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.
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...