Thinking about Ozy’s recent post.
I definitely remember when I first read the Sequences, getting a sort of “world is mad” feeling. But looking back, I’m having a hard time remembering what that feeling was about.
Because … my world was never that mad? I don’t know anyone who buys lottery tickets or homeopathic remedies. Pretty much everyone I know is atheist. My childhood was full of people making jokes about the efficient market hypothesis and the sunk cost fallacy. From an early age my parents taught me things like the difference between correlation and causation, and how to interpret observational vs. randomized studies.
(I mean, I know my world isn’t normal. But since before I can remember I’ve always known I and the people I knew were smarter than most people. The question is where rationality comes in.)
Idk. There are only two things that consistently make me feel alienated from non-rationalists.
One is politics. When normal people are talking about politics I always have the urge to yell, “Can’t you see this discussion is entirely signaling and tribal rock-throwing?” This is the least useful modification because it doesn’t really make me better at anything, it just makes me more annoyed when people talk about politics. 3/10 would not recommend asking the aliens for.
(I’m not even sure how rationality-related this is. Like, I’ve always felt sort of alienated by a lot of political discussions. Maybe because they often rely on emotional appeals to fairness and I’ve always been a degenerate unifoundationist? Maybe because I missed Political Indoctrination Day during Blue Tribe Socialization?)
Another is EA stuff. But I don’t think the main disconnect here is rationality. I think it’s more that most people don’t really care about helping people? Like, I explain GiveWell and people are like, “Cool. I guess I’ll check them out if I ever have any money I really don’t know what to do with.” Or I will explain the case for animal rights to people, and they will nod along and go “Yes, I see that factory farming is basically animal torture and we as a society could end it with little cost to ourselves, but I just don’t really care about animals.”
(This is non-rationalists I’m talking about. Rationalists go “Yes, I see, but I just don’t think animals are sentient.”)
I mean, I’m sure I got some insight from reading the Sequences and discovering the rationality community. I wish I could remember what it was.