I think the #lesswrong community got it wrong. “Rationality is about winning” — but there are two kinds of rationality: epistemic and instrumental.
Epistemic rationality is about knowing how accurately your beliefs map to reality.
Instrumental rationality is about achieving your goals.
Traditional Chinese businessmen have way more instrumental rationality than the average lesswronger.
@cedricchin I agree that #lesswrong community care about instrumental rationality less than they should. However I want to point out that for me my old goals / utility function seem stupid now, and epistemic rationality sometimes makes people have less stupid goals / utility function.
Also I think EY mentioned somewhere that he made lesswrong for his AI alignment agenda, and that epistemic rationality is very important for that.
@p You make a really good point. I think if EY did the whole #rationality thing for his AI alignment agenda, then it explains so many features of the lesswrong canon, including the focus on ethics.
Its sad to see that proper instrumental rationality handbooks come out of the finance industry instead. (I’m mostly thinking Ray Dalio’s Principles, which imo is the best of the lot).