Rationality

What Hacker News says

1. jonathanycAug 2024
   I mean the problem is there won't be any books directly refuting Nate Silver's argument because it's essentially just "people who disagree with me are irrational."

   Right-of-center, "Wait But Why" by Tim Urban and "Rationality: A-Z" by Eliezer Yudkowsky (and LessWrong in general) are much better at talking about examining our own biases. LessWrong will be much better than the stuff Tim Urban wrote, which is still better than what Nate Silver is writing. LessWrong is arguably not even right-of-center.

   Left-of-center, David Graeber's "The Utopia of Rules" does a good job of pointing out a lot of our society's quiet assumptions.

   But I mean ultimately when you say that such-and-such a crowd has a problem with "decoupling," you're just talking about what it means to be human. I guarantee you anyone who claims they don't have a problem with "decoupling" is lying. It just takes a little bit of time and you'll find something which seems like a minor point of order to you which makes them fly off the rails.

   My own biased and unhinged take is that the decline of religion in the West has given people total cognitive blindness to the idea that people might actually believe different things from you yet still be rational, i.e. that there are plenty of interesting and useful arguments that are valid but not sound.

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2. tasukiNov 2022
   It's so embarassing and cringey I couldn't manage to read it at all. I've had more luck with Yudkowsky's other book, Rationality: From AI to Zombies[0], which I've rather enjoyed.

   [0]: https://www.readthesequences.com/

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3. justinpombrioMay 2022
   I am quite scared of human extinction in the face of AGI. I certainly didn't jump on it, though! I was gradually convinced by the arguments that Yudkowsky makes in "Rationality: from AI to Zombies" (https://www.readthesequences.com/). Unfortunately they don't fit easily into an internet comment. Some of the points that stood out to me, though:

   - We are social animals, and take for granted that, all else being equal, it's better to be good to other creatures than bad to them, and to be truthful rather than lie, and such. However, if you select values uniformly at random from value space, "being nice" and "being truthful" are oddly specific. There's nothing universally special about deeply valuing human lives any more so than say deeply valuing regular heptagons. Our social instincts are very ingrained, though, making us systematically underestimate just how little a smart AI is likely to care whatsoever about our existence, except as a potential obstacle to its goals.

   - Inner alignment failure is a thing, and AFAIK we don't really have any way to deal with that. For those that don't know the phrase, here it is explained via a meme: https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/deceptively-aligned-me...

   So here's hoping you're right about (a). The harder AGI is, the longer we have to figure out AI alignment by trial and error, before we get something that's truly dangerous or that learns deception.

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4. AntonioclDec 2021
   Nonfiction: "Rationality: From AI to Zombies" by Eliezer Yudkowsky. It was a fantastic deep-dive into the topic, and despite being extremely long was very readable.

   Fiction: "Grapes of Wrath" by John Steinbeck. I've read other Steinbeck before this one, but this stands out as a clear masterpiece. I especially enjoyed the way he blended the experiences of specific individuals with the experiences of a general population - the narration style was very enjoyable.

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5. wdrwMay 2020
   Rationality: From AI to Zombies by Eliezer Yudkowsky

   Many people think of themselves as rational and have mastered the basics (understand the scientific method, know how to systematically solve difficult problems, etc) but are still constantly fooled by their human, imperfect brains into irrational thoughts and actions - both in day-to-day life and when pondering larger questions (science, engineering, policy, philosophy). Many aren't aware (just as I wasn't) that there are many more levels of rational thinking to unlock, that mistakes and biases can be identified and reduced. The book is adapted from a series of blog posts so lacks a bit in coherence (can be hard to get into), but stick with it for a bit, and I guarantee the ideas presented will be well-worth it.

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6. fossuserJan 2020
   Yes you’re missing out.

   There are a lot of bad books out there that waste your time (particularly in self-help).

   For an example of an excellent non-fiction book that gives sweeping background to a topic that you can’t get from a blog post read The Emperor of All Maladies (about cancer).

   For one about Physics read Our Mathematical Universe.

   There’s also Eliezer Yudkowsky’s Rationality which was a large collection of blog posts put into book form.

   For fiction I’d recommend The Nix for a really good novel.

   The difference between good and bad in books is huge and part of the difficulty is that it’s hard to know up front if a book will be a waste of your time.

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