Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

I am really not sure where you get any of these ideas. For each of your critiques, there are not only discussions, but taxonomies of compendiums of discussions about the topics at hand on LessWrong, which can easily be found by Googling any keyword or phrase in your comment.

On "considering what should be the baseline assumption":

https://www.lesswrong.com/w/epistemology

https://www.lesswrong.com/w/priors, particularly https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/hNqte2p48nqKux3wS/trapped-pr...

On the idea that "rationalists think that they can just apply rationality infinitely to everything":

https://www.lesswrong.com/w/bounded-rationality

On the critique that rationalists are blind to the fact that "reason isn't the only thing that's important", generously reworded as "reason has to be grounded in a set of human values", some of the most philosophically coherent stuff I see on the internet is from LW:

https://www.lesswrong.com/w/metaethics-sequence

https://www.lesswrong.com/w/human-values

On "systematically plan to validate":

https://www.lesswrong.com/w/rationality-verification

https://www.lesswrong.com/w/making-beliefs-pay-rent

On "what could hold true for one moment could easily shift":

https://www.lesswrong.com/w/black-swans

https://www.lesswrong.com/w/distributional-shifts

https://www.lesswrong.com/w/forecasting-and-prediction






Looking it the first link https://www.lesswrong.com/w/epistemology - it has frankly a comically shallow description of the topic, same with https://www.lesswrong.com/w/priors. In just about every discussion, I may be just the entirely wrong audience, but to me they don't even begin to address the narrow topic of choice, let alone form competent building blocks to form any solid world view.

I support anyone trying to form rational pictures of the universe and humanity. If the LessWrong community approach seems to make sense and is enriching to your understanding of the world then I am happy for you. But, every time I try to take a serious delve into LessWrong, and I have done it multiple times over the years, it sets off my cult/scam alerts.




Consider applying for YC's Fall 2025 batch! Applications are open till Aug 4

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: