general system 1 expectation that problems are soluble, that difficult or magical-looking skills are secretly made up of simple components, that you yourself are made of components that are simpler and sillier than you might think (and that it’s agenty to acknowledge that and plan training exercises for yourself, instead of expecting to ‘just use your freewill’)
But it is probably just as important to learn that these skills and meta-skills are socially acceptable. That helps to remove the ugh-fields we gradually built about them during many situations in our lives when we got in conflict with someone else because our epistemic accuracy offended their sacred belief or our instrumental success and ambition offended their egalitarian instinct. It’s no longer a dilemma between “being rational” and “having friends”; suddenly you can have both at the same time.
I can see how this would be important for people in different situations than mine, but this wasn’t a factor for me at all. (I’m also not very happy with this framing. It seems too uncharitable. “They hate me because I’m smart and awesome” is a pretty treacherous trap to fall into.)
It’s not about smartness and awesomeness, but about taboos. Other people manage to be smart and awesome while respecting the taboos. My guess is they probably do it by proper compartmentalization; they have one model they profess, and one model they actually use. I am probably missing some skills to do this properly; or maybe I’m just too lazy and asocial to keep a separate “public” model.
In the area of epistemic rationality, denying the supernatural is the taboo. But in the area of instrumental rationality, it seems to me most people dislike hearing about strategic self-improvement. The things are supposed to happen “naturally” or they were not meant to happen. (Seems to me this is a consequence of believing in the supernatural, even if people are not conscious of it.)
And it’s not that anyone hates me; it’s more like there are parts in my life I cannot ever speak about with anybody, because they would freeze me out socially. As long as I don’t mention the taboo topics, we can be friends. But being a secret aspiring rationalist is difficult for me; I want to discuss my ideas (not always, but at least sometimes). So perhaps I’d say they don’t accept me as I am, but they are happy to accept me as long as I role-play a subset of myself. But I want to grow outside of that subset.
The things are supposed to happen “naturally” or they were not meant to happen. (Seems to me this is a consequence of believing in the supernatural, even if people are not conscious of it.)
I’m not sure about the connection with the supernatural here. I’ve always thought that acknowledging a need to consciously improve is just seen as something low-status. (This is frequently coupled with a belief that it isn’t possible anyway, and being faulty plus attempting something impossible is kind of extra-low-status.)
Maybe the most important changes, which are also difficult to describe, come from the changed model of the world in general, and humans specifically.
Anna wrote:
But it is probably just as important to learn that these skills and meta-skills are socially acceptable. That helps to remove the ugh-fields we gradually built about them during many situations in our lives when we got in conflict with someone else because our epistemic accuracy offended their sacred belief or our instrumental success and ambition offended their egalitarian instinct. It’s no longer a dilemma between “being rational” and “having friends”; suddenly you can have both at the same time.
I can see how this would be important for people in different situations than mine, but this wasn’t a factor for me at all. (I’m also not very happy with this framing. It seems too uncharitable. “They hate me because I’m smart and awesome” is a pretty treacherous trap to fall into.)
It’s not about smartness and awesomeness, but about taboos. Other people manage to be smart and awesome while respecting the taboos. My guess is they probably do it by proper compartmentalization; they have one model they profess, and one model they actually use. I am probably missing some skills to do this properly; or maybe I’m just too lazy and asocial to keep a separate “public” model.
In the area of epistemic rationality, denying the supernatural is the taboo. But in the area of instrumental rationality, it seems to me most people dislike hearing about strategic self-improvement. The things are supposed to happen “naturally” or they were not meant to happen. (Seems to me this is a consequence of believing in the supernatural, even if people are not conscious of it.)
And it’s not that anyone hates me; it’s more like there are parts in my life I cannot ever speak about with anybody, because they would freeze me out socially. As long as I don’t mention the taboo topics, we can be friends. But being a secret aspiring rationalist is difficult for me; I want to discuss my ideas (not always, but at least sometimes). So perhaps I’d say they don’t accept me as I am, but they are happy to accept me as long as I role-play a subset of myself. But I want to grow outside of that subset.
I’m not sure about the connection with the supernatural here. I’ve always thought that acknowledging a need to consciously improve is just seen as something low-status. (This is frequently coupled with a belief that it isn’t possible anyway, and being faulty plus attempting something impossible is kind of extra-low-status.)