I haven’t listened to the video yet. (It’s very long, so I put it on my watch-later list.) Nor have I finished Eliezer’s Sequences (I’m on “A Technical Explanation of Technical Explanation.”) However, I looked at the above summaries to decide whether it would be worth listening to the video.
Potential Weaknesses
None of the alternative books say anything about statistics. A rough intro to Bayesian statistics is an essential part of the Sequences. Without this, you have not made them superfluous.
A rough understanding of Bayesian statistics is a valuable tool.
Anecdote: I took courses in informal logic when I was a teenager and was aware of cognitive biases. However, the a-ha moment that took me out of the religion of my childhood was to ask whether a particular theodicy was probable. This opened the way to ask whether some of my other beliefs were probable (not possible, as I’d done before). Within an hour of asking the first question, I was an atheist. (Though it took me another year to “check my work” by meeting with the area pastors and elders.) I thought to ask it because I’d been studying statistics. So, for me, the statistical lens helped in the case where the other lenses failed to reveal my errors. I already knew a hoard of problems with the Bible, but the non-probabilistic approaches allowed me to deal with the evidence piece by piece. I could propose a fix for each one. For example, following Origen, I could say that Genesis 1 was an allegory. Then it didn’t count against the whole structure.
The above anecdote took place several years before I encountered LessWrong. I’m not saying that the Sequences/LessWrong helped me escape religion. I’m saying that Bayesian stats worked where other things failed, so it was useful to me, and you should not consider that you’ve replaced the sequences if you leave it out.
Handbook of the History of Logic: The Many Valued and Nonmonotonic Turn in Logic is on the reading list. I haven’t read it, but the title gives me pause. Nonmonotonic logics are subtle and can be misapplied. I misapplied Zadeh’s possibilistic logic to help justify my theism.
The promotion of the LSAT and legal reasoning seems out of place. Law is the opposite of truth-seeking. Lawyers create whatever arguments they can to serve their clients. A quick Google couldn’t dig up statistics, but I’d guess that more lawyers are theists than scientists.
For me, the LessWrong community is a place I can get better data and predictions than other news sources. I know only one person who is also on LessWrong. They live across an ocean from me, and we haven’t talked in 8 months. I don’t think hanging out and playing board games is a major draw. If this is the thesis, it is far from my personal experience.
Potential Strengths
The emphasis of the sequences on epistemic over instrumental rationality.
Other people in the LessWrong community have pointed this out. (I remember a sequence with the word “Hammer” in it that talks about instrumental rationality.)
The alternative reading list does not seem to address instrumental rationality
Treating suffering as interchangeable doesn’t always produce good outcomes. (Though I don’t know how to deal with this—if you can only take one course of action, you must reify everything into a space where you can compare options.)
Other An alternative to piracy in the USA is to request books with the Interlibrary loan system. It is free in most places. Also, academic libraries in public universities frequently offer membership for a small fee ($10-$20 per month) or free to community members—especially students, so if you have a local university, you might ask them.
Your argument boils down to:
Objectivity is X
Y is not X
(Because you want to be objective) Don’t do Y
I want to Win. Being Pascal Mugged is not Winning. Therefore I will make choices to not be Pascal Mugged. If that requires not being “objective,” according to your definition, I don’t want to be objective.
However, I have my own use of “objective” that comports well with adapting to new information and using my predictive powers. But I don’t want to argue that my usage is better or worse; it will be fruitless. I mention it so readers won’t think I’m hypocritical if I say I’m attempting to be objective.
This is a drive-by comment. I write it with hopes for our mutual benefit. However, do not expect me to check back or reply to anything you say.