This meta-approach is what is needed today. We are seeing systemic failure across the board, but no solutions are provided. What people really need is a toolkit to go beyond the structures we have, so that the inevitable collapse does not seem so scary or world-ending.
The institution-building is vital - either we build new parallel structures that do their job better and then we have a controlled demolition of the old, or we wait for a wholesale collapse and step in with a new model of work.
The bottom line about wisdom is perhaps most telling - seeing the world for the grand whole that it is, as opposed to monomaniacally focusing on metrics that are meaningless on their own.
You articulate and explain something that I see and sense but couldn’t find words for or even a perspective on. Among my pleasures in this essay, I really appreciate (because of its rarity in this context) your acknowledging how our bodies receive, respond to, and process vast amounts of signal, that intuition is real.
Tremendous insight. It makes for a very good backbone to an argument that the governments of the west should not survive, or parallel systems should be built. Amazing piece.
Great essay, I just drafted something about AI Risk in Healthcare. Much of the optimization in this way is due to optimization for short term time preferences.
I’m here for this kind of interdisciplinary thinking, even if I have to look up half the terms 😂
So many solid quotes… I’ve restacked three in an effort to save them to my notes but there are a dozen more I want to keep.
I’m curious what makes meta-rationality not a framework? It seems to me like a fluid, dynamic, sophisticated version of rationality—but still in the same category. (I imagine rationalists might argue rationality is also not a framework!)
I'd say that whether meta-rationality counts as a framework misses the real point. Meta-rationality, as I understand it, is a mental move where you build the recognition of model incompleteness directly into your thinking process.
This naturally orients you toward seeing the limits of your ideas, which inevitably leads to recognizing the limits of rationality itself.
If rationality serves as an error-correction layer for ordinary thinking, then meta-rationality serves as an error-correction layer for rational thinking.
Respectfully, was this ai written? I very much appreciate the subject matter and ideas, but the prose feels to me like gpt output, with many x is not y— it’s z. I.e “this isn’t dysfunction— it’s rational behavior under skewed constraints” and lots of others. Lots of punchy contrasted statements and the general structure of the piece also feels that way, especially the “modern example:…”
This meta-approach is what is needed today. We are seeing systemic failure across the board, but no solutions are provided. What people really need is a toolkit to go beyond the structures we have, so that the inevitable collapse does not seem so scary or world-ending.
The institution-building is vital - either we build new parallel structures that do their job better and then we have a controlled demolition of the old, or we wait for a wholesale collapse and step in with a new model of work.
The bottom line about wisdom is perhaps most telling - seeing the world for the grand whole that it is, as opposed to monomaniacally focusing on metrics that are meaningless on their own.
You articulate and explain something that I see and sense but couldn’t find words for or even a perspective on. Among my pleasures in this essay, I really appreciate (because of its rarity in this context) your acknowledging how our bodies receive, respond to, and process vast amounts of signal, that intuition is real.
godly essay
This is incredible, thank you, subscribed
LOVE IT, MORE OF THIS PLEASE! :)
Tremendous insight. It makes for a very good backbone to an argument that the governments of the west should not survive, or parallel systems should be built. Amazing piece.
Great essay, I just drafted something about AI Risk in Healthcare. Much of the optimization in this way is due to optimization for short term time preferences.
Crazy good, thanks for sharing and hope to read more!
I’m here for this kind of interdisciplinary thinking, even if I have to look up half the terms 😂
So many solid quotes… I’ve restacked three in an effort to save them to my notes but there are a dozen more I want to keep.
I’m curious what makes meta-rationality not a framework? It seems to me like a fluid, dynamic, sophisticated version of rationality—but still in the same category. (I imagine rationalists might argue rationality is also not a framework!)
I'd say that whether meta-rationality counts as a framework misses the real point. Meta-rationality, as I understand it, is a mental move where you build the recognition of model incompleteness directly into your thinking process.
This naturally orients you toward seeing the limits of your ideas, which inevitably leads to recognizing the limits of rationality itself.
If rationality serves as an error-correction layer for ordinary thinking, then meta-rationality serves as an error-correction layer for rational thinking.
great
Respectfully, was this ai written? I very much appreciate the subject matter and ideas, but the prose feels to me like gpt output, with many x is not y— it’s z. I.e “this isn’t dysfunction— it’s rational behavior under skewed constraints” and lots of others. Lots of punchy contrasted statements and the general structure of the piece also feels that way, especially the “modern example:…”
*Very* obviously so, in my view.
Your examples just touch the tip of the iceberg.
I’ve been seeing so much more ai slop on substack lately and it’s rather disconcerting how enthusiastically people praise and vaunt them
I found this inspiring, and I linked to this essay in the opening paragraph of Part 3 of my "Escape Velocity" Series. You can see my essay here: https://open.substack.com/pub/theliminallens/p/from-endgame-to-escape-velocity?r=dvftt&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
Tightly argued. Respect.