I’m really very happy that this whole website/community exists! I think it’s one of the best influences on my life that I can think of.
Honestly, the world is a terribly confusing place to me. I’m not natively good at forming opinions — probably worse still than the average untrained person. And there are so many people very firmly believing contradictory things about so many things, and so many arguments that seem so convincing and still turn out to be wrong, so many different strands of dark side epistemology.
LessWrong, to me, is an oasis of sanity in that landscape of discord. LessWrong represents a school of thought that teaches you how to wade through the fog without stumbling quite as much, making the Problem of Figuring Out What To Believe a lot more manageable.
And I like how there’s no angry talk here, just an academic atmosphere of unjudging curiosity. I appreciate that too.
I think most of us have felt that the world is confusing at one time or another… I like how this comic sums it up.
Anyway, I notice angry talk around here sometimes, but mostly the anger is on a very high level of abstraction :) Hopefully no such things happen in this thread.
If you feel like writing about it, I’d like to hear how exactly LW influenced your life. This is a very interesting topic for me, as I’m putting a lot of energy myself into research and experimentation on how to apply rationality to improve lives (and my own life in particular).
If you feel like writing about it, I’d like to hear how exactly LW influenced your life.
Hm, maybe I will. : ) It definitely feels like it’s been a tremendously good influence on me, even if it might be more challenging to find hard evidence to support that feeling (and we know how important that is). At the very least, I feel that I’ve learned so much about advanced reasoning skills and about biases and pitfalls that can get in your way if you don’t take them into account.
I’d say the Human’s Guide to Words is a great example of a sequence that’s helped me think in ways that are less likely to be baffled by or misinterpret complicated situations. The notion that a label has no intrinsic importance, and that its applicability is completely irrelevant and uninteresting if you already know all the features that would be implied by your possible usage of that label, sure saves you a lot of trouble when it comes to defining your identity and dealing (or not bothering to deal) with people who are going to insist that you are or are not an X.
I’m really very happy that this whole website/community exists! I think it’s one of the best influences on my life that I can think of.
Honestly, the world is a terribly confusing place to me. I’m not natively good at forming opinions — probably worse still than the average untrained person. And there are so many people very firmly believing contradictory things about so many things, and so many arguments that seem so convincing and still turn out to be wrong, so many different strands of dark side epistemology. LessWrong, to me, is an oasis of sanity in that landscape of discord. LessWrong represents a school of thought that teaches you how to wade through the fog without stumbling quite as much, making the Problem of Figuring Out What To Believe a lot more manageable.
And I like how there’s no angry talk here, just an academic atmosphere of unjudging curiosity. I appreciate that too.
I almost cannot measure how LW saved my life in multiple occasions… everytime I do not fall for a fad or I notice I’m confused I thank this site.
I think most of us have felt that the world is confusing at one time or another… I like how this comic sums it up.
Anyway, I notice angry talk around here sometimes, but mostly the anger is on a very high level of abstraction :) Hopefully no such things happen in this thread.
If you feel like writing about it, I’d like to hear how exactly LW influenced your life. This is a very interesting topic for me, as I’m putting a lot of energy myself into research and experimentation on how to apply rationality to improve lives (and my own life in particular).
#LessWrongMoreNice
Hm, maybe I will. : )
It definitely feels like it’s been a tremendously good influence on me, even if it might be more challenging to find hard evidence to support that feeling (and we know how important that is). At the very least, I feel that I’ve learned so much about advanced reasoning skills and about biases and pitfalls that can get in your way if you don’t take them into account.
I’d say the Human’s Guide to Words is a great example of a sequence that’s helped me think in ways that are less likely to be baffled by or misinterpret complicated situations. The notion that a label has no intrinsic importance, and that its applicability is completely irrelevant and uninteresting if you already know all the features that would be implied by your possible usage of that label, sure saves you a lot of trouble when it comes to defining your identity and dealing (or not bothering to deal) with people who are going to insist that you are or are not an X.
I heartily agree. This xkcd sums it up really nicely I think.