the most Less Wrongian aspect may have been a person snapping into much more rationality as a result of encountering a pretty ordinary kind of of thinking more clearly. Is there anything which can be done (behind just making rationality, even of the most ordinary sort) more common, to improve the odds of it registering as a clue?
Yes, that’s why I think the title was a good one “Rationalist click”. I think its just basically being forced to recognize that the map dosen’t match the territory no matter how pretty the map. Getting the territory intrude directly on your senses seems a pretty strong potential trigger of this. Maybe strong enough to even dispel belief in belief at some times (some religious de-conversions seem to follow this pattern as well).
And I think the encounter probably did shift him closer to reality. The reason why the example has caught an underwhelming response so far is that many LWers (like me) probably wanted to get out of the way many of the other stuff he seems to signal that he’s obviously getting wrong or pretending to get wrong because of self-interest in order to not inadvertently promote them to LWers who may not be familiar with the subject (and don’t think this couldn’t happen first solution to a problem someone hears has clear privileges, mere exposure effect, halo effect, ect.).
On yet another hand, one of the interesting bits from the interview was a mention that black kids go into first grade enthusiastic about school, and aren’t enthusiastic a few years later. A similar pattern has been noticed in white kids, even if it doesn’t cause as much damage. This is part of what fueled the home schooling movement.
Indeed.
Agreed. The Khan Academy would be one starting point.
The approach of Khan Academy does do a lot to help with what you tried to point out with your example. It lets kids catch up on knowledge that they missed in the past (and the data does show that some do indeed do this in a way we don’t see in more traditional mass schooling).
I think its just basically being forced to recognize that the map dosen’t match the territory no matter how pretty the map.
The thing was, he wasn’t forced—somehow, the little bit of input met his internal state in a way that worked. It wouldn’t surprise me if he’d been criticized as a child without being given specifics, so the idea of breaking “bad boy” down into evidence and then allowing evaluation as a separate process wasn’t just abstract for him, but I’m guessing.
Good point, he didn’t impact the hard ground of reality, he was hit by a pebble that should have been easy to rationalize.
While calling it a breach of compartments is just giving it another name, and isn’t in itself an explanation, do you think the terminology is descriptively accurate and could be used (to keep our terminology consistent and as simple as possible)?
I think you’ve got a concept there which should have a name, but I’m not sure “breach of compartments” is quite it. My connotations are of a ship which has compartments for very good reasons.
“Widened context” seems closer, but not quite there. “Spontaneous context expansion” is closer, but doesn’t give your sense of why such things don’t happen more often.
Yes, that’s why I think the title was a good one “Rationalist click”. I think its just basically being forced to recognize that the map dosen’t match the territory no matter how pretty the map. Getting the territory intrude directly on your senses seems a pretty strong potential trigger of this. Maybe strong enough to even dispel belief in belief at some times (some religious de-conversions seem to follow this pattern as well).
And I think the encounter probably did shift him closer to reality. The reason why the example has caught an underwhelming response so far is that many LWers (like me) probably wanted to get out of the way many of the other stuff he seems to signal that he’s obviously getting wrong or pretending to get wrong because of self-interest in order to not inadvertently promote them to LWers who may not be familiar with the subject (and don’t think this couldn’t happen first solution to a problem someone hears has clear privileges, mere exposure effect, halo effect, ect.).
Indeed.
The approach of Khan Academy does do a lot to help with what you tried to point out with your example. It lets kids catch up on knowledge that they missed in the past (and the data does show that some do indeed do this in a way we don’t see in more traditional mass schooling).
The thing was, he wasn’t forced—somehow, the little bit of input met his internal state in a way that worked. It wouldn’t surprise me if he’d been criticized as a child without being given specifics, so the idea of breaking “bad boy” down into evidence and then allowing evaluation as a separate process wasn’t just abstract for him, but I’m guessing.
Good point, he didn’t impact the hard ground of reality, he was hit by a pebble that should have been easy to rationalize.
While calling it a breach of compartments is just giving it another name, and isn’t in itself an explanation, do you think the terminology is descriptively accurate and could be used (to keep our terminology consistent and as simple as possible)?
I think you’ve got a concept there which should have a name, but I’m not sure “breach of compartments” is quite it. My connotations are of a ship which has compartments for very good reasons.
“Widened context” seems closer, but not quite there. “Spontaneous context expansion” is closer, but doesn’t give your sense of why such things don’t happen more often.