Thanks for doing this! I do think it’d be good to have an Epistemic Rationality textbook that focuses on the well-vetted stuff.
I think it’d probably make sense to start with all of R:A-Z rather than the Sequences Highlights for generating it – The Sequence Highlights are deliberately meant to be an overview of both epistemic/instrumental/motivation content, and for the sake of fitting it into 50 posts we probably skipped over stuff that might have made sense to incorporate into an Epistemics 101 textbook).
(That said I think someone interested in epistemics and just getting started would do well to start with the stuff here)
I’d be more interested in a project to review the Sequences, have savvy people weigh in on which parts they think are more probable vs. less probable (indexed to a certain time, since views can change), and display their assessments in a centralized, easy-to-navigate way.
I want to say that trying to purify the Sequences feels… boring? Compared to engaging with the content, debating it, vetting it, updating it, improving it, etc.
And I worry that attempts to cut out the less-certain parts will also require cutting out the less-legible parts, even where these contain important content to interact with. The Sequences IMO are a pretty cohesive thing; many insights can be extracted without swallowing the thing wholesale, but a large portion of it will be harder to understand if you don’t read the full thing at all. (Or don’t read enough of the core ‘kinda-illegible’ pieces.)
Maybe what I want is more like a new ‘Critiques of the Sequences’ sequence, or a ‘Sequences + (critiques and responses)’ alt-sequence. Since responding to stuff and pointing at problems seems obviously productive to me, whereas I’m more wary of purification.
To be clear, my current epistemic state is not at all that a curated “epistemic sequences” should replace the existing things. The thing I see as potentially valuable here is to carve them into different subsections focusing on different things that can serve people with different backgrounds and learning goals. (I hadn’t at all thinking of this as “purifying” anything, or at least that’s not my interest in it)
Ruby/I listened to some of Critch’s feedback earlier, and still decided to have have the Sequence Highlights cover a swatch of motivational/instrumental posts, because they seemed important part of the Sequences experience.
I think my own take (not necessarily matching Ruby or Habryka’s) is that I disagree with Critch’s overall assessment of “the how to behave” parts of the sequences are “toxic.” But I do think there is something about the motivation-orientation of the sequences that is… high variance, at least. I see it getting at something that feels important to engage with. (My guess is, if I reflected a bunch of double cruxed with Critch about it, the disagreement here would be less about concrete claims the sequences make and more about a vibe, sorta like how I think disgreements with Post Rationalists are not actually about claims and are more about vibe).
I haven’t gotten into that in this comment section since Critch went out of his way to avoid making that the topic here. (Also somewhat because it feels like a big discussion and I’m kinda busy atm)
Thanks for doing this! I do think it’d be good to have an Epistemic Rationality textbook that focuses on the well-vetted stuff.
I think it’d probably make sense to start with all of R:A-Z rather than the Sequences Highlights for generating it – The Sequence Highlights are deliberately meant to be an overview of both epistemic/instrumental/motivation content, and for the sake of fitting it into 50 posts we probably skipped over stuff that might have made sense to incorporate into an Epistemics 101 textbook).
(That said I think someone interested in epistemics and just getting started would do well to start with the stuff here)
I’d be more interested in a project to review the Sequences, have savvy people weigh in on which parts they think are more probable vs. less probable (indexed to a certain time, since views can change), and display their assessments in a centralized, easy-to-navigate way.
I want to say that trying to purify the Sequences feels… boring? Compared to engaging with the content, debating it, vetting it, updating it, improving it, etc.
And I worry that attempts to cut out the less-certain parts will also require cutting out the less-legible parts, even where these contain important content to interact with. The Sequences IMO are a pretty cohesive thing; many insights can be extracted without swallowing the thing wholesale, but a large portion of it will be harder to understand if you don’t read the full thing at all. (Or don’t read enough of the core ‘kinda-illegible’ pieces.)
Maybe what I want is more like a new ‘Critiques of the Sequences’ sequence, or a ‘Sequences + (critiques and responses)’ alt-sequence. Since responding to stuff and pointing at problems seems obviously productive to me, whereas I’m more wary of purification.
To be clear, my current epistemic state is not at all that a curated “epistemic sequences” should replace the existing things. The thing I see as potentially valuable here is to carve them into different subsections focusing on different things that can serve people with different backgrounds and learning goals. (I hadn’t at all thinking of this as “purifying” anything, or at least that’s not my interest in it)
Ruby/I listened to some of Critch’s feedback earlier, and still decided to have have the Sequence Highlights cover a swatch of motivational/instrumental posts, because they seemed important part of the Sequences experience.
I think my own take (not necessarily matching Ruby or Habryka’s) is that I disagree with Critch’s overall assessment of “the how to behave” parts of the sequences are “toxic.” But I do think there is something about the motivation-orientation of the sequences that is… high variance, at least. I see it getting at something that feels important to engage with. (My guess is, if I reflected a bunch of double cruxed with Critch about it, the disagreement here would be less about concrete claims the sequences make and more about a vibe, sorta like how I think disgreements with Post Rationalists are not actually about claims and are more about vibe).
I haven’t gotten into that in this comment section since Critch went out of his way to avoid making that the topic here. (Also somewhat because it feels like a big discussion and I’m kinda busy atm)