Some of the best rationality essays — LessWrong
Rationality is the art of thinking in ways that result in accurate beliefs and good decisions [as understood by the LessWrong community; this understanding of rationality differs from others, some of which are more common in colloquial usage than “LessWrong rationality”]. It is the primary topic of LessWrong. Rationality is not only about avoiding the vices of self-deception and obfuscation (the failure to communicate clearly), but also about the virtue of curiosity, seeing the world more clearly than before, and achieving things previously unreachable to you. The study of rationality on LessWrong includes a theoretical understanding of ideal cognitive algorithms, as well as building a practice that uses these idealized algorithms to inform heuristics, habits, and techniques, to successfully reason and make decisions in the real world. To learn more about rationality, I recommend (in order of usefulness per unit of effort): To learn more about systematically doing good (i.e. effective