While I think the rationalist folk are outperforming most other groups and individuals, I will sign on to Scott’s proposal to drop the slogan. “Rationalists should win” was developed in the context of a decision theory argument with philosophers who in my opinion had quite insane beliefs and thought that it was rational to choose to lose because of vague aesthetic reasons, and was not intended to connote fully general life advice. Of course I regularly lose games that I play. (Whereby “games” I also refer to real life situations well-modeled by game theory.)
Sure, but I feel like the actual conversation in all of these posts is about whether “the rationalist philosophy works as a tool for winning”, and at least measured by conventional success metrics, the answer is “yes, overwhelmingly so, as far as I can tell”. I agree there is an annoying word-game here that people play with a specific phrase that was intended to convey something else, but the basic question seems like one worth asking for every community one is part of, or philosophy one adopts.
While I think the rationalist folk are outperforming most other groups and individuals, I will sign on to Scott’s proposal to drop the slogan. “Rationalists should win” was developed in the context of a decision theory argument with philosophers who in my opinion had quite insane beliefs and thought that it was rational to choose to lose because of vague aesthetic reasons, and was not intended to connote fully general life advice. Of course I regularly lose games that I play. (Whereby “games” I also refer to real life situations well-modeled by game theory.)
Sure, but I feel like the actual conversation in all of these posts is about whether “the rationalist philosophy works as a tool for winning”, and at least measured by conventional success metrics, the answer is “yes, overwhelmingly so, as far as I can tell”. I agree there is an annoying word-game here that people play with a specific phrase that was intended to convey something else, but the basic question seems like one worth asking for every community one is part of, or philosophy one adopts.