An ELI5 (Explain Like I’m 5) episode. Our answers when someone asks “What is Rationality anyway?” and they have a bit of time.
Eliezer’s Sequences of Blog Posts on Rationality
In ebook form – Rationality: From AI to Zombies
Piano competition with and without music results
Blind auditions for classical orchestras increased hiring of women (shorter version here)
John Oliver’s piece on Abortion Laws
The Bell Curve
Finally – fact-checking Eneasz’s claims about cultural trends:
Scott Alexander’s most recent survey results in full (starting to age now).
Of the things mentioned:
Relationship Style
Prefer polyamorous: 227, 15.1%
Uncertain/no preference: 464, 30.9%
Other: 23, 1.5%
(in the general population: Polyamory in general pop (US) = 9.8M out of 319M (3%) (“An estimate based solely on the agreement to allow satellite lovers is around 9.8 million.”) )
Politics
Conservative: 67, 4.5%
Liberal: 416, 27.7%
Libertarian: 379, 25.2%
Social Democratic: 585, 38.9%
(general population (US) – 19% of general pop identify as Libertarians. Not as big a difference as Eneasz thought! )
Religion
Atheist and spiritual: 150, 10.0%
Agnostic: 156, 10.4%
Lukewarm theist: 44, 2.9%
Deist/pantheist/etc.: 22,, 1.5%
Committed theist: 60, 4.0%
(general population (US) is almost reversed, ~76% religious, 23% “nones” (and only 7% atheist/agnostic) )
Moral Views
Accept/lean towards deontology: 50, 3.3%
Accept/lean towards natural law: 48, 3.2%
Accept/lean towards virtue ethics: 150, 10.0%
Accept/lean towards contractualism: 79, 5.3%
Other/no answer: 239, 15.9%
(couldn’t find any numbers for general pop. As a proxy, a survey of philosophers (primarily Anglophonic) showed only 24% consequentialists.)