It’s a fascinating question. I mean, on the one hand, sure, he is a human, he is rational. He clearly understands the world he exists in, and manipulates it to his benefit. He gets his socks on every morning. He doesn’t get stuck in doors.
In another, if we are using “rationalism” to mean something like “competent”, then I think we have to say that Trump is competent. Like, over the course of his life, he has accomplished difficult things with enough regularity that it seems reasonable to assume he has some base “meta-effort” that he implements for each problem. Something like “figure out what to do, do it, see if it worked, revise as needed”.
Lastly, though, if we are using “rationalism” as “LW style understanding of your own biases”, then it doesn’t really feel to me like he is. My vibe on Big T is that he is on the Dr. Droom side of the famous “you with your books and your tables vs my infallible knowledge of what is true” continuum. He feels like a dude who goes with his gut instinct for the most part.
In my mind, when Trump decided to run, the scene wasn’t:
Trump, mulling over a report compiled by his PR guys, verifies that the opportunity he believed to exist is real. There is an ‘in’ here, he can exploit his celebrity for initial momentum, then use it to get the media attention necessary to crowd out his rivals one by one, even as they split the votes that automatically reject him due to his carefully cultivated persona. Then he would...
It was more like
Trump looked over the endless lineup of suited clones fighting it out to lead his party. Who even were these clowns? The inner voice, the one that told him that buying hotels and coating them in gold and putting his name on it was a great idea, spoke up. “Weaklings,” it said. He nodded to himself and picked up his phone...
So it looks like that he thinks that “intuition is about winning”.
The really interesting question here is what are other things that are about winning, real ones and imagine.
For example luck, or simplicity (in case of bacteria).
It’s a fascinating question. I mean, on the one hand, sure, he is a human, he is rational. He clearly understands the world he exists in, and manipulates it to his benefit. He gets his socks on every morning. He doesn’t get stuck in doors.
In another, if we are using “rationalism” to mean something like “competent”, then I think we have to say that Trump is competent. Like, over the course of his life, he has accomplished difficult things with enough regularity that it seems reasonable to assume he has some base “meta-effort” that he implements for each problem. Something like “figure out what to do, do it, see if it worked, revise as needed”.
Lastly, though, if we are using “rationalism” as “LW style understanding of your own biases”, then it doesn’t really feel to me like he is. My vibe on Big T is that he is on the Dr. Droom side of the famous “you with your books and your tables vs my infallible knowledge of what is true” continuum. He feels like a dude who goes with his gut instinct for the most part.
In my mind, when Trump decided to run, the scene wasn’t:
Trump, mulling over a report compiled by his PR guys, verifies that the opportunity he believed to exist is real. There is an ‘in’ here, he can exploit his celebrity for initial momentum, then use it to get the media attention necessary to crowd out his rivals one by one, even as they split the votes that automatically reject him due to his carefully cultivated persona. Then he would...
It was more like
Trump looked over the endless lineup of suited clones fighting it out to lead his party. Who even were these clowns? The inner voice, the one that told him that buying hotels and coating them in gold and putting his name on it was a great idea, spoke up. “Weaklings,” it said. He nodded to himself and picked up his phone...
So it looks like that he thinks that “intuition is about winning”.
The really interesting question here is what are other things that are about winning, real ones and imagine. For example luck, or simplicity (in case of bacteria).