Best of Rationality Quotes, 2012 Edition

Top original authors by number of quotes. (Note that authors and mentions are not disambiguated.)

Feynman 28
Russell 26
Pratchett 18
Nietzsche 18
Heinlein 18
Einstein 15
Dawkins 14
Chesterton 12
Wilson 11
Johnson 11
Asimov 11
Taleb 10
Dennett 10
Darwin 10
Voltaire 9
Meier 9
Hume 9
Clark 9
Buffett 9
Neumann 8
Thoreau 7
Rochefoucauld 7
Peirce 7
Medawar 7
Keynes 7
Huxley 7
Gould 7
Dijkstra 7
Aristotle 7
Yudkowsky 6
Plato 6
Orwell 6
Munroe 6
Mencken 6
Marx 6
Marshall 6
Lichtenberg 6
Kant 6
Jaynes 6
Holmes 6
Hitler 6
Egan 6
Drexler 6
Descartes 6
Carlyle 6
Binmore 6

Top original authors by karma collected.

454 Russell
392 Chesterton
365 Pratchett
322 Feynman
214 Nietzsche
196 Friedman
190 Heinlein
190 Dennett
183 Sagan
172 Voltaire
169 Wilson
162 Friedrich
157 Egan
149 Darwin
144 Moldbug
138 Plato
137 Einstein
134 Dawkins
133 Buffett
129 Aristotle
127 Aaronson
125 Marcus
124 Kahneman
123 Mencken
123 Asimov
122 Orwell
119 SMBC
119 Johnson
117 Hitler
117 Descartes
113 Kaas
110 Taleb
109 Hume
108 Confucius
103 Godin
102 Keynes
99 Stephenson
98 Munroe

Top quote contributors by total karma score collected:

1223 RichardKennaway
854 gwern
735 Rain
715 MichaelGR
637 Eliezer_Yudkowsky
618 GabrielDuquette
584 Alejandro1
560 anonym
551 Konkvistador
529 Jayson_Virissimo
485 lukeprog
458 NancyLebovitz
415 RobinZ
408 Yvain
374 CronoDAS
350 James_Miller
342 Tesseract
310 Grognor
308 Alicorn
297 DSimon
283 Stabilizer
280 peter_hurford
270 Nominull
258 billswift
253 Oscar_Cunningham
244 arundelo
239 Eugine_Nier
235 Kutta
234 Thomas
224 [deleted]
191 roland
189 Kaj_Sotala
178 Maniakes
177 J_Taylor
160 katydee
160 cousin_it
155 Will_Newsome
151 djcb
150 Nic_Smith
148 MinibearRex

Top quote contributors by statistical significance level:

0.00003 (20.14 in 29): Alejandro1
0.00005 (19.31 in 32): GabrielDuquette
0.00014 (28.11 in 9): Oscar_Cunningham
0.00020 (25.45 in 11): peter_hurford
0.00119 (47.50 in 2): Delta
0.00127 (18.55 in 22): Yvain
0.00136 (17.06 in 31): Jayson_Virissimo
0.00219 (62.00 in 1): Solvent
0.00394 (18.00 in 19): Tesseract
0.00544 (22.25 in 8): Maniakes
0.00620 (56.00 in 1): RomeoStevens
0.00777 (30.00 in 3): benelliott
0.00882 (35.00 in 2): michaelkeenan
0.00936 (24.40 in 5): Ezekiel
0.01276 (45.00 in 1): Mycroft65536
0.01296 (33.00 in 2): summerstay
0.01563 (15.91 in 22): James_Miller
0.01713 (43.00 in 1): alex_zag_al
0.01713 (43.00 in 1): Liron
0.01968 (41.00 in 1): Andy_McKenzie
0.02114 (40.00 in 1): bentarm
0.02350 (13.61 in 54): Rain
0.02414 (29.50 in 2): gRR
0.02435 (19.57 in 7): fortyeridania
0.02727 (19.29 in 7): Unnamed
0.02733 (15.63 in 19): DSimon
0.02850 (15.88 in 17): Nominull
0.02851 (15.72 in 18): Stabilizer
0.03630 (18.00 in 8): wallowinmaya
0.03746 (19.17 in 6): Mark_Eichenlaub
0.03938 (13.24 in 54): MichaelGR
0.04005 (23.00 in 3): cata
0.04005 (23.00 in 3): tingram
0.04309 (22.67 in 3): Oligopsony
0.04394 (14.76 in 21): Grognor
0.04752 (17.86 in 7): VKS
0.04766 (25.00 in 2): Automaton
0.04922 (19.20 in 5): Lightwave
0.05288 (16.09 in 11): J_Taylor
0.05729 (21.33 in 3): Miller

Top quote contributors by karma score collected in 2012:

452 GabrielDuquette
451 Alejandro1
396 Konkvistador
339 Jayson_Virissimo
309 gwern
306 lukeprog
289 NancyLebovitz
259 Grognor
243 Stabilizer
200 Alicorn
181 James_Miller
179 peter_hurford
175 arundelo
174 Eugine_Nier
151 Oscar_Cunningham
143 katydee
137 fortyeridania
136 [deleted]
128 Will_Newsome
125 VKS
117 J_Taylor
112 Stephanie_Cunnane
111 Mark_Eichenlaub
110 army1987
109 wallowinmaya
103 Ezekiel
101 RichardKennaway
97 Eliezer_Yudkowsky
95 Delta
88 Yvain
87 baiter
85 MBlume
82 Nominull
79 chaosmosis
78 roland
72 Vaniver
72 paper-machine
71 taelor
70 scmbradley
69 tingram

The link to this year's best of collection is giving me a 404 Not Found error. The 2009-2012 collection is accessible however.

Thank you for the data and collections of quotes! However, the link to the source code is pointing to the directory where you have the html files for the 2012 and 2009-2012 "Best of" collections, not to any .zip or .gz of the source code itself, and it seems to be pulling up a default page with the unstyled HTML version of the 2012 collection.

I removed the broken index.html, sorry. Now you can see the whole (messy) directory. The README is actually a list of commands with some comments, the source code consists of parse.py and convolution.py.

I reformatted "Best of Rationality Quotes 2009-2012" and put them into a fortunes file, which is available here.

Neat. Does the quote karma follow something like the exponential distribution?

I tried some stuff in R. While it looks exponential, none of the code or fitting functions gave good results on the highest-karma quotes - I guess because all the other thousand quotes look so linear. Of course, I could have just messed up in any of the following:

Open http://people.mokk.bme.hu/~daniel/rationality_quotes_2012/rq.html in Firefox; C-a; then:

$ xclip -o | grep Permalink | grep points | cut -f 1 -d' ' | tr '\n' ','
$ R
R> karma <- sort(c(105,73,66,64,63,62,60,60,58,58,57,57,57,57,57,56,56,55,55,54,53,51,50,50,49,49,
    48,48,48,47,47,46,46,45,45,44,44,44,43,43,43,43,43,43,43,43,43,42,42,41,41,41,
    41,41,40,40,40,40,39,39,38,38,38,38,38,38,38,38,37,37,37,37,37,37,37,37,36,36,
    36,36,36,36,36,35,35,35,35,35,34,34,34,34,34,34,34,34,34,34,34,34,34,34,33,33,
    33,33,33,33,33,32,32,32,32,32,32,32,32,32,32,32,32,32,31,31,31,31,31,31,31,31,
    31,31,31,31,31,30,30,30,30,30,30,30,30,30,30,30,29,29,29,29,29,29,29,29,29,29,
    29,29,29,29,29,28,28,28,28,28,28,28,28,28,28,28,28,28,28,28,28,28,28,28,27,27,
    27,27,27,27,27,27,27,27,27,27,27,27,27,27,27,27,27,27,27,27,26,26,26,26,26,26,
    26,26,26,26,26,26,26,26,26,26,26,26,26,26,26,26,26,26,26,26,26,26,25,25,25,25,
    25,25,25,25,25,25,25,25,25,25,25,25,25,25,24,24,24,24,24,24,24,24,24,24,24,24,
    24,24,24,24,24,24,24,24,24,24,24,23,23,23,23,23,23,23,23,23,23,23,23,23,23,23,
    23,23,23,23,23,23,23,23,23,23,23,23,23,23,23,23,23,23,23,23,23,22,22,22,22,22,
    22,22,22,22,22,22,22,22,22,22,22,22,22,22,22,22,22,22,22,22,22,22,22,22,22,22,
    22,22,22,21,21,21,21,21,21,21,21,21,21,21,21,21,21,21,21,21,21,21,21,21,21,21,
    21,21,21,21,21,21,21,20,20,20,20,20,20,20,20,20,20,20,20,20,20,20,20,20,20,20,
    20,20,20,20,20,20,20,20,20,20,20,20,20,20,20,20,20,20,20,19,19,19,19,19,19,19,
    19,19,19,19,19,19,19,19,19,19,19,19,19,19,19,19,19,19,19,19,19,19,19,19,19,19,
    19,19,19,19,19,19,19,19,19,19,19,19,18,18,18,18,18,18,18,18,18,18,18,18,18,18,
    18,18,18,18,18,18,18,18,18,18,18,18,18,18,18,18,18,18,18,18,18,18,18,18,18,18,
    18,18,18,18,18,18,18,18,18,18,18,18,18,18,18,17,17,17,17,17,17,17,17,17,17,17,
    17,17,17,17,17,17,17,17,17,17,17,17,17,17,17,17,17,17,17,17,17,17,17,17,17,17,
    17,17,17,17,17,17,17,17,17,17,17,17,17,17,17,17,17,17,17,17,17,17,17,17,17,17,
    17,17,17,16,16,16,16,16,16,16,16,16,16,16,16,16,16,16,16,16,16,16,16,16,16,16,
    16,16,16,16,16,16,16,16,16,16,16,16,16,16,16,16,16,16,16,16,16,16,16,16,16,16,
    16,16,16,16,16,16,16,15,15,15,15,15,15,15,15,15,15,15,15,15,15,15,15,15,15,15,
    15,15,15,15,15,15,15,15,15,15,15,15,15,15,15,15,15,15,15,15,15,15,15,15,15,15,
    15,15,15,15,15,15,15,15,15,15,15,15,15,15,15,15,15,15,15,15,15,14,14,14,14,14,
    14,14,14,14,14,14,14,14,14,14,14,14,14,14,14,14,14,14,14,14,14,14,14,14,14,14,
    14,14,14,14,14,14,14,14,14,14,14,14,14,14,14,14,14,14,14,14,14,14,14,14,14,14,
    14,14,14,14,14,14,14,14,14,14,14,14,14,13,13,13,13,13,13,13,13,13,13,13,13,13,
    13,13,13,13,13,13,13,13,13,13,13,13,13,13,13,13,13,13,13,13,13,13,13,13,13,13,
    13,13,13,13,13,13,13,13,13,13,13,13,13,13,13,13,13,13,13,13,13,13,13,13,13,13,
    13,13,13,13,13,13,13,13,13,13,13,13,13,13,13,13,13,13,13,13,12,12,12,12,12,12,
    12,12,12,12,12,12,12,12,12,12,12,12,12,12,12,12,12,12,12,12,12,12,12,12,12,12,
    12,12,12,12,12,12,12,12,12,12,12,12,12,12,12,12,12,12,12,12,12,12,12,12,12,12,
    12,12,12,12,12,12,12,12,12,12,12,12,12,12,12,12,12,12,12,12,12,12,12,12,12,12,
    12,12,12,12,12,12,12,12,12,12,12,12,12,12,12,12,12,12,12,12,12,12,12,12,12,12,
    11,11,11,11,11,11,11,11,11,11,11,11,11,11,11,11,11,11,11,11,11,11,11,11,11,11,
    11,11,11,11,11,11,11,11,11,11,11,11,11,11,11,11,11,11,11,11,11,11,11,11,11,11,
    11,11,11,11,11,11,11,11,11,11,11,11,11,11,11,11,11,11,11,11,11,11,11,11,11,11,
    11,11,11,11,11,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,
    10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,
    10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,
    10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10))
R> summary(karma)
   Min. 1st Qu.  Median    Mean 3rd Qu.    Max.
   10.0    12.0    17.0    19.5    23.0   105.0
R> n <- seq(length(karma))
R> temp <- data.frame(y = karma, x = n)

# first try, fitting a nonlinear model
R> plot(temp$x, temp$y)
R> mod <- nls(y ~ exp(a + b * x), data = temp, start = list(a = 0, b = 0))
R> lines(temp$x, predict(mod, list(x = temp$x))); mod
Nonlinear regression model
  model:  y ~ exp(a + b * x)
   data:  temp
     a      b
1.9094 0.0016
 residual sum-of-squares: 17684

Number of iterations to convergence: 9
Achieved convergence tolerance: 8.9e-06

# second try, fitting a quadratic
R> lm(temp$y ~ temp$x + I(temp$x^2))

Call:
lm(formula = temp$y ~ temp$x + I(temp$x^2))

Coefficients:
(Intercept)       temp$x  I(temp$x^2)
   1.33e+01    -1.91e-02     3.96e-05

# third try, log transform
R> exp(fitted(lm(log(temp$y) ~ temp$x)))
....
  1121   1122   1123   1124   1125   1126   1127   1128   1129   1130   1131   1132   1133   1134
35.080 35.123 35.167 35.211 35.255 35.299 35.343 35.387 35.431 35.475 35.520 35.564 35.608 35.653
  1135   1136   1137   1138   1139   1140
35.697 35.742 35.786 35.831 35.876 35.920

# fourth and final try, log variation
R> cc <- coef(lm(log(temp$y) ~ temp$x)); cc
(Intercept)      temp$x
   2.160310    0.001246
R> with(temp, fitted(nls(y ~ exp(a + b*x), start = list(a = cc[1], b = cc[2]))))
...
[1106] 39.594 39.657 39.721 39.784 39.848 39.912 39.976 40.040 40.104 40.168 40.232 40.297 40.361
[1119] 40.426 40.491 40.556 40.620 40.686 40.751 40.816 40.881 40.947 41.012 41.078 41.144 41.210
[1132] 41.276 41.342 41.408 41.474 41.541 41.607 41.674 41.740 41.807
attr(,"label")
[1] "Fitted values"

It is roughly exponential in the range between 3 and 60 karma.

You can find the raw data here.

Edit: I didn't spot gwern's more careful analysis. I am still digesting it. gwern, you should use the above link, it contains the below-10 quotes, too.

The extra data doesn't seem to make much difference:

R> karma <- read.table("http://people.mokk.bme.hu/~daniel/rationality_quotes_2012/scores")
R> karma <- sort(karma$V2)
R> summary(karma)
   Min. 1st Qu.  Median    Mean 3rd Qu.    Max.
   -8.0     4.0     8.0    10.7    15.0   105.0
...
Nonlinear regression model
  model:  y ~ exp(a + b * x)
   data:  temp
       a        b
-0.01088  0.00134
 residual sum-of-squares: 22772

Number of iterations to convergence: 7
Achieved convergence tolerance: 3.59e-06

It is roughly exponential in the range between 3 and 60 karma.

Eyeballing it, looks like the previous fit crosses around 40.

R> karma <- karma[karma<40]
...
Nonlinear regression model
  model:  y ~ exp(a + b * x)
   data:  temp
       a        b
-0.01088  0.00134
 residual sum-of-squares: 22772

Number of iterations to convergence: 7
Achieved convergence tolerance: 3.59e-06

The fit looks much better:

I am afraid I don't understand your methodology. How is a rank versus value function supposed to look like for an exponentially distributed sample?

How else would you do it?

When I stated that the middle is roughly exponential, this was the graph that I was looking at:

d <- density(karma)

plot(log(d$y) ~ d$x)

I don't do this for a living, so I am not sure at all, but if I really really had to make this formal, I would probably use maximum likelihood to fit an exponential distribution on the relevant interval, and then Kolmogorov-Smirnoff. It's what shminux said, except there is probably no closed formula because the cutoffs complicate the thing. And at least one of the cutoffs is really necessary, because below 3 it is obviously not exponential.

I expected something like this or the section thereafter.

Top quote contributors by statistical significance level:

0.00003 (20.14 in 29): Alejandro1
0.00005 (19.31 in 32): GabrielDuquette
0.00014 (28.11 in 9): Oscar_Cunningham
0.00020 (25.45 in 11): peter_hurford
0.00119 (47.50 in 2): Delta
0.00127 (18.55 in 22): Yvain
0.00136 (17.06 in 31): Jayson_Virissimo
0.00219 (62.00 in 1): Solvent
0.00394 (18.00 in 19): Tesseract
0.00544 (22.25 in 8): Maniakes
0.00620 (56.00 in 1): RomeoStevens
0.00777 (30.00 in 3): benelliott
0.00882 (35.00 in 2): michaelkeenan
0.00936 (24.40 in 5): Ezekiel
0.01276 (45.00 in 1): Mycroft65536
0.01296 (33.00 in 2): summerstay
0.01563 (15.91 in 22): James_Miller
0.01713 (43.00 in 1): alex_zag_al
0.01713 (43.00 in 1): Liron
0.01968 (41.00 in 1): Andy_McKenzie
0.02114 (40.00 in 1): bentarm
0.02350 (13.61 in 54): Rain
0.02414 (29.50 in 2): gRR
0.02435 (19.57 in 7): fortyeridania
0.02727 (19.29 in 7): Unnamed
0.02733 (15.63 in 19): DSimon
0.02850 (15.88 in 17): Nominull
0.02851 (15.72 in 18): Stabilizer
0.03630 (18.00 in 8): wallowinmaya
0.03746 (19.17 in 6): Mark_Eichenlaub
0.03938 (13.24 in 54): MichaelGR
0.04005 (23.00 in 3): cata
0.04005 (23.00 in 3): tingram
0.04309 (22.67 in 3): Oligopsony
0.04394 (14.76 in 21): Grognor
0.04752 (17.86 in 7): VKS
0.04766 (25.00 in 2): Automaton
0.04922 (19.20 in 5): Lightwave
0.05288 (16.09 in 11): J_Taylor
0.05729 (21.33 in 3): Miller

LESSWRONG
LW

LESSWRONG
LW

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Best of Rationality Quotes, 2012 Edition

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