A particularly common instance of this in my life is that the tools of thought which I learned from the Sequences cause me to actually use spreadsheets more often. It goes something like this:
I think that I want a thing.
I shop for the thing, and find that there are far too many options, all of which have some people claiming they’re the worst thing ever (one-star reviews). I feel worried, intimidated, and afraid of actually getting the thing because I’ll get the wrong one and be stuck with the wrong one and it’ll be my own fault.
I step back, and think harder about what I actually want the thing to do. I attempt to formalize a framework for comparing the different options. I feel gently annoyed by my own uncertainty about what I actually want, but this annoyance transforms into confidence or even pride in my own thoroughness as I proceed through this step.
Surprisingly often, this more-intentional framing of the problem causes me to realize that I can actually solve the problem with stuff I have on hand. For instance, a home-row letter keycap on my laptop keyboard recently broke. Intentionally attempting to think rationally about the problem caused me to realize that I could move an infrequently-used symbol keycap to the home row and continue typing comfortably. When this happens, I feel brilliant, like I’ve discovered a tiny exploit in the interface between my expectations and the world.
When I still want to go get the thing, I attempt to quantify the relevant aspects of the thing into columns on a spreadsheet, and my options for getting the thing into the rows. By filling out each cell, I can compare, score, and sort the different options, and better visualize what information is omitted by advertisements which otherwise look highly tempting. I often feel surprised and annoyed that an option which looked like it’d probably be the best is actually a non-starter due to some essential trait being wrong or undocumented.
I then get the thing which appears to represent the best compromise between cost and features. I feel confident that I have gotten the best thing I could find, and that if it turns out to be inadequate, the problem will be due to factors outside of my control.
Before going down this rabbit hole of big-R Rationality, I knew enough about cognitive biases and similar effects to feel distrustful of brains, including my own, in situations where I noticed that such distortions seemed relevant. But concrete, everyday Rationality has given me tools to circumvent those biases—mitigation rather than just detection, treatments rather than just awareness.
Yes.
A particularly common instance of this in my life is that the tools of thought which I learned from the Sequences cause me to actually use spreadsheets more often. It goes something like this:
I think that I want a thing.
I shop for the thing, and find that there are far too many options, all of which have some people claiming they’re the worst thing ever (one-star reviews). I feel worried, intimidated, and afraid of actually getting the thing because I’ll get the wrong one and be stuck with the wrong one and it’ll be my own fault.
I step back, and think harder about what I actually want the thing to do. I attempt to formalize a framework for comparing the different options. I feel gently annoyed by my own uncertainty about what I actually want, but this annoyance transforms into confidence or even pride in my own thoroughness as I proceed through this step.
Surprisingly often, this more-intentional framing of the problem causes me to realize that I can actually solve the problem with stuff I have on hand. For instance, a home-row letter keycap on my laptop keyboard recently broke. Intentionally attempting to think rationally about the problem caused me to realize that I could move an infrequently-used symbol keycap to the home row and continue typing comfortably. When this happens, I feel brilliant, like I’ve discovered a tiny exploit in the interface between my expectations and the world.
When I still want to go get the thing, I attempt to quantify the relevant aspects of the thing into columns on a spreadsheet, and my options for getting the thing into the rows. By filling out each cell, I can compare, score, and sort the different options, and better visualize what information is omitted by advertisements which otherwise look highly tempting. I often feel surprised and annoyed that an option which looked like it’d probably be the best is actually a non-starter due to some essential trait being wrong or undocumented.
I then get the thing which appears to represent the best compromise between cost and features. I feel confident that I have gotten the best thing I could find, and that if it turns out to be inadequate, the problem will be due to factors outside of my control.
Before going down this rabbit hole of big-R Rationality, I knew enough about cognitive biases and similar effects to feel distrustful of brains, including my own, in situations where I noticed that such distortions seemed relevant. But concrete, everyday Rationality has given me tools to circumvent those biases—mitigation rather than just detection, treatments rather than just awareness.