I just learned a (rationalist) lesson. I’m taking a course that has some homework that’s hosted on a third party site. There was one assignment at the beginning of the semester, a few weeks ago. Then, about a week ago, I was wondering to myself whether there would be any more assignments any time soon. In fact, I even wondered if I had somehow missed a few assignments, since I’d thought they’d be assigned more frequently.
Well, I checked my course’s website (different from the site where the homework was hosted) and didn’t see any mention of assignments. Then I went to the professor’s website, and saw that they said they didn’t assign any “formal homework”. Finally, I thought back to the in-class discussions, where the third-party homework was never mentioned.
“Ah, good,” I thought. “I guess I haven’t missed any assignments, and none are coming up any time soon either.”
Then, today, the third-party homework was actually mentioned in class, so just now I went to look at the third-party website. I have missed three assignments, and there is another one due on Sunday.
I am not judged by the quality of my reasoning. I am judged by what actually happens, as are we all.
In retrospect (read: “beware that hindsight bias might be responsible for this paragraph”) I kind of feel like I wasn’t putting my all into figuring out if I was missing any assignments, and was instead just nervously trying to convince myself that I wasn’t. Obviously, I would rather have had that unpleasant experience earlier and missed fewer assignments—aka, if I was missing assignments, then I should have wanted to believe that I was missing assignments.
Yup. And they key thing that I’m reminding myself of is that this can’t be achieved by convincing myself that there aren’t any assignments to miss. It can only be achieved for sure by knowing whether there are assignments or not.
I just learned a (rationalist) lesson. I’m taking a course that has some homework that’s hosted on a third party site. There was one assignment at the beginning of the semester, a few weeks ago. Then, about a week ago, I was wondering to myself whether there would be any more assignments any time soon. In fact, I even wondered if I had somehow missed a few assignments, since I’d thought they’d be assigned more frequently.
Well, I checked my course’s website (different from the site where the homework was hosted) and didn’t see any mention of assignments. Then I went to the professor’s website, and saw that they said they didn’t assign any “formal homework”. Finally, I thought back to the in-class discussions, where the third-party homework was never mentioned.
“Ah, good,” I thought. “I guess I haven’t missed any assignments, and none are coming up any time soon either.”
Then, today, the third-party homework was actually mentioned in class, so just now I went to look at the third-party website. I have missed three assignments, and there is another one due on Sunday.
I am not judged by the quality of my reasoning. I am judged by what actually happens, as are we all.
In retrospect (read: “beware that hindsight bias might be responsible for this paragraph”) I kind of feel like I wasn’t putting my all into figuring out if I was missing any assignments, and was instead just nervously trying to convince myself that I wasn’t. Obviously, I would rather have had that unpleasant experience earlier and missed fewer assignments—aka, if I was missing assignments, then I should have wanted to believe that I was missing assignments.
Oops.
Congrats on saying oops!
How likely is it now that you are going to miss any more assignments? Not likely at all!
Yup. And they key thing that I’m reminding myself of is that this can’t be achieved by convincing myself that there aren’t any assignments to miss. It can only be achieved for sure by knowing whether there are assignments or not.