Henson (yes, that Jim Henson, no, it isn’t muppets at all).
You can search “The Cube 1969” in the usual places. Hard to find otherwise.
Insofar that some TV series might benefit children, I’d nominate Magic School Bus, Wishbone, and Kratt’s Creatures. In the realm of things not intended to be explicitly educational, I’d suggest Avatar: The Last Airbender for moral philosophy and nuanced politics.
I honestly don’t think I’ve ever seen any movies that would benefit an adult of the sort who reads Lesswrong beyond entertainment value.
There quite a lot of movies with themes LW would get behind—Scooby doo, Limitless, 3 idiots, The Croods...
Deconstructing movies, however, is a good mind-expanding activity. I’ve definitely gotten some handy ideas from TVtropes.
Cypher is an underappreciated gem in my view, and mainly about the ability to trust your own memory.
I think Serpico makes a point very relevant to here—that to be a hero you essentially have to be a bit of a crank.
I enjoyed The Prestige; the plot shows the importance of questioning one’s basic assumptions, though the narrative is about becoming great at something but sacrificing a lot to do so—I’m not sure how true that is.
The Other Guys was fun as an antidote to a certain kind of action movie.
And FWIW I hated Primer, as someone who very much enjoyed Memento.
Every person who is notable for being the best at what they do who I’ve heard talk about this emphasizes the importance of focus, specifically not doing other things so that they can do the thing they’re the best at. I get the sense that’s a very true lesson which is very hard for people to accept.
That’s my experience too, but it seems to be contradicted by e.g. http://lesswrong.com/lw/ub/competent_elites/
The contradiction isn’t clear to me. Given two people with formidable intellects, the one who focuses all their attention on X will go much further at X than the person who dabbles among twenty things.
If X has significantly diminishing returns at the high end, the pure-Xer will have improved only slightly, at the expense of the twenty other things.
Significantly diminishing returns in terms of, say, “piano skill per hour invested,” but “dollars earned per piano skill” can be such that “dollars earned per hour invested” has increasing returns, rather than decreasing returns, especially when considering world-class abilities.