Rationalussy is an ironic postmodern social joke on the popular prediction market site Manifold and bleeding over into adjacent rationalist communities. It is strongly contained within these groups, with little outside discussion beyond the slang dictionary Urban Dictionary, though it is significant to the rationalist subculture, with sites like LessWrong and Manifold featuring large volumes of ironic user-created content based off of the meaningless term.[1] The word has no defined meaning, though depending on context it often refers to decisions made as a result of rationalist philosophy perceived as cowardly by the speaker. The joke gained traction within the rationalist community during the summer of 2023, with ironic prediction markets asking whether top figures in the rationalist community like Eliezer Yudkowsky would tweet the word[2] or parodying recent developments in the AI alignment community.[3]
References edit
- ^ "Rationalussy". Manifold. Retrieved September 5, 2023.
- ^ S G (September 5, 2022). "Will Eliezer Yudkowsky write a tweet containing the word "rationalussy" by the end of 2023?". Manifold. Retrieved September 5, 2023.
- ^ Buttocks Cocktoasten (July 18, 2023). "Will there be a well-recognized letter/statement on rationalussy by August 31, 2023?". Manifold. Retrieved September 5, 2023.