Can anyone attest to getting real instrumental rationality benefits from reading Wikipedia? (As a control question; everyone seems to think that Wikipedia is obviously useful and beneficial, so is anyone getting “real instrumental rationality benefits” from it?)
I suspect that the “success equation”, as it were, is something like expected_success = drive intelligence rationality, and for most people the limiting factor is drive, or maybe intelligence. Also, I suspect that changes in your “success equation” parameters take can take years to manifest as substantial levels of success, where people regard you as “successful” and not just “promising”. And I don’t think anyone is going to respond to a question like this with “reading Less Wrong made me more promising” because that would be dopey, so there’s an absence of data. (And promising folks may also surf the internet, and LW, less.)
It’s worth differentiating between these two questions, IMO: “does reading LW foster mental habits that make you better at figuring out what’s true?” and “does being better at figuring out what’s true make you significantly more successful?” I tend to assign more credence to the first than the second.
John, Wikipedia is generally valued for epistemic benefit, i.e., it teaches you facts. Only rarely does it give you practically useful facts, like the fact that lottery tickets are a bad buy. I agree that LW-rationality gives epistemic benefits.
And as for “years to manifest”: Diets can make you thinner in months. Likewise, PUA lessons get you laid, weightlifting makes you a bit stronger, bicycle repair workshops get you fixing your bike, and Tim Ferris makes you much better at everything, in months—if each of these is all it’s cracked up to be.
Some changes do take years, but note also that LW-style rationality has been around for years, so at least some people should be reporting major instrumental improvements.
And as for “years to manifest”: Diets can make you thinner in months. Likewise, PUA lessons get you laid, weightlifting makes you a bit stronger, bicycle repair workshops get you fixing your bike, and Tim Ferris makes you much better at everything, in months—if each of these is all it’s cracked up to be.
One point is that if a specific diet helps you, it’s easy to give credit to that diet. But if LW changes your thinking style, and you make a decision differently years later, it’s hard to know what decision you would have made if you hadn’t found LW.
Another point is that rationality should be most useful for domains where there are long feedback cycles—where there are shorter feedback cycles, you can just futz around and get feedback, and people who study rationality won’t have as much of an advantage.
Some changes do take years, but note also that LW-style rationality has been around for years, so at least some people should be reporting major instrumental improvements.
I think I’ve gotten substantial instrumental benefits from reading LW. It makes me kind of uncomfortable to share personal details, but I guess I’ll share one example: When I was younger, I was very driven and ambitious. I wanted to spend my time teaching myself programming, etc., but in actuality I would spend my time reading reddit and feeling extremely guilty that I wasn’t teaching myself programming. At a certain point I started to realize that my feeling of guilt was counterproductive, and if I actually wanted to accomplish my goals then I should figure out what emotions would be useful for accomplishing my goals and try to feel those. I think it’s likely that if I didn’t read LW I wouldn’t have had this realization, or would’ve had this realization but not taken it seriously. And this realization, along with others in the same vein, seems to have been useful for helping me get more stuff done.
Can anyone attest to getting real instrumental rationality benefits from reading Wikipedia? (As a control question; everyone seems to think that Wikipedia is obviously useful and beneficial, so is anyone getting “real instrumental rationality benefits” from it?)
I suspect that the “success equation”, as it were, is something like expected_success = drive intelligence rationality, and for most people the limiting factor is drive, or maybe intelligence. Also, I suspect that changes in your “success equation” parameters take can take years to manifest as substantial levels of success, where people regard you as “successful” and not just “promising”. And I don’t think anyone is going to respond to a question like this with “reading Less Wrong made me more promising” because that would be dopey, so there’s an absence of data. (And promising folks may also surf the internet, and LW, less.)
It’s worth differentiating between these two questions, IMO: “does reading LW foster mental habits that make you better at figuring out what’s true?” and “does being better at figuring out what’s true make you significantly more successful?” I tend to assign more credence to the first than the second.
John, Wikipedia is generally valued for epistemic benefit, i.e., it teaches you facts. Only rarely does it give you practically useful facts, like the fact that lottery tickets are a bad buy. I agree that LW-rationality gives epistemic benefits.
And as for “years to manifest”: Diets can make you thinner in months. Likewise, PUA lessons get you laid, weightlifting makes you a bit stronger, bicycle repair workshops get you fixing your bike, and Tim Ferris makes you much better at everything, in months—if each of these is all it’s cracked up to be.
Some changes do take years, but note also that LW-style rationality has been around for years, so at least some people should be reporting major instrumental improvements.
One point is that if a specific diet helps you, it’s easy to give credit to that diet. But if LW changes your thinking style, and you make a decision differently years later, it’s hard to know what decision you would have made if you hadn’t found LW.
Another point is that rationality should be most useful for domains where there are long feedback cycles—where there are shorter feedback cycles, you can just futz around and get feedback, and people who study rationality won’t have as much of an advantage.
I think I’ve gotten substantial instrumental benefits from reading LW. It makes me kind of uncomfortable to share personal details, but I guess I’ll share one example: When I was younger, I was very driven and ambitious. I wanted to spend my time teaching myself programming, etc., but in actuality I would spend my time reading reddit and feeling extremely guilty that I wasn’t teaching myself programming. At a certain point I started to realize that my feeling of guilt was counterproductive, and if I actually wanted to accomplish my goals then I should figure out what emotions would be useful for accomplishing my goals and try to feel those. I think it’s likely that if I didn’t read LW I wouldn’t have had this realization, or would’ve had this realization but not taken it seriously. And this realization, along with others in the same vein, seems to have been useful for helping me get more stuff done.