Language is not about communication of abstract concepts, it’s about communication of status.
An intelligent rationalist likes to have incorrect reasoning pointed out so they can correct it.
A normal person perceives corrections as an assertion of higher status.
An intelligent rationalist enjoys discussing difficult subject mater that stretches the limit of their understanding.
A normal person perceives such topics as an assertion of higher status.
An intelligent rationalist is interested in pragmatic solutions to problems.
A normal person uses stances on known problems to signal their social affiliations.
An intelligent rationalist explicitly reasons about social norms and ignores them when advantageous.
A normal person implicitly views such behavior as signaling group disloyalty.
An intelligent rationalist values intelligence terminally (okay this isn’t strictly rational, but is a common pattern).
A normal person values intelligence instrumentally.
I’m sure there are many more, and you could write pages about each one, but I think this covers some broad swaths.
Holy crap, suddenly lots of up-to-now-incomprehensible stuff stared making sense!
The problem is, those guys aren’t even aware of this, and when you actually ask them why they behave so incongruously, they bullshit their way or can’t answer at all. So can we only count on each other to find out about this stuff, highlight it, and explain it? I’m dead serious here: where can I read more about this?
Reading about it won’t actually get you that far. nazgulnarsil, wedrifid and HughRistik all know a lot more about this than me. That said; in decreasing order of information per unit of reading, PUA literature, theatre literature, social psychology.
If you want to learn this stuff without joining the PUA subculture the second most efficient way to do it is probably doing improv in a good group.
Impro, by Keith Johnstone has a fantastic introduction to status.
Things that are relevant to this; body language, tone and intonation; gaze. There are books for all these but if you want to improve for yourself and integrate your abstract knowledge much, much faster you can do partner dancing, acting and singing.
That said; in decreasing order of information per unit of reading, PUA literature, theatre literature, social psychology.
Then there are sources like Robert Greene’s Law’s of Power. They aren’t the sort of thing to literally follow. Just a body of knowledge that will be brought to mind when looking at how social patterns flow around. It gives the practical experience and observations something to form around and ‘click’ on.
It is, of course, worth noting that while the nerd instinct of ‘read about it till I understand it’ does help—and is certainly a lot of fun as a matter of curiousity—actually getting to the level of being able to understand what is happening in real time takes huge amounts of practical work. Because this is what most people have spent the majority of their formative years mastering.
Actually acting, dancing and singing have taught me a lot. The only reason I don’t get into the PUA subculture is because I can’t find a freaking wingman I trust. All my friends find PUA morally repulsive for some reason and don’t want to help me in this endeavor.
Another factor that staves me romantically is that I have a lot of trouble finding an intellectually compatible girl… and other girls just… failt to arouse me. I guess I could force myself into seducing them for practice or something, but I just can’t see myself being in a relationship with a girl that isn’t at least a potential rationalist. Those girls are few and far between… and when I find them I tend to get so overexcited I inevitably screw things up one way or another… they remain good friends though.
There’s a Barcelona Lair if you’re really interested in pickup. If you’re at a university, in a debating club, then there are intelligent women about. Everybody’s a potential rationalist. People in relationships generally change, and the more awesome, fun and attractive you are the more likely any partner you find will be to change for you.
That place sounds pretty badass. Do you know it personally?
As for the awesome part, as a good rationalist, I am steadily working on it.
And i don’t want to change anyone, I want to find someone who already is a rationalist (not specifically a Lesswronger, just someone who values Truth as a terminal value… at least for a start) or has the disposition to grow into one. In Big Bang Theory terms, I would never date a Penny, a Bernie, a Priya or an Amy would all be interesting choices (all of them inconvenient in their own way, but, hey, we’re all people).
A pretty brutal but quite efficient acid test would be suggesting they read Methods of Rationality. That book is kinda the sum of a lot of stuff I like and endorse, so if they go as enthusiastic about it as I was before Schedule Slip, it’s almost certain we’ll at least be very good friends. Furthermore, and failing that, the fact that they can ’keep up with the more complicated knots of the plot means we can have the sort of advanced discussion I enjoy. Failing that, the fact they’d be willing to consider reading a fanfiction would already mean we share some unusual cultural priors.
At how low a probability of eventually understanding, say, Bayes’ Rule and the 12 Virtues of Rationality do you consider a girl to have no potential as a future rationalist?
eventually? 100%. Anything less is completely unacceptable.. Anyone should be able to understand those. That’s the entire point of Rationalism, it’s supposed to be accessible to anyone, intelligent people are just faster learners.
The potential to become a rationalist isn’t a matter of being capable to understand, say, the Sequences or the Luminosities or the Feynman Lectures. It’s a matter of wanting to.
If there’s one trend you can tell from this thread, it’s that the Twelve Virtues are mostly an innate and early-nurture thing. The Number One virtue, Curiosity, I know so many people who just don’t have it. A relationship with a person who doesn’t seek the truth, who doesn’t feel the itch to pick at contradictions and fill their intellectual lacunas, or worse, who refuses to question their own prejudice, and who is content with knowing the minimum needed to perform their social function… There’s only so far a relationship with such people can go for me.
Writing this post, I just realized Ace Attorney is remarkably close to what a Rationalist game could be.
women are malleable. it is an evolutionary trait, disagreeing with males was bad for your offspring’s health.
before someone starts getting offended, men are malleable too, or do you not find all the hoop jumping just to have some sex in the PUA culture somewhat funny? I do.
anyway, If I expected women to be ideologically agreeable when we first started dating I’d never date anyone.
I wasn’t talking about “starting dating”, I was talking about “keeping as romantic partner”. Otherwise it’d be a purely sexual relationship, and those just aren’t very interesting except as half-hearted practice for the real stuff. If i could skip that stuff entirely without damaging my chances of finding my one and true, I would.
If you can stomach it, you can read PUA stuff without joining the subculture if you’re willing to practice the parts that you’re okay with. If you can’t stomach it, you can find a different site.
Nice us vs. them litany you got there. I think the descriptions of what “intelligent rationalists” do are actually mostly descriptions of what people who identify as “intelligent rationalists” tell themselves about themselves.
But I agree about the parts about what “normal people” do, so it’s still a useful comment.
IME highly intelligent people really do have different revealed preferences than normal people. Also keep in mind normal just means average. I think appeals to populism are just another form of applause lights TBH.
People want to be treated the way they want to be treated, sometimes that’s compliments, sometimes its fun outings, but its rarely the way I want to be treated.
I also disagree with the golden rule assertion. the average person does not want to be treated like an intelligent rationalist.
Please elaborate.
Language is not about communication of abstract concepts, it’s about communication of status.
An intelligent rationalist likes to have incorrect reasoning pointed out so they can correct it. A normal person perceives corrections as an assertion of higher status.
An intelligent rationalist enjoys discussing difficult subject mater that stretches the limit of their understanding. A normal person perceives such topics as an assertion of higher status.
An intelligent rationalist is interested in pragmatic solutions to problems. A normal person uses stances on known problems to signal their social affiliations.
An intelligent rationalist explicitly reasons about social norms and ignores them when advantageous. A normal person implicitly views such behavior as signaling group disloyalty.
An intelligent rationalist values intelligence terminally (okay this isn’t strictly rational, but is a common pattern). A normal person values intelligence instrumentally.
I’m sure there are many more, and you could write pages about each one, but I think this covers some broad swaths.
Holy crap, suddenly lots of up-to-now-incomprehensible stuff stared making sense!
The problem is, those guys aren’t even aware of this, and when you actually ask them why they behave so incongruously, they bullshit their way or can’t answer at all. So can we only count on each other to find out about this stuff, highlight it, and explain it? I’m dead serious here: where can I read more about this?
Reading about it won’t actually get you that far. nazgulnarsil, wedrifid and HughRistik all know a lot more about this than me. That said; in decreasing order of information per unit of reading, PUA literature, theatre literature, social psychology.
If you want to learn this stuff without joining the PUA subculture the second most efficient way to do it is probably doing improv in a good group.
Impro, by Keith Johnstone has a fantastic introduction to status. Things that are relevant to this; body language, tone and intonation; gaze. There are books for all these but if you want to improve for yourself and integrate your abstract knowledge much, much faster you can do partner dancing, acting and singing.
Then there are sources like Robert Greene’s Law’s of Power. They aren’t the sort of thing to literally follow. Just a body of knowledge that will be brought to mind when looking at how social patterns flow around. It gives the practical experience and observations something to form around and ‘click’ on.
It is, of course, worth noting that while the nerd instinct of ‘read about it till I understand it’ does help—and is certainly a lot of fun as a matter of curiousity—actually getting to the level of being able to understand what is happening in real time takes huge amounts of practical work. Because this is what most people have spent the majority of their formative years mastering.
Actually acting, dancing and singing have taught me a lot. The only reason I don’t get into the PUA subculture is because I can’t find a freaking wingman I trust. All my friends find PUA morally repulsive for some reason and don’t want to help me in this endeavor.
Another factor that staves me romantically is that I have a lot of trouble finding an intellectually compatible girl… and other girls just… failt to arouse me. I guess I could force myself into seducing them for practice or something, but I just can’t see myself being in a relationship with a girl that isn’t at least a potential rationalist. Those girls are few and far between… and when I find them I tend to get so overexcited I inevitably screw things up one way or another… they remain good friends though.
There’s a Barcelona Lair if you’re really interested in pickup. If you’re at a university, in a debating club, then there are intelligent women about. Everybody’s a potential rationalist. People in relationships generally change, and the more awesome, fun and attractive you are the more likely any partner you find will be to change for you.
That place sounds pretty badass. Do you know it personally?
As for the awesome part, as a good rationalist, I am steadily working on it.
And i don’t want to change anyone, I want to find someone who already is a rationalist (not specifically a Lesswronger, just someone who values Truth as a terminal value… at least for a start) or has the disposition to grow into one. In Big Bang Theory terms, I would never date a Penny, a Bernie, a Priya or an Amy would all be interesting choices (all of them inconvenient in their own way, but, hey, we’re all people).
A pretty brutal but quite efficient acid test would be suggesting they read Methods of Rationality. That book is kinda the sum of a lot of stuff I like and endorse, so if they go as enthusiastic about it as I was before Schedule Slip, it’s almost certain we’ll at least be very good friends. Furthermore, and failing that, the fact that they can ’keep up with the more complicated knots of the plot means we can have the sort of advanced discussion I enjoy. Failing that, the fact they’d be willing to consider reading a fanfiction would already mean we share some unusual cultural priors.
At how low a probability of eventually understanding, say, Bayes’ Rule and the 12 Virtues of Rationality do you consider a girl to have no potential as a future rationalist?
eventually? 100%. Anything less is completely unacceptable.. Anyone should be able to understand those. That’s the entire point of Rationalism, it’s supposed to be accessible to anyone, intelligent people are just faster learners.
The potential to become a rationalist isn’t a matter of being capable to understand, say, the Sequences or the Luminosities or the Feynman Lectures. It’s a matter of wanting to.
If there’s one trend you can tell from this thread, it’s that the Twelve Virtues are mostly an innate and early-nurture thing. The Number One virtue, Curiosity, I know so many people who just don’t have it. A relationship with a person who doesn’t seek the truth, who doesn’t feel the itch to pick at contradictions and fill their intellectual lacunas, or worse, who refuses to question their own prejudice, and who is content with knowing the minimum needed to perform their social function… There’s only so far a relationship with such people can go for me.
Writing this post, I just realized Ace Attorney is remarkably close to what a Rationalist game could be.
women are malleable. it is an evolutionary trait, disagreeing with males was bad for your offspring’s health.
before someone starts getting offended, men are malleable too, or do you not find all the hoop jumping just to have some sex in the PUA culture somewhat funny? I do.
anyway, If I expected women to be ideologically agreeable when we first started dating I’d never date anyone.
I wasn’t talking about “starting dating”, I was talking about “keeping as romantic partner”. Otherwise it’d be a purely sexual relationship, and those just aren’t very interesting except as half-hearted practice for the real stuff. If i could skip that stuff entirely without damaging my chances of finding my one and true, I would.
If you can stomach it, you can read PUA stuff without joining the subculture if you’re willing to practice the parts that you’re okay with. If you can’t stomach it, you can find a different site.
What proportion of Less Wrong regulars are intelligent rationalists?
That’s an embarassing question if I ever saw any...
Nice us vs. them litany you got there. I think the descriptions of what “intelligent rationalists” do are actually mostly descriptions of what people who identify as “intelligent rationalists” tell themselves about themselves.
But I agree about the parts about what “normal people” do, so it’s still a useful comment.
IME highly intelligent people really do have different revealed preferences than normal people. Also keep in mind normal just means average. I think appeals to populism are just another form of applause lights TBH.
People want to be treated the way they want to be treated, sometimes that’s compliments, sometimes its fun outings, but its rarely the way I want to be treated.