I have a lot to say here but I’ll stick to this for now:
I worry that these introspective techniques optimize too much for cathartic eureka moments, and that the resulting feelings far overstate their true value.
There’s always the risk of Goodharting on all sorts of things, but I think we should collectively chill out about people getting too excited about stuff. Getting too excited is a perfectly natural part of the learning process (you can tell because kids do it by default when not punished for it); it’s what gets you to overlearn things so that they stick with you. The people I know who learn things fastest do it constantly, I do it constantly when I learn math, and I think it’s a really important component of learning rationality too.
Umeshism: if you’ve never gotten too excited about something then you aren’t learning fast / deeply enough.
I have a lot to say here but I’ll stick to this for now:
There’s always the risk of Goodharting on all sorts of things, but I think we should collectively chill out about people getting too excited about stuff. Getting too excited is a perfectly natural part of the learning process (you can tell because kids do it by default when not punished for it); it’s what gets you to overlearn things so that they stick with you. The people I know who learn things fastest do it constantly, I do it constantly when I learn math, and I think it’s a really important component of learning rationality too.
Umeshism: if you’ve never gotten too excited about something then you aren’t learning fast / deeply enough.