I definitely would recommend holding off on proposing solutions, as soon as they have the basic background knowledge to understand it. Maps and territory, as you mentioned above, is also a good, foundational topic.
I use holding off on solutions many times each day, when I’m thinking about any of life’s little puzzles. That is one of the most useful lessons I’ve ever learned.
The general idea of reductionism. The world, and most problems, can be broken down into smaller and smaller parts, which is often a useful problem solving tool.
Another very useful concept is positive bias. Teaching your brain to look for counterexamples as well as examples is an extremely important tool for determining the truth.
I think these, in general, are some of the most important topics to teach if you want people to start becoming rationalists. In terms of how to teach them, I would say that encouraging curiosity, and supporting a questioning mindset is fundamental. I also think that I learned most of the techniques of rationality in terms of the problem I was working on at the time. I’d read something on less wrong or in a book and see an immediate and specific application for the general technique that I’d just learned. If you’re teaching people in a robotics club, I’d say that you shouldn’t necessarily make a syllabus or anything like that, just wait until you see them working on something where a certain lesson in rationality might be applicable.
On a complete side note, in your introduction you mentioned that you’d used rationality to get a girlfriend. I’m actually planning to ask out a girl I know in the next day or two, and that caught my attention. I’m curious what you did, or how you went about doing that.
Thanks for the input, good suggestions on starting points. Particularly positive bias, I remember what it was but forgot how important it is.
What background knowledge do you think is necessary for holding off on proposing solutions? Everyone I’ve explained it to understood it without any problems. Though, I didn’t bring cognitive biases into the explanation.
So about the girlfriend… A large part of the results came from just asking her out. Being in high school, I had a habit of “liking” someone for a long time, maybe telling her, but then never doing anything in particular about it. Rationality made me notice that that’s pretty much guaranteed to result in nothing. So you’re a good part of the way there.
With regards to asking someone out, I’ve found that unless the other person is already interested in you, starting the conversation with asking doesn’t really work. When she’s in a good mood (I normally measure this by laughing—and I’m assuming you know the difference between “haha you’re hilarious and awesome” laughing and “eww/awkward” laughing), she’s more likely to say yes. Saying things in the wrong part of the conversation can cause awkwardness.
I definitely would recommend holding off on proposing solutions, as soon as they have the basic background knowledge to understand it. Maps and territory, as you mentioned above, is also a good, foundational topic.
I use holding off on solutions many times each day, when I’m thinking about any of life’s little puzzles. That is one of the most useful lessons I’ve ever learned.
Making beliefs pay rent is something I would teach very early on.
Mysterious answers to mysterious questions
The general idea of reductionism. The world, and most problems, can be broken down into smaller and smaller parts, which is often a useful problem solving tool.
Another very useful concept is positive bias. Teaching your brain to look for counterexamples as well as examples is an extremely important tool for determining the truth.
I think these, in general, are some of the most important topics to teach if you want people to start becoming rationalists. In terms of how to teach them, I would say that encouraging curiosity, and supporting a questioning mindset is fundamental. I also think that I learned most of the techniques of rationality in terms of the problem I was working on at the time. I’d read something on less wrong or in a book and see an immediate and specific application for the general technique that I’d just learned. If you’re teaching people in a robotics club, I’d say that you shouldn’t necessarily make a syllabus or anything like that, just wait until you see them working on something where a certain lesson in rationality might be applicable.
On a complete side note, in your introduction you mentioned that you’d used rationality to get a girlfriend. I’m actually planning to ask out a girl I know in the next day or two, and that caught my attention. I’m curious what you did, or how you went about doing that.
Thanks for the input, good suggestions on starting points. Particularly positive bias, I remember what it was but forgot how important it is.
What background knowledge do you think is necessary for holding off on proposing solutions? Everyone I’ve explained it to understood it without any problems. Though, I didn’t bring cognitive biases into the explanation.
So about the girlfriend… A large part of the results came from just asking her out. Being in high school, I had a habit of “liking” someone for a long time, maybe telling her, but then never doing anything in particular about it. Rationality made me notice that that’s pretty much guaranteed to result in nothing. So you’re a good part of the way there.
With regards to asking someone out, I’ve found that unless the other person is already interested in you, starting the conversation with asking doesn’t really work. When she’s in a good mood (I normally measure this by laughing—and I’m assuming you know the difference between “haha you’re hilarious and awesome” laughing and “eww/awkward” laughing), she’s more likely to say yes. Saying things in the wrong part of the conversation can cause awkwardness.
Also don’t act particularly tense about it.