It’s a worthwhile question to be asking. I think there are a few ways to go about answering it.
The techniques discussed here
I think this is an area where Less Wrong still has a lot of room for improvement. There is relatively little material that lays out concrete techniques for applied/instrumental rationality together with compelling evidence for their efficacy. It’s not that there are a whole bunch of easily applied techniques discussed here that are not being widely used, it’s just not always that straightforward to translate ideas about rationality into concrete actions.
Why aren’t more people doing it?
I actually think the world is full of people using applied rationality (albeit often sub-optimally) but it isn’t always obvious because there are often big gaps between people’s stated aims and their actual goals. I think many cases of apparent irrationality dissolve when you look beyond people’s stated intentions. Politicians are the classic case—they only look irrational if you make the mistake of thinking that their actions are intended to further their publicly stated goals.
Robin Hanson talks a lot about the gap between the stated and actual purposes of various human institutions. People often look irrational relative to the stated purpose but quite rational relative to the actual purpose.
In general there is a stigma to talking honestly about the reality of such things. Less Wrong is a rare example of a forum where it is possible to talk much more honestly than is generally socially acceptable. The fact that you don’t often hear people talking in these terms does not necessarily mean they do not understand the reality but may just mean they strategically avoid publicizing their understanding while rationally acting on that understanding.
Why don’t I read about multi-billion dollar companies whose success was down to rationalist techniques?
Well to some extent you do. Bayesian techniques have been successfully applied by some software companies—spam filters are the standard example. I imagine that quantitative trading often applies some of the math of probability and decision theory towards making huge trading profits but for obvious reasons you are unlikely to see the details widely shared.
We also have the first problem I mentioned again. Lots of companies make rational decisions but it is hard to point to specific techniques discussed here that are used by successful companies because there aren’t many specific techniques discussed here that would be useful to them.
I voted you up by the way. I think this is an important question to ask and I don’t think my answer here is fully satisfactory. I think this is an issue we should continue to focus on.
Robin Hanson talks a lot about the gap between the stated and actual purposes of various human institutions. People often look irrational relative to the stated purpose but quite rational relative to the actual purpose.
Of course, that often ends up being tautological, because the tendency for folks like Robin Hanson is to define the “actual purpose” as “the purpose relative to which the behavior would be rational”.
(This is not a critique, incidentally—it may be a notable fact when behavior appears to be optimizing anything at all.)
This is true but I think the ultimate test of a Hansonian view of human institutions (as of any view) is whether employing it allows you to make more accurate predictions and thus better decisions. It is my belief that learning about economics, evolutionary psychology and Hansonian-type explanations for otherwise puzzling human behaviour has improved my ability to make predictions. I do not currently have hard data to provide strong evidence to support this belief to others. Figuring out how to test this belief and produce such data is something I’m actively working on.
Ultimately it seems like this is what a rationalist should care about—what model of human institutions produces the most accurate predictions? The somewhat justified criticism of ev-psych explanations as ‘just-so stories’ can only be addressed to the extent that ev-psych can out-predict alternative views.
It’s a worthwhile question to be asking. I think there are a few ways to go about answering it.
I think this is an area where Less Wrong still has a lot of room for improvement. There is relatively little material that lays out concrete techniques for applied/instrumental rationality together with compelling evidence for their efficacy. It’s not that there are a whole bunch of easily applied techniques discussed here that are not being widely used, it’s just not always that straightforward to translate ideas about rationality into concrete actions.
I actually think the world is full of people using applied rationality (albeit often sub-optimally) but it isn’t always obvious because there are often big gaps between people’s stated aims and their actual goals. I think many cases of apparent irrationality dissolve when you look beyond people’s stated intentions. Politicians are the classic case—they only look irrational if you make the mistake of thinking that their actions are intended to further their publicly stated goals.
Robin Hanson talks a lot about the gap between the stated and actual purposes of various human institutions. People often look irrational relative to the stated purpose but quite rational relative to the actual purpose.
In general there is a stigma to talking honestly about the reality of such things. Less Wrong is a rare example of a forum where it is possible to talk much more honestly than is generally socially acceptable. The fact that you don’t often hear people talking in these terms does not necessarily mean they do not understand the reality but may just mean they strategically avoid publicizing their understanding while rationally acting on that understanding.
Well to some extent you do. Bayesian techniques have been successfully applied by some software companies—spam filters are the standard example. I imagine that quantitative trading often applies some of the math of probability and decision theory towards making huge trading profits but for obvious reasons you are unlikely to see the details widely shared.
We also have the first problem I mentioned again. Lots of companies make rational decisions but it is hard to point to specific techniques discussed here that are used by successful companies because there aren’t many specific techniques discussed here that would be useful to them.
I voted you up by the way. I think this is an important question to ask and I don’t think my answer here is fully satisfactory. I think this is an issue we should continue to focus on.
Of course, that often ends up being tautological, because the tendency for folks like Robin Hanson is to define the “actual purpose” as “the purpose relative to which the behavior would be rational”.
(This is not a critique, incidentally—it may be a notable fact when behavior appears to be optimizing anything at all.)
This is true but I think the ultimate test of a Hansonian view of human institutions (as of any view) is whether employing it allows you to make more accurate predictions and thus better decisions. It is my belief that learning about economics, evolutionary psychology and Hansonian-type explanations for otherwise puzzling human behaviour has improved my ability to make predictions. I do not currently have hard data to provide strong evidence to support this belief to others. Figuring out how to test this belief and produce such data is something I’m actively working on.
Ultimately it seems like this is what a rationalist should care about—what model of human institutions produces the most accurate predictions? The somewhat justified criticism of ev-psych explanations as ‘just-so stories’ can only be addressed to the extent that ev-psych can out-predict alternative views.