Hello there! I found your post and the comments really interesting (as soon as I finish writing this, I will be checking The Best Textbooks on Every Subject list in LW), but would like to contribute an outsider’s 2¢, as I have only recently discovered and started to take an interest in EA. The thing is, without trying to be disrespectful, that this Rationalist movement that possibly led many of you to EA feels really, really, really weird and alien on a first glance, like some kind of nerdy, rationalist religion with unconventional and controversial beliefs (polyamory or obsessing with AI) and a guru who does not appear to be well-known and respected as a scientist outside of his circle of followers, and whose main book seems to be a fanfiction-esque rewrite of a Harry Potter book with his ideas intertwined. I repeat that I do not mean this as an evaluation (it is probably ‘more wrong’, if you’ll allow the pun), but from an external perspective, it almost feels like some page from a book with entries on Scientology and Science Fiction. I feel that pushing the message that you have to be a Rationalist or Rationalist-adjacent as a prerequisite to really appreciate and value AE can very easily backfire.
Being the Sequences as long as you say, perhaps even a selection might not be the best way to get people interested if they aren’t already piqued or have a disproportionate amount of free time in their hands. Like, if a Marxist comes and tells you that you need to read through the three volumes of Capital and the Grundrisse before making up your mind on if the doctrine is interesting, personally relevant or a good or a bad thing, or if a theologian does the same move and points towards Thomas Aquinas’ very voluminous works, you would be justified in requiring first some short and convincing expository work with the core arguments and ideas to see if they look sufficiently appealing and worth engaging in. Is there something of the kind for Rationalism?
Hello! Welcome to the forum, I hope you make yourself at home.
...you would be justified in requiring first some short and convincing expository work with the core arguments and ideas to see if they look sufficiently appealing and worth engaging in. Is there something of the kind for Rationalism?
In this comment Hauke Hillebrandt linked this essay of Holden Karnofsky’s: The Bayesian Mindset. It’s about a half-hour read and I think it’s a really good explainer.
Putanumonit has their own introduction to rationality—it’s less explicitly Bayesian, and somewhat more a paean to what Karnofsky calls “[emphasizing] various ideas and mental habits that are inspired by the abstract idea of [expected utility maximization]”: The Path to Reason
Some “rationality in action” type posts from a variety of authors, to demonstrate what it looks like when people try to use the Bayesian mindset (these posts are all Real Hipster, written by contrarians who were subsequently proven correct by common consensus; the purpose of rationality is to be as correct as possible as quickly as possible).
Efficient Charity: Do Unto Others: 8 minute read, about efficient charity (written before “effective altruism” was a term and some years before the Centre for Effective Altruism existed)
Seeing the Smoke: a post about Covid-19, written in February of 2020
Many people stand by The Scout Mindset by Julia Galef (though I haven’t myself read it) (here’s a book review of it that you can read to decide whether you want to buy or borrow the book). I don’t know how many pages long it is exactly but am 85% sure it falls in your range.
On the nightstand next to me is Replacing Guilt by Nate Soares—it’s 202 pages long and they are all of them great. You can find much of the material online here, you could give the first few chapters a glance-through to see if you like them.
I’m interested to see which books other people recommend!
Hello there! I found your post and the comments really interesting (as soon as I finish writing this, I will be checking The Best Textbooks on Every Subject list in LW), but would like to contribute an outsider’s 2¢, as I have only recently discovered and started to take an interest in EA. The thing is, without trying to be disrespectful, that this Rationalist movement that possibly led many of you to EA feels really, really, really weird and alien on a first glance, like some kind of nerdy, rationalist religion with unconventional and controversial beliefs (polyamory or obsessing with AI) and a guru who does not appear to be well-known and respected as a scientist outside of his circle of followers, and whose main book seems to be a fanfiction-esque rewrite of a Harry Potter book with his ideas intertwined. I repeat that I do not mean this as an evaluation (it is probably ‘more wrong’, if you’ll allow the pun), but from an external perspective, it almost feels like some page from a book with entries on Scientology and Science Fiction. I feel that pushing the message that you have to be a Rationalist or Rationalist-adjacent as a prerequisite to really appreciate and value AE can very easily backfire.
Being the Sequences as long as you say, perhaps even a selection might not be the best way to get people interested if they aren’t already piqued or have a disproportionate amount of free time in their hands. Like, if a Marxist comes and tells you that you need to read through the three volumes of Capital and the Grundrisse before making up your mind on if the doctrine is interesting, personally relevant or a good or a bad thing, or if a theologian does the same move and points towards Thomas Aquinas’ very voluminous works, you would be justified in requiring first some short and convincing expository work with the core arguments and ideas to see if they look sufficiently appealing and worth engaging in. Is there something of the kind for Rationalism?
Best greetings.
M.
Hello! Welcome to the forum, I hope you make yourself at home.
In this comment Hauke Hillebrandt linked this essay of Holden Karnofsky’s: The Bayesian Mindset. It’s about a half-hour read and I think it’s a really good explainer.
Putanumonit has their own introduction to rationality—it’s less explicitly Bayesian, and somewhat more a paean to what Karnofsky calls “[emphasizing] various ideas and mental habits that are inspired by the abstract idea of [expected utility maximization]”: The Path to Reason
Other things which seem related:
Eliezer’s Sequences and Mainstream Academia: 4 minute read, connecting various Eliezerisms to the academic literature
Every Cause Wants to be a Cult: 3 minute read, essay by Eliezer on why Eliezer doesn’t want you to defer to Eliezer
Expecting Short Inferential Distances: 3 minute read, essay on why explaining things is sometimes hard
Some “rationality in action” type posts from a variety of authors, to demonstrate what it looks like when people try to use the Bayesian mindset (these posts are all Real Hipster, written by contrarians who were subsequently proven correct by common consensus; the purpose of rationality is to be as correct as possible as quickly as possible).
The Amanda Knox Test: How an Hour on the Internet Beats a Year in the Courtroom: 14 minute read, about how Amanda Knox was innocent (written before she was imprisoned and later exonerated)
Efficient Charity: Do Unto Others: 8 minute read, about efficient charity (written before “effective altruism” was a term and some years before the Centre for Effective Altruism existed)
Seeing the Smoke: a post about Covid-19, written in February of 2020
Hope you find this useful!
Thanks for the recommendations! I wouldn’t have any issues either with a moderately-sized book (say, from 200-400 pages long).
Cheers.
M.
Many people stand by The Scout Mindset by Julia Galef (though I haven’t myself read it) (here’s a book review of it that you can read to decide whether you want to buy or borrow the book). I don’t know how many pages long it is exactly but am 85% sure it falls in your range.
On the nightstand next to me is Replacing Guilt by Nate Soares—it’s 202 pages long and they are all of them great. You can find much of the material online here, you could give the first few chapters a glance-through to see if you like them.
I’m interested to see which books other people recommend!