I do not think rationalists are duped more easily than normies that never heard about Less Wrong, but people who claim to be the smartest people in the world should be held to higher standard, and claim that studying their super special sequences will make anyone as smart as they are should be put to close scrutiny.
If you are boasting you are Airborne Navy Seal Ranger specially trained in gorilla warfare, and get your ass regularly kicked by ordinary drunks in bar fights, people would be justified doubting the value of super secret martial arts training you offer.
Where are all the former losers who read the sequences, pulled themselves by their bootstraps and became brilliant winners?
*✋️ raises hand✋️ *
Hi, I was in a rut of depression and uncertainty and fear of the future in my early twenties, then one summer I read HPMOR, then worked through the sequences, recognized the value, and spent the next several years doing the hard work to adjust my life onto the track that allowed me to actually become happy, healthy, and financially secure. I truly enjoy life now.
Also, I tempered that knowledge with some extra examination of neuroscience, statistics/risk (Fooled by Randomness is a REALLY good book), and the art of rhetoric since, it turns out, merely thinking rationally doesn't get you very far if you can't deal with other "irrational" people in normal conversation.
A few things I credit rationality/the sequences with:
Being aware of and buying Bitcoin very early, recognizing the potential upside.
Being aware to never go all-in on Bitcoin or crypto (we see many, many people never grok this and blow up) at any given time.
Avoiding every single collapsed exchange and rugpull, from Mt.Gox to FTX, and thus never losing my gains to some unexpected event.
Pulling the fuck out of crypto when it became clear it had gone full cheap-money-fueled casino.
It is likely that I would have been one of those poor rubes who got fucked by SBF if I had not gotten my epistemic foundation built on solid ground well in advance.
Now, the caveat is that I have defined "winning" in quite modest terms. So my success is not amazing when compared to what many others who aren't rationalists have achieved. But it has put me in a position where virtually no single event (not counting X-risks) can wipe me out. And that's the fucking dream.
So I will strongly maintain that the sequences are a force for good, even if they haven't caused humanity as a species to vault to a higher state of being in a single decade.
I am happy that you've found success. May you be your best self in enjoying the good that you've earned.
I would not describe myself as a rationalist, but I recognize what you've discovered--there's value to be found here, and it's worth the time to seek out. I suspect that SBF found some valuable facts about the world, but not the much more valuable attending wisdom, and proceeded to apply his lessons much less well than you've done. Perhaps he'll learn something from the ruin his mistakes have caused, but even if so, it will have been purchased at great cost to many others.
I'm increasingly convinced that SBF was acting with some level of malice aforethought and he was using EA as a decent camouflage.
But whatever he did learn from the rationalists, he missed the lessons on how deontology is extremely useful for putting up behavioral guardrails so that your fallible human hardware doesn't end up causing you to commit moral atrocities.
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Notes -
I do not think rationalists are duped more easily than normies that never heard about Less Wrong, but people who claim to be the smartest people in the world should be held to higher standard, and claim that studying their super special sequences will make anyone as smart as they are should be put to close scrutiny.
If you are boasting you are Airborne Navy Seal Ranger specially trained in gorilla warfare, and get your ass regularly kicked by ordinary drunks in bar fights, people would be justified doubting the value of super secret martial arts training you offer.
Obligatory link:
Where are All the Successful Rationalists?
Where are all the former losers who read the sequences, pulled themselves by their bootstraps and became brilliant winners?
*✋️ raises hand✋️ *
Hi, I was in a rut of depression and uncertainty and fear of the future in my early twenties, then one summer I read HPMOR, then worked through the sequences, recognized the value, and spent the next several years doing the hard work to adjust my life onto the track that allowed me to actually become happy, healthy, and financially secure. I truly enjoy life now.
Also, I tempered that knowledge with some extra examination of neuroscience, statistics/risk (Fooled by Randomness is a REALLY good book), and the art of rhetoric since, it turns out, merely thinking rationally doesn't get you very far if you can't deal with other "irrational" people in normal conversation.
A few things I credit rationality/the sequences with:
Being aware of and buying Bitcoin very early, recognizing the potential upside.
Being aware to never go all-in on Bitcoin or crypto (we see many, many people never grok this and blow up) at any given time.
Avoiding every single collapsed exchange and rugpull, from Mt.Gox to FTX, and thus never losing my gains to some unexpected event.
Pulling the fuck out of crypto when it became clear it had gone full cheap-money-fueled casino.
It is likely that I would have been one of those poor rubes who got fucked by SBF if I had not gotten my epistemic foundation built on solid ground well in advance.
Now, the caveat is that I have defined "winning" in quite modest terms. So my success is not amazing when compared to what many others who aren't rationalists have achieved. But it has put me in a position where virtually no single event (not counting X-risks) can wipe me out. And that's the fucking dream.
So I will strongly maintain that the sequences are a force for good, even if they haven't caused humanity as a species to vault to a higher state of being in a single decade.
I am happy that you've found success. May you be your best self in enjoying the good that you've earned.
I would not describe myself as a rationalist, but I recognize what you've discovered--there's value to be found here, and it's worth the time to seek out. I suspect that SBF found some valuable facts about the world, but not the much more valuable attending wisdom, and proceeded to apply his lessons much less well than you've done. Perhaps he'll learn something from the ruin his mistakes have caused, but even if so, it will have been purchased at great cost to many others.
I'm increasingly convinced that SBF was acting with some level of malice aforethought and he was using EA as a decent camouflage.
But whatever he did learn from the rationalists, he missed the lessons on how deontology is extremely useful for putting up behavioral guardrails so that your fallible human hardware doesn't end up causing you to commit moral atrocities.
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