This seems like it’s missing the point.
1) What would be the rewards from League membership, aside from status and respect? “The league would be an island within which people would be freed from these pressures to do whatever they want.” --> Are non-League community members now obligated to give them resources? Or just to let them blog about whatever they want? (Can’t they do that already?)
2) There’s substantial precedent for great thinkers running off the rails over time, and thus not meriting sacrosanct status as great thinkers. This seems like it would lead directly to “X has thought of some really good stuff and proved themselves by passing through the Rational Ring of Fire, so we’re going to respect and them assume all their ideas are good even when they seem kind of nuts”. That’s bad! That’s bad rationality!
I like the emphasis on impact—the point of (instrumental) rationality is to use it to do things. Rewarding impact and assigning status to doing impactful things is good, as are inventing ways to systematize this. (I just read “Give praise” and agree with it.)
This post strikes me as broadly outlining some coping mechanisms, and then saying these are bad because people do them instead of actually fixing anything. There’s some important nuance there that’s lacking, and I suspect this post will do more harm than good by making people feel bad about coping mechanisms / strategies that let them tolerate the world, without helping them do anything else. I mean, the self-dig is sweet and I guess indicates that we’re all struggling with this balance together, but still.
(Apologies if this is harsh: I also can’t decide if I find the tone more fun-to-read or insulting, and I’m leaning towards ‘insulting’. It’s a close call though, props for trying something unusual.)