Hmm. I hadn’t envisioned them being present, but I may have misunderstood the ongoing nature of these things. If they aren’t present, key details might be changed, and so on, to preserve anonymity. I was also imagining that this exercise would be done privately, rather than on a stage in front of lots of people—although that would be flexible.
Reusing earlier exercises isn’t essential to my idea, so that could be changed, and made-up dialogue used instead.
However… I think that one of the issues with all of these exercises is going to be making sure that the students mentally connect these exercises to other areas of their lives, and apply the skill in real life. A lot of the ideas suggested here sound good, but they sound too much like games, and not enough like people actually sound when they fail to be specific in real life. I liked the “mission statement” idea for the same reason.
I meant to avoid embarrassing the real-life people whose start up wasn’t mixpanel by making their embarrassing dialogue with Paul Graham into a standard rationality exercise. Not sure whether that was what you intended or not.
A lot of the ideas suggested here sound good, but they sound too much like games, and not enough like people actually sound when they fail to be specific in real life.
That was kind of my intention, but I had imagined that they wouldn’t be the only ones. (Misery loves company?) I was thinking that you might do dialogues like in Eliezer’s example with a lot of people (privately), as one rationality exercise, then use that to put together a large set of scenarios.
Remember, students will probably need scenarios that are different enough from their own lives for them to recognize the lack of specifics. Eliezer’s example might not work at all well for someone involved in an online company, and/or a startup, because it might seem normal rather than frustration-provoking.
I don’t know; maybe other people here have a strong enough idea of what people actually say in these situations, and can write realistic dialogue from scratch. I’d still expect transcripts to worth consulting as part of the writing process, though.
What you think of my exercise? ;-)
I think it would lead to more accurate personality tests, among other things. ;)
Seriously, I realized after taking one personality test that I would have responded completely differently to a question if it had said “walking” rather than “driving,” and the question was about something entirely unrelated to modes of transportation. (It was something like comfort in trying new things, or comfort with visual maps vs. verbal directions.) Oops?
Hmm. I hadn’t envisioned them being present, but I may have misunderstood the ongoing nature of these things. If they aren’t present, key details might be changed, and so on, to preserve anonymity. I was also imagining that this exercise would be done privately, rather than on a stage in front of lots of people—although that would be flexible.
Reusing earlier exercises isn’t essential to my idea, so that could be changed, and made-up dialogue used instead.
However… I think that one of the issues with all of these exercises is going to be making sure that the students mentally connect these exercises to other areas of their lives, and apply the skill in real life. A lot of the ideas suggested here sound good, but they sound too much like games, and not enough like people actually sound when they fail to be specific in real life. I liked the “mission statement” idea for the same reason.
I meant to avoid embarrassing the real-life people whose start up wasn’t mixpanel by making their embarrassing dialogue with Paul Graham into a standard rationality exercise. Not sure whether that was what you intended or not.
What you think of my exercise? ;-)
That was kind of my intention, but I had imagined that they wouldn’t be the only ones. (Misery loves company?) I was thinking that you might do dialogues like in Eliezer’s example with a lot of people (privately), as one rationality exercise, then use that to put together a large set of scenarios.
Remember, students will probably need scenarios that are different enough from their own lives for them to recognize the lack of specifics. Eliezer’s example might not work at all well for someone involved in an online company, and/or a startup, because it might seem normal rather than frustration-provoking.
I don’t know; maybe other people here have a strong enough idea of what people actually say in these situations, and can write realistic dialogue from scratch. I’d still expect transcripts to worth consulting as part of the writing process, though.
I think it would lead to more accurate personality tests, among other things. ;)
Seriously, I realized after taking one personality test that I would have responded completely differently to a question if it had said “walking” rather than “driving,” and the question was about something entirely unrelated to modes of transportation. (It was something like comfort in trying new things, or comfort with visual maps vs. verbal directions.) Oops?