I’m attempting to work on a few short youtube videos based on Lesswrong posts, but it’s my first time making such videos and I admit I’m a little intimidated by people who areplainly better. Not sure if I’m right for the job.
I wonder—what is it exactly you mean by “the basics”? I don’t find Kolmogorov complexity more difficult than Bayes’ theorem, but I found it absolutely essential to understanding the technical approach to Occam’s Razor, which I found essential to understanding the advantages of Bayesian reasoning over traditional rationality.
If “the basics” means breaking down some of the technical points of Lesswrong posts, I agree wholeheartedly. I tried to take a friend through A Technical Explanation of Technical Explanation, my personal favorite, and found it was pretty difficult to explain to someone who didn’t already know about some probability theory, expected value, and so on. Many potential Lesswrong contributors are intimidated by the background work they have to do to get into the site. You can see this in the RationalWiki discussion of this site; people find it absurd that you should have to read the entire sequences before questions can be answered. I’m not sure if writing even more will make it less intimidating, but I imagine that finding shorter (and still accurate) ways to say the same things will.
If “the basics” means ignoring some of the important technical contributions (ie Occam’s Razor’s technical formulation, the probabilistic structure of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, etc.), then I’m not sure I agree, partially because my deconversion story was a bit different from yours. Personally, I needed to see that many standard arguments for belief had precise refutations, almost completely ignored by any religious apologist working the scene. In my experience, people are more likely to change their beliefs when confronted with surprising arguments. Strong formalisms of arguments that people think apologists have already “defeated” are often the key.
You can see this in the RationalWiki discussion of this site; people find it absurd that you should have to read the entire sequences before questions can be answered.
I am sure you can ask questions along the way if you get stuck somewhere. If you read the sequences you can comment on the current post you are reading. Although you might be told to just read on ;-)
I’m attempting to work on a few short youtube videos based on Lesswrong posts, but it’s my first time making such videos and I admit I’m a little intimidated by people who are plainly better. Not sure if I’m right for the job.
I wonder—what is it exactly you mean by “the basics”? I don’t find Kolmogorov complexity more difficult than Bayes’ theorem, but I found it absolutely essential to understanding the technical approach to Occam’s Razor, which I found essential to understanding the advantages of Bayesian reasoning over traditional rationality.
If “the basics” means breaking down some of the technical points of Lesswrong posts, I agree wholeheartedly. I tried to take a friend through A Technical Explanation of Technical Explanation, my personal favorite, and found it was pretty difficult to explain to someone who didn’t already know about some probability theory, expected value, and so on. Many potential Lesswrong contributors are intimidated by the background work they have to do to get into the site. You can see this in the RationalWiki discussion of this site; people find it absurd that you should have to read the entire sequences before questions can be answered. I’m not sure if writing even more will make it less intimidating, but I imagine that finding shorter (and still accurate) ways to say the same things will.
If “the basics” means ignoring some of the important technical contributions (ie Occam’s Razor’s technical formulation, the probabilistic structure of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, etc.), then I’m not sure I agree, partially because my deconversion story was a bit different from yours. Personally, I needed to see that many standard arguments for belief had precise refutations, almost completely ignored by any religious apologist working the scene. In my experience, people are more likely to change their beliefs when confronted with surprising arguments. Strong formalisms of arguments that people think apologists have already “defeated” are often the key.
One gets right for the job by starting off wrong for the job, and overcoming shortcomings.
I am sure you can ask questions along the way if you get stuck somewhere. If you read the sequences you can comment on the current post you are reading. Although you might be told to just read on ;-)