Yes, exactly. And getting yourself to do this work for long-term reasons, when at the moment you would rather read Less Wrong or check Digg or Reddit, is the skill of “consciously directing attention”, which is a core skill of instrumental rationality.
And Less Wrong not only makes it hard to do this, it promotes a value of this not being important through the shared idea that reading Less Wrong is growth work, or will make you more rational and better at your job, rather than admitting that it’s a shiny distracting, much more like being teleported to Rome than like doing your work.
Yes, exactly. And getting yourself to do this work for long-term reasons, when at the moment you would rather read Less Wrong or check Digg or Reddit, is the skill of “consciously directing attention”, which is a core skill of instrumental rationality.
And Less Wrong not only makes it hard to do this, it promotes a value of this not being important through the shared idea that reading Less Wrong is growth work, or will make you more rational and better at your job, rather than admitting that it’s a shiny distracting, much more like being teleported to Rome than like doing your work.