You’re probably not dumb. You probably have a lot less formal schooling than the average LW member. Don’t worry about it. Just keep self-educating (which is always hard and slow work. It definitely is for me.)
Also, don’t let people who sound smart—much less fictional characters—intimidate you. Ayn Rand, bless her heart, didn’t write the world’s most realistic characters. People on LW who talk about “advanced rationalists” and use a lot of jargon aren’t necessarily as fancy as they come across. A lot of that is vocab choice and confidence.
What are you interested in learning? (There’s a good chance that LW shouldn’t be your only source.)
Ah, I’m glad to see that I’m not so horribly stuck in the mud. I don’t have many relationships to gauge these things by. Thank you :)
I’ve always wanted to learn how to “think better”. To have greater use of my facilities with greater frequency in everyday life. Problem solving, math, social interactions, all of which seem to elude me except in “Spurts” of clear thinking. (I.e. this comment will take quite a while to write, If I was speaking, I would not be able to be as clear in my thoughts.)
I think that’s why this site excited me so much. Much of what is here seems to get to the root of “thinking”.
It should excite you even more then, to know that part of what is on here is a model explaining why this site excites you so much!
I don’t know why I’m so excited for you, but I am. It can be easy to feel intimidated by people and comments are sometimes on the blunt side, but if your goal is self improvement people will really respect that (I will at least!)
For what it’s worth,I started with the sequences and went from there.
You’re probably not dumb. You probably have a lot less formal schooling than the average LW member. Don’t worry about it. Just keep self-educating (which is always hard and slow work. It definitely is for me.)
Also, don’t let people who sound smart—much less fictional characters—intimidate you. Ayn Rand, bless her heart, didn’t write the world’s most realistic characters. People on LW who talk about “advanced rationalists” and use a lot of jargon aren’t necessarily as fancy as they come across. A lot of that is vocab choice and confidence.
What are you interested in learning? (There’s a good chance that LW shouldn’t be your only source.)
Ah, I’m glad to see that I’m not so horribly stuck in the mud. I don’t have many relationships to gauge these things by. Thank you :) I’ve always wanted to learn how to “think better”. To have greater use of my facilities with greater frequency in everyday life. Problem solving, math, social interactions, all of which seem to elude me except in “Spurts” of clear thinking. (I.e. this comment will take quite a while to write, If I was speaking, I would not be able to be as clear in my thoughts.) I think that’s why this site excited me so much. Much of what is here seems to get to the root of “thinking”.
It should excite you even more then, to know that part of what is on here is a model explaining why this site excites you so much!
I don’t know why I’m so excited for you, but I am. It can be easy to feel intimidated by people and comments are sometimes on the blunt side, but if your goal is self improvement people will really respect that (I will at least!)
For what it’s worth,I started with the sequences and went from there.