Oh, no wonder. I know Unreal pretty well in person then. That makes this post a bit surprising.
Considering everything in this post from a post-CFAR perspective:
1. Makes CFAR look kinda bad since the full curriculum in its totality should ideally untangle a person enough to the point where stuff like this shouldn’t be an issue. That could still lend credence towards the idea that this is a skill and something that doesn’t have a 30 − 60 minute debugging fix. It could easily be shadow issues though (David Chapman shadows).
2. I want to give an answer to a lot of this because I think I ‘am dependable’ (assuming that’s a skill or not), but it’s very hard to articulate. If I was in person with Unreal then I would include a definition of Dependability as “not sucking”. The silicon valley workaholics seem to have it in spades at least in their work life. Looking towards a monastery instead is an interesting choice.
I would expect the Army to be the best place to learn this. Putting Play in Hard Mode by Zvi directly into practice is probably a decent low-investment version (compared to the Army or a long retreat/move). There may be an aspect of it that involves consistency throughout the day. Being in a state where you are going from goal to goal to goal is far different than goal to goal to flop to goal.
Meditation may help too. Ideally meditation at times when your mind is really screwed up in an unpleasant way. The harder it is to get even 30 seconds of clear meditation in, the better. But, ugh… I’m circling around what thoughts I have on this area and failing writing out the direct thing. I’ll have to think about it more.
Makes CFAR look kinda bad since the full curriculum in its totality should ideally untangle a person enough to the point where stuff like this shouldn’t be an issue. That could still lend credence towards the idea that this is a skill and something that doesn’t have a 30 − 60 minute debugging fix. It could easily be shadow issues though (David Chapman shadows).
If you find a curriculum that does this sign me up. I’ve been into self-help, therapy, etc for the past fifteen years and I’ll I’ve been able to do is make slow and steady progress in upgrading the quality of the problems I face.
I think solving deep issues like this is a bit much for any curriculum to just straight up solve for the majority of people in a small amount of time(although of course some people will get particularly lucky with particular approaches and particular problems).
Makes CFAR look kinda bad since the full curriculum in its totality should ideally untangle a person enough to the point where stuff like this shouldn’t be an issue.
Maybe. An alternate frame is “this problem is quite hard.” I wouldn’t naively expect a single workshop to accomplish all-the-things for any given person. My sense is that CFAR has also pushed in a particular direction that works reasonably well for many people, but not all people, and not all parts work for all people, and because people are complicated and messy you shouldn’t expect it to.
Yeah, I think CFAR has been heavy tailed, and I would predict that there are some individuals for whom it has counterfactually caused them to solve big problems like this.
I wasn’t comparing a single workshop’s worth of time to the OP’s results. I was comparing it to the idealized CFAR attendee who leaves the workshop and uses every single technique 200+ times over trying to sort/untangle themself out.
A person who does internal double crux and more once a day every day for a year straight should ideally be far less self-conflicted and generally more motivated and able to take action towards their goals in life.
(For context of what perspective this is coming out of: I’ve been to their workshop, their mentor workshop, worked as a mentor there multiple times, lived with people who work there, and discussed things about it with employees and mentors far more often than was likely ever practical or useful, etc.)
I strongly agree with “this problem is quite hard” or that we’re commenting on an observed result of a long list of factors and activities. If CFAR were the true magic bullet or if someone else found the true magic bullet of solving the motivation and/or follow-through problem, then the world would look very different.
I strongly agree with “this problem is quite hard” or that we%27re commenting on an observed result of a long list of factors and activities. If CFAR were the true magic bullet or if someone else found the true magic bullet of solving the motivation and/or follow-through problem, the world would look very different.
Another reason for why some people who wish to become rationalists might try to do this is that rationality can help them to think better. If CFAR were the true magic bullet, then LessWrong wouldn’t exist—it would be meaningless to even want to contribute to a community at all, and that would lead to negative feelings of existential emptiness—or, perhaps, that are a result of the same thing, negative affect.
It is also a heuristic, and it seems like a useful one, but I don’t have an intuition that CFAR could be one.
I don’t think I’ve properly conveyed what I mean by Dependability, judging by the totality of the comments. Or, maybe I’ve conveyed what I mean by Dependability, but I did not properly explain that I want to achieve it in a specific way. I’m looking to gain the skill through compassion and equanimity. A monastic lifestyle seems appropriate for this.
I also did not at all explain why I’m specifically disadvantaged in this area, compared to the average person. And I think that would bring clarity too, if I explained that.
CFAR has a lot of material adjacent and connected to this. If you are interested in building up the skill, you may find them worth your time.
FYI Unreal used to work at CFAR.
Oh, no wonder. I know Unreal pretty well in person then. That makes this post a bit surprising.
Considering everything in this post from a post-CFAR perspective:
1. Makes CFAR look kinda bad since the full curriculum in its totality should ideally untangle a person enough to the point where stuff like this shouldn’t be an issue. That could still lend credence towards the idea that this is a skill and something that doesn’t have a 30 − 60 minute debugging fix. It could easily be shadow issues though (David Chapman shadows).
2. I want to give an answer to a lot of this because I think I ‘am dependable’ (assuming that’s a skill or not), but it’s very hard to articulate. If I was in person with Unreal then I would include a definition of Dependability as “not sucking”. The silicon valley workaholics seem to have it in spades at least in their work life. Looking towards a monastery instead is an interesting choice.
I would expect the Army to be the best place to learn this. Putting Play in Hard Mode by Zvi directly into practice is probably a decent low-investment version (compared to the Army or a long retreat/move). There may be an aspect of it that involves consistency throughout the day. Being in a state where you are going from goal to goal to goal is far different than goal to goal to flop to goal.
Meditation may help too. Ideally meditation at times when your mind is really screwed up in an unpleasant way. The harder it is to get even 30 seconds of clear meditation in, the better. But, ugh… I’m circling around what thoughts I have on this area and failing writing out the direct thing. I’ll have to think about it more.
If you find a curriculum that does this sign me up. I’ve been into self-help, therapy, etc for the past fifteen years and I’ll I’ve been able to do is make slow and steady progress in upgrading the quality of the problems I face.
I think solving deep issues like this is a bit much for any curriculum to just straight up solve for the majority of people in a small amount of time(although of course some people will get particularly lucky with particular approaches and particular problems).
See also “the 3% incline”
Maybe. An alternate frame is “this problem is quite hard.” I wouldn’t naively expect a single workshop to accomplish all-the-things for any given person. My sense is that CFAR has also pushed in a particular direction that works reasonably well for many people, but not all people, and not all parts work for all people, and because people are complicated and messy you shouldn’t expect it to.
Yeah, I think CFAR has been heavy tailed, and I would predict that there are some individuals for whom it has counterfactually caused them to solve big problems like this.
I wasn’t comparing a single workshop’s worth of time to the OP’s results. I was comparing it to the idealized CFAR attendee who leaves the workshop and uses every single technique 200+ times over trying to sort/untangle themself out.
A person who does internal double crux and more once a day every day for a year straight should ideally be far less self-conflicted and generally more motivated and able to take action towards their goals in life.
(For context of what perspective this is coming out of: I’ve been to their workshop, their mentor workshop, worked as a mentor there multiple times, lived with people who work there, and discussed things about it with employees and mentors far more often than was likely ever practical or useful, etc.)
I strongly agree with “this problem is quite hard” or that we’re commenting on an observed result of a long list of factors and activities. If CFAR were the true magic bullet or if someone else found the true magic bullet of solving the motivation and/or follow-through problem, then the world would look very different.
I strongly agree with “this problem is quite hard” or that we%27re commenting on an observed result of a long list of factors and activities. If CFAR were the true magic bullet or if someone else found the true magic bullet of solving the motivation and/or follow-through problem, the world would look very different.
Another reason for why some people who wish to become rationalists might try to do this is that rationality can help them to think better. If CFAR were the true magic bullet, then LessWrong wouldn’t exist—it would be meaningless to even want to contribute to a community at all, and that would lead to negative feelings of existential emptiness—or, perhaps, that are a result of the same thing, negative affect.
It is also a heuristic, and it seems like a useful one, but I don’t have an intuition that CFAR could be one.
I don’t think I’ve properly conveyed what I mean by Dependability, judging by the totality of the comments. Or, maybe I’ve conveyed what I mean by Dependability, but I did not properly explain that I want to achieve it in a specific way. I’m looking to gain the skill through compassion and equanimity. A monastic lifestyle seems appropriate for this.
I also did not at all explain why I’m specifically disadvantaged in this area, compared to the average person. And I think that would bring clarity too, if I explained that.