When I was young I was known as “the shy one,” and I was awkward around girls. So I started reading instructional books on dating. A few chapters in, each book said “The most important thing is that you put down this book right now and go practice the thing I just told you to do.” But I just kept reading, because I was learning so much, and having all those epiphanies felt like getting stronger.
After two years of epiphany addiction and no sex, I finally took some liquid courage and went out and actually talked to women. And then I started to become stronger.
If CFAR and the JDM community can invent an applied rationality that reliably makes people more powerful, it won’t be because they’ve written lots of epiphany-producing writing. It will be because they’ve discovered teachable rationality skills that can be practiced day after day.
That advice fights the natural tendency to read forward. It’s always hard to get people to stop and do the exercises.
Are there ways they could? Hmm… First, you could advise the reader to read through one time, then come back and do the advised exercises. That way they’re not fighting the urge to read through… but then they’re fighting the urge to put down the book.
You could structure it kind of like a choose-your-own-adventure, with the choices being how your encounter went. That way, there is no one, natural place to go next. Could help, but it would be obnoxious.
Third: get all the epiphanies done with early on. Throw them all at you. Part 2 is applications. It has zero epiphanies, and it should be dry, perhaps even boring, so you can go out and do things. Basically like the first idea, but with the two runs optimized for their respective purposes.
Third: get all the epiphanies done with early on. Throw them all at you. Part 2 is applications. It has zero epiphanies, and it should be dry, perhaps even boring, so you can go out and do things. Basically like the first idea, but with the two runs optimized for their respective purposes.
This means (if my experience is at all typical) that the second section is unlikely to be read.
When I was young I was known as “the shy one,” and I was awkward around girls. So I started reading instructional books on dating. A few chapters in, each book said “The most important thing is that you put down this book right now and go practice the thing I just told you to do.” But I just kept reading, because I was learning so much, and having all those epiphanies felt like getting stronger.
After two years of epiphany addiction and no sex, I finally took some liquid courage and went out and actually talked to women. And then I started to become stronger.
If CFAR and the JDM community can invent an applied rationality that reliably makes people more powerful, it won’t be because they’ve written lots of epiphany-producing writing. It will be because they’ve discovered teachable rationality skills that can be practiced day after day.
Analysis is essential, but it has a time & place.
In the PUA community they even have a term for people stuck in the Analysis mode: “Keyboard Jockeys”.
That advice fights the natural tendency to read forward. It’s always hard to get people to stop and do the exercises.
Are there ways they could? Hmm… First, you could advise the reader to read through one time, then come back and do the advised exercises. That way they’re not fighting the urge to read through… but then they’re fighting the urge to put down the book.
You could structure it kind of like a choose-your-own-adventure, with the choices being how your encounter went. That way, there is no one, natural place to go next. Could help, but it would be obnoxious.
Third: get all the epiphanies done with early on. Throw them all at you. Part 2 is applications. It has zero epiphanies, and it should be dry, perhaps even boring, so you can go out and do things. Basically like the first idea, but with the two runs optimized for their respective purposes.
This means (if my experience is at all typical) that the second section is unlikely to be read.