I think raising the sanity waterline is the most important thing we can do, and we do too little of it because our discussions tend to happen amongst ourselves, i.e. with people who are far from that waterline.
Any attempt to educate people, including the attempt to educate them about rationality, should focus on teens, or where possible on children, in order to create maximum impact. HPMOR does that to some degree, but Less Wrong usually presupposes cognitive skills that the very people who’d benefit most from rationality do not possess. It is very much in-group discussion. If “refining the art of human rationality” is our goal, we should be doing a lot more outreach and a lot more production of very accessible rationality materials. Simplified versions of the sequences, with more pictures and more happiness. CC licensed leaflets and posters. Classroom materials. Videos (compare the SciShow video on Bayes’ Theorem), because that’s how many curious young minds get their extracurricular knowledge these days.
In fact, if we crowdfunded somebody with education materials production experience to do that (or better yet, crowdfund two or three and let them compete for the next round), I’d contribute significantly.
Is this supposed to be a contrarian view on LW? If it is, I am going to cry.
Unless we reach a lot of young people, we risk than in 30-40 years the “rationalist movement” will be mostly a group of old people spending most of their complaining about how things were better when they were young. And the change will come so gradually we may not even notice it.
I think video are the wrong medium. Videos have the problem of getting people to think they understand something when they don’t. People learn all the right buzzwords but that doesn’t mean that they actually are more rational.
Kaj Sotala for example designs a game for his master thesis that’s intended to teach Bayes method. I think such a game would be much more valuable than a video that explains Bayes method.
We have prediction book and the Credence game as tools to teach people to be more rational. They aren’t yet on a quality level where the average person will use them. Focusing more energy on updating those concepts and making them work better is more valuable than producing videos.
CFAR also does develop teaching materials. A core feature of CFAR is that it actually focuses on produces quality instead of just producing videos and hoping that those videos will have an impact. I know that there someone in Germany who teaches a high school class based on CFAR inspired material.
Seems pretty sensible to me. I’m not that worried about a 30-40 year old “rationalist” movement, however… in the same way the ideas on LW appealed to me as a teen, it seems likely that they will end up appealing to other teens, if they end up hearing about them (stuff like e.g. HPMOR makes it likely that they will).
If “refining the art of human rationality” is our goal, we should be doing a lot more outreach and a lot more production of very accessible rationality materials.
I agree, and I’m in favor of this sort of thing. I try to do this sort of thing among my friends. Sometimes it works, at least a little bit.
On the other hand, if we’re trying to save Earth from being turned into paperclips, we ought to focus our efforts on people who’re smart enough to be able to meaningfully contribute to AI risk reduction.
On the other other hand, there are people here who could help with sanity-line-raising materials who can’t help with rationality training as a way to avert AI x-risk.
On the other otherother hand, some people who might be able to help with AI risk might get into the possibly-less-important sanity-waterline-raising projects, and this would be a bad thing.
I think raising the sanity waterline is the most important thing we can do, and we do too little of it because our discussions tend to happen amongst ourselves, i.e. with people who are far from that waterline.
Any attempt to educate people, including the attempt to educate them about rationality, should focus on teens, or where possible on children, in order to create maximum impact. HPMOR does that to some degree, but Less Wrong usually presupposes cognitive skills that the very people who’d benefit most from rationality do not possess. It is very much in-group discussion. If “refining the art of human rationality” is our goal, we should be doing a lot more outreach and a lot more production of very accessible rationality materials. Simplified versions of the sequences, with more pictures and more happiness. CC licensed leaflets and posters. Classroom materials. Videos (compare the SciShow video on Bayes’ Theorem), because that’s how many curious young minds get their extracurricular knowledge these days.
In fact, if we crowdfunded somebody with education materials production experience to do that (or better yet, crowdfund two or three and let them compete for the next round), I’d contribute significantly.
Is this supposed to be a contrarian view on LW? If it is, I am going to cry.
Unless we reach a lot of young people, we risk than in 30-40 years the “rationalist movement” will be mostly a group of old people spending most of their complaining about how things were better when they were young. And the change will come so gradually we may not even notice it.
I don’t think anybody has explicitly spoken out against it, but it seems to me everyone acts quite opposed to the idea.
I think video are the wrong medium. Videos have the problem of getting people to think they understand something when they don’t. People learn all the right buzzwords but that doesn’t mean that they actually are more rational.
Kaj Sotala for example designs a game for his master thesis that’s intended to teach Bayes method. I think such a game would be much more valuable than a video that explains Bayes method.
We have prediction book and the Credence game as tools to teach people to be more rational. They aren’t yet on a quality level where the average person will use them. Focusing more energy on updating those concepts and making them work better is more valuable than producing videos.
CFAR also does develop teaching materials. A core feature of CFAR is that it actually focuses on produces quality instead of just producing videos and hoping that those videos will have an impact. I know that there someone in Germany who teaches a high school class based on CFAR inspired material.
Seems pretty sensible to me. I’m not that worried about a 30-40 year old “rationalist” movement, however… in the same way the ideas on LW appealed to me as a teen, it seems likely that they will end up appealing to other teens, if they end up hearing about them (stuff like e.g. HPMOR makes it likely that they will).
I agree, and I’m in favor of this sort of thing. I try to do this sort of thing among my friends. Sometimes it works, at least a little bit.
On the other hand, if we’re trying to save Earth from being turned into paperclips, we ought to focus our efforts on people who’re smart enough to be able to meaningfully contribute to AI risk reduction.
On the other other hand, there are people here who could help with sanity-line-raising materials who can’t help with rationality training as a way to avert AI x-risk.
On the other other other hand, some people who might be able to help with AI risk might get into the possibly-less-important sanity-waterline-raising projects, and this would be a bad thing.