The Batman archetype describes (in Venkat’s view) much of LessWrong: world saving do-gooders. He thinks that groups of Batmans (Batmen?) are vulnerable to Jokers, who essentially have the sole goal of producing chaos for their own amusement. Discussing the contrast, who you’d expect to win at various timescales, and which view makes more sense, was surprisingly illuminating—it led us to explore historicism, Winning, whether cryonics is a good bet, and much more. Progress vs. Decay would have produced much of the same conversation, I suspect.
Clearly, to call the Joker approach “rationality” is to use the term very differently than we do.
What’s this about Batman vs. Joker rationality?
The Batman archetype describes (in Venkat’s view) much of LessWrong: world saving do-gooders. He thinks that groups of Batmans (Batmen?) are vulnerable to Jokers, who essentially have the sole goal of producing chaos for their own amusement. Discussing the contrast, who you’d expect to win at various timescales, and which view makes more sense, was surprisingly illuminating—it led us to explore historicism, Winning, whether cryonics is a good bet, and much more. Progress vs. Decay would have produced much of the same conversation, I suspect.
Clearly, to call the Joker approach “rationality” is to use the term very differently than we do.
The Joker is the ultimate skeptic.