I’ve been thinking about this too, and I’m not sure guide suffice. Getting in shape or learning about a topic are simple problems (not that can’t be challenging in their own right) compared to the complexity of actually achieving something.
At this point, we don’t even have good theories or hypotheses on why these things are hard. It’s lot of small issues that aggregate and compound. Motivation is a big class of these issues. Not seeing clearly enough—failure to perceive danger, opportunities, alternative ways of doing things.
To achieve you have to get the strategy, the tactics and the operations right. There’s a lot you can screw up at every level.
One key issue, I think, is that it’s damn hard to hack yourself on some fundamental levels. For instance to “be more perceptive”. You can’t really install a TAP for that. I guess some mindfulness practice can help (although I’d be wary of prescribing meditation—more like mindfulness on the move). Consuming self-help, insights, news, etc etc only seems to move the needle marginally.
So yeah, I don’t know. Just throwing some ideas out there.
I definitely agree that there’s a bigger issue, but I think this could be a good small-scale test. Can we apply or own individual rationality to pick up skills relevant to us and distinguish between good and bad practices? Are we able to coordinate as a community to distinguish between good and bad science? Rationality should in theory be able to work on big problems, but we’re never going to be able to craft the perfect art without being able to test it on smaller problems first and hone the skill.
So yeah. I think a guide putting together good resources and also including practical advice in the posts and comments could be useful. Something like this could be the start of answering Eliezer’s questions “how do we test which schools of rationality work” and “how do we fight akrasia”. That second question might be easier once we’ve seen the skills work in practice. Maybe I should make a guide first to get the ball rolling, but I’m not sure I know a topic in-depth enough to craft one just yet.
Give me a month to make a fitness one. I train a bunch of my friends including one rationalist friend that has been pushing me towards writing some analyses of studies; so I have a good amount of experience trying to find ways to get people into fitness who’ve had issues fighting against their baser urges just to sit down and conserve calories.
I’ve been thinking about this too, and I’m not sure guide suffice. Getting in shape or learning about a topic are simple problems (not that can’t be challenging in their own right) compared to the complexity of actually achieving something.
At this point, we don’t even have good theories or hypotheses on why these things are hard. It’s lot of small issues that aggregate and compound. Motivation is a big class of these issues. Not seeing clearly enough—failure to perceive danger, opportunities, alternative ways of doing things.
To achieve you have to get the strategy, the tactics and the operations right. There’s a lot you can screw up at every level.
One key issue, I think, is that it’s damn hard to hack yourself on some fundamental levels. For instance to “be more perceptive”. You can’t really install a TAP for that. I guess some mindfulness practice can help (although I’d be wary of prescribing meditation—more like mindfulness on the move). Consuming self-help, insights, news, etc etc only seems to move the needle marginally.
So yeah, I don’t know. Just throwing some ideas out there.
Something like this: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/qwdupkFd6kmeZHYXy/build-small-skills-in-the-right-order might be a nice starting point. Maybe, just maybe, we’re trying to lift heavy weights without having built the required muscles. Worth investigating and expanding.
I think this is largely correct and points at where some of the larger bottlenecks are.
It’s not about finding a list of good resources. There are a lot of those already. It’s about what happens next. Things like:
Getting yourself to actually read said resources.
Figuring out ways of making the material stick.
Looking for applications, tracking your progress.
Repeating all of the above, over and over.
I definitely agree that there’s a bigger issue, but I think this could be a good small-scale test. Can we apply or own individual rationality to pick up skills relevant to us and distinguish between good and bad practices? Are we able to coordinate as a community to distinguish between good and bad science? Rationality should in theory be able to work on big problems, but we’re never going to be able to craft the perfect art without being able to test it on smaller problems first and hone the skill.
So yeah. I think a guide putting together good resources and also including practical advice in the posts and comments could be useful. Something like this could be the start of answering Eliezer’s questions “how do we test which schools of rationality work” and “how do we fight akrasia”. That second question might be easier once we’ve seen the skills work in practice. Maybe I should make a guide first to get the ball rolling, but I’m not sure I know a topic in-depth enough to craft one just yet.
Give me a month to make a fitness one. I train a bunch of my friends including one rationalist friend that has been pushing me towards writing some analyses of studies; so I have a good amount of experience trying to find ways to get people into fitness who’ve had issues fighting against their baser urges just to sit down and conserve calories.