I was several years away from starting to learn about x-rationality when I met my partner.
Since there seems to be some interest, I’m going to try to collect my thoughts to describe the contribution of x-rationality to my personal life, but this may take considerable time; I’ve never tried to put it in words, and there’s a strong dash of “dancing about architecture” to it.
Anecdotes often are significant evidence; it depends how rare the anecdotal successes, how large a population of individuals the anecdotes are selected from (either by you as you choose anecdotes, or implicitly by the community if individuals who by chance have certain sorts of anecdotes are more likely to share), and on how high the prior is on “these tricks really do help” (if the tricks are a priori plausible, it takes less data to establish that they’re likely to really work).
But whether or not your anecdotes are significant evidence, do share. If nothing else, it’ll give us a better idea of what kind of rationality you have found to be what kind of useful. “Rationality” is such an abstract-sounding term; we need to put flesh on it, from scenes in daily life. Being about you specifically is fine.
There are three specific examples linked to; I agree that I could/should have done more.
How have you used rationality in your marriage and family life? Did it help you choose the right partner?
How do you ‘imagine a couple that truly understood Aumann’?
I was several years away from starting to learn about x-rationality when I met my partner.
Since there seems to be some interest, I’m going to try to collect my thoughts to describe the contribution of x-rationality to my personal life, but this may take considerable time; I’ve never tried to put it in words, and there’s a strong dash of “dancing about architecture” to it.
Add me to the list who’d really enjoy reading about this.
How about examples from your own work, marriage, or circle of friends?
I wanted to avoid the anecdotes-ain’t-data writeoff and to avoid making the post too much about me specifically. Is that a mistake?
Anecdotes often are significant evidence; it depends how rare the anecdotal successes, how large a population of individuals the anecdotes are selected from (either by you as you choose anecdotes, or implicitly by the community if individuals who by chance have certain sorts of anecdotes are more likely to share), and on how high the prior is on “these tricks really do help” (if the tricks are a priori plausible, it takes less data to establish that they’re likely to really work).
But whether or not your anecdotes are significant evidence, do share. If nothing else, it’ll give us a better idea of what kind of rationality you have found to be what kind of useful. “Rationality” is such an abstract-sounding term; we need to put flesh on it, from scenes in daily life. Being about you specifically is fine.
Probably. Specificity really matters for effective writing.
Besides, this is, technically, a blog...