Can useful reasoning become a competitive sport?

Rationality researcher Luca Parodi has proposed a novel competition format on LessWrong that aims to create a 'mind sport' focused on practical reasoning skills. The competition would test abilities like judgment, estimation, strategic reasoning, negotiation, and decision-making under uncertainty through mixed event types including Fermi estimation rounds, bargaining games, information search challenges, and causal reasoning exercises. Unlike existing forecasting tournaments or board game competitions, this format would specifically target real-world epistemic judgment in a competitive, spectator-friendly package.

Parodi acknowledges significant challenges in making the concept work, particularly around scoring fairness and game design. Key obstacles include developing legitimate scoring systems for subjective skills like negotiation, creating events that are both competitive and accessible to newcomers, and avoiding the trap of becoming 'just forecasting plus vibes.' The researcher has launched a small Manifund grant to support a pre-design phase involving prototyping events and consulting with experts in game design, forecasting, and mind sports to determine if the scoring problems are solvable.

The proposal represents an attempt to create a talent funnel for people with strong reasoning skills who don't currently participate in existing rationality or forecasting communities. If successful, it could produce a new signal about judgment quality that complements existing metrics while attracting participants from board game, puzzle competition, and strategy game communities. The project's viability hinges on whether designers can create events that are genuinely fun and competitive while maintaining rigorous scoring standards for complex cognitive skills.