I recently started going through some of Rationality from AI to Zombies again. A big reason why is the fact that there are audio recordings of the posts. It’s easy to listen to a post or two as I walk my dog, or a handful of posts instead of some random hour-long podcast that I would otherwise listen to.
I originally read (most of) The Sequences maybe 13 or 14 years ago when I was in college. At varioustimes since then I’ve made somewhat deliberate efforts to revisit them. Other times I’ve re-read random posts as opposed to larger collections of posts. Anyway, the point I want to make is that it’s been a while.
I’ve been a little surprised in my feelings as I re-read them. Some of them feel notably less good than what I remember. Others blow my mind and are incredible.
The Mysterious Answers sequence is one that I felt disappointed by. I felt like the posts weren’t very clear and that there wasn’t much substance. I think the main overarching point of the sequence is that an explanation can’t say that all outcomes are equally probable. It has to say that some outcomes are more probable than others. But that just seems kinda obvious.
I think it’s quite plausible that there are “good” reasons why I felt disappointed as I re-read this and other sequences. Maybe there are important things that are going over my head. Or maybe I actually understand things too well now after hanging around this community for so long.
If you really want an artist’s perspective on rationality, then read Orwell; he is mandatory reading for rationalists as well as authors. Orwell was not a scientist, but a writer; his tools were not numbers, but words; his adversary was not Nature, but human evil. If you wish to imprison people for years without trial, you must think of some other way to say it than “I’m going to imprison Mr. Jennings for years without trial.” You must muddy the listener’s thinking, prevent clear images from outraging conscience. You say, “Unreliable elements were subjected to an alternative justice process.”
I’m pretty sure that I read those posts before, along with a bunch of related posts and stuff, but for whatever reason the re-read still meaningfully improved my understand the concept.
Maybe there are important things that are going over my head. Or maybe I actually understand things too well now after hanging around this community for so long.
Depending on the quality of the lesson and your understanding of it, I think the following combinations are possible:
the lessons is wrong or stupid = not impressed
going over your head = not impressed
you understand it, but failed to internalize = impressed on re-read
you already internalized it = not impressed
Many of the outcomes seem similar, it is difficult to distinguish between them.
Seems to me that people are often impressed by texts that happen to provide some last missing piece of a puzzle for them. Which is a different thing for different people, and even for the same person at a different moment of their life. Why is why recommending books to others is difficult.
I recently started going through some of Rationality from AI to Zombies again. A big reason why is the fact that there are audio recordings of the posts. It’s easy to listen to a post or two as I walk my dog, or a handful of posts instead of some random hour-long podcast that I would otherwise listen to.
I originally read (most of) The Sequences maybe 13 or 14 years ago when I was in college. At various times since then I’ve made somewhat deliberate efforts to revisit them. Other times I’ve re-read random posts as opposed to larger collections of posts. Anyway, the point I want to make is that it’s been a while.
I’ve been a little surprised in my feelings as I re-read them. Some of them feel notably less good than what I remember. Others blow my mind and are incredible.
The Mysterious Answers sequence is one that I felt disappointed by. I felt like the posts weren’t very clear and that there wasn’t much substance. I think the main overarching point of the sequence is that an explanation can’t say that all outcomes are equally probable. It has to say that some outcomes are more probable than others. But that just seems kinda obvious.
I think it’s quite plausible that there are “good” reasons why I felt disappointed as I re-read this and other sequences. Maybe there are important things that are going over my head. Or maybe I actually understand things too well now after hanging around this community for so long.
One post that hit me kinda hard that I really enjoyed after re-reading it was Rationality and the English Language, and then the follow up post, Human Evil and Muddled Thinking. The posts helped me grok how powerful language can be.
I’m pretty sure that I read those posts before, along with a bunch of related posts and stuff, but for whatever reason the re-read still meaningfully improved my understand the concept.
Depending on the quality of the lesson and your understanding of it, I think the following combinations are possible:
the lessons is wrong or stupid = not impressed
going over your head = not impressed
you understand it, but failed to internalize = impressed on re-read
you already internalized it = not impressed
Many of the outcomes seem similar, it is difficult to distinguish between them.
Seems to me that people are often impressed by texts that happen to provide some last missing piece of a puzzle for them. Which is a different thing for different people, and even for the same person at a different moment of their life. Why is why recommending books to others is difficult.