Personally, I am still eagerly waiting for CFAR to release more of their methods and techniques. A lot of them seem to be already part of the rationalist diaspora’s vocabulary—however, I’ve been unable to find descriptions of them.
For example, you mention “TAP”s and the “Inner Simulator” at the beginning of this article, yet I haven’t had any success googling those terms, and you offer no explanation of them. I would be very interested in what they are!
I suppose the crux of my criticism isn’t that there are techniques you haven’t released yet, nor that rationalists are talking about them, but that you mention them as though they were common knowledge. This, sadly, gives the impression that LWers are expected to know about them, and reinforces the idea that LW has become a kind of elitist clique. I’m worried that you are using this in order to make aspiring rationalists, who very much want to belong, come to CFAR events, to be in the know.
TAPs = Trigger Action Planning; referred to in the scholarly literature as “Implementation intentions”. The Inner Simulator unit is CFAR’s way of referring to what you actually expect to see happen (as contrasted with, say, your verbally stated “beliefs”.)
Good point re: being careful about implied common knowledge.
Personally, I am still eagerly waiting for CFAR to release more of their methods and techniques. A lot of them seem to be already part of the rationalist diaspora’s vocabulary—however, I’ve been unable to find descriptions of them.
For example, you mention “TAP”s and the “Inner Simulator” at the beginning of this article, yet I haven’t had any success googling those terms, and you offer no explanation of them. I would be very interested in what they are!
I suppose the crux of my criticism isn’t that there are techniques you haven’t released yet, nor that rationalists are talking about them, but that you mention them as though they were common knowledge. This, sadly, gives the impression that LWers are expected to know about them, and reinforces the idea that LW has become a kind of elitist clique. I’m worried that you are using this in order to make aspiring rationalists, who very much want to belong, come to CFAR events, to be in the know.
Decided to contribute a bit: here’s a new article on TAPs! :)
TAPs = Trigger Action Planning; referred to in the scholarly literature as “Implementation intentions”. The Inner Simulator unit is CFAR’s way of referring to what you actually expect to see happen (as contrasted with, say, your verbally stated “beliefs”.)
Good point re: being careful about implied common knowledge.
Here’s a writeup on the Asana blog about Inner Simulator, based on a talk CFAR gave there a few years ago.