This is part 1 of our dialogue series on the question "What is the next level of rationality?".

lsusr

Yudkowsky published Go Forth and Create the Art! in 2009. It is 2023. You and I agree that, in the last few years, there haven't been many rationality posts on the level of Eliezer Yudkowsky (and Scott Alexander). In other words, nobody has gone forth and created the art. Isn't that funny?

What Came Before Eliezer?

Yoav Ravid

Yes, we agreed on that. I remarked that there were a few levels of rationality before Eliezer. The one directly before him was something like the Sagan-Feynman style rationality (who's fans often wore the label "Skeptics"). But that's mostly tangential to the point.

lsusr

Or perhaps it's not tangential to the point at all. Feynman was referenced by name in Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality. I have a friend in his 20s who is reading Feynman for the first time. He's discovering things like "you don't need a labcoat and a PhD to test hypotheses" and "it's okay to think for yourself".

Yoav Ravid

How do you see it connecting to the question "What's the next level of rationality?"

lsusr

Yudkowsky is a single datapoint. The more quality perspectives we have about what "rationality" is, the better we can extrapolate the fit line.

Yoav Ravid

I see, so perhaps a preliminary to this discussion is the question "which level of rationality is Eliezer's?"?

lsusr

Yeah. Eliezer gets extra attention on LessWrong, but he's not the only writer on the subject of rationality. I think we should start by asking who's in this cluster we're pointing at.

Yoav Ravid

Alright, so in the Feynman-Sagen cluster, I'd also point to Dawkins, Michael Shermer, Sam Harris, Hitchens, and James Randi, for example. Not necessarily because I'm very familiar with their works or find them particularly valuable, but because they seem like central figures in that cluster.

lsusr

Those are all reasonable names, but I've never actually read any of their work. My personal list include Penn Jillette. Paul Graham and Bryan Caplan feel important too, even though they're not branded "skeptic" or "rationality".

Yoav Ravid

I've read a bit, but mostly I just came late enough to the scene and found Eliezer and Scott quickly enough that I didn't get the chance to read them deeply before then, and after I did I didn't feel the need.

Yoav Ravid

Yep, and Paul Graham is also someone Eliezer respects a lot, and I

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