I don't disagree, but to steelman the case for (neo)rationalism: one of its fundamental contributions is that Bayes' theorem is extraordinarily important as a guide to reality, perhaps at the same level as the second law of thermodynamics; and that it is dramatically undervalued by larger society. I think that is all basically correct.

(I call it neorationalism because it is philosophically unrelated to the more traditional rationalism of Spinoza and Descartes.)

I don't understand what "Bayes' theorem is a good way to process new data" (something that is not at all a contribution of neorationalism) has to do with "human beings are capable of using this process effectively at a conscious level to get to better mental models of the world." I think the rationalist community has a thing called "motte and bailey" that would apply here.

Where Bayes' theorem applies in unconventional ways is not remotely novel for "rationalism" (maybe only in their strange busted hand wavy circle jerk "thought experiments"). This has been the domain of statistical mechanics long before Yudkowski and other cult leaders could even probably mouth "update your priors".

As if these neorationalist are building a model and markov chain monte carlo sampling their life decisions.

That is the bullshit part.