While I've found some nice ideas on Less Wrong, articles like this recent one: http://lesswrong.com/lw/frp/train_philosophers_with_pearl_an... go to show the tunnel vision of the "Rationalists" that haunt that part of the internet.

I think of Venkat Rao as a combination of that sort of scientific rationalism with the sort of old-school intellectualism that can only come from reading an epic quantity of literature and taking a truly skeptical attitude toward everything. Keeps the fanaticism in check and results in a much more subtle and interesting point of view.

I definitely agree about lesswrong being a mixed bag, that post you linked in particular was just... painful.