I’m really glad to see people are taking it seriously. This is legitimately something that could save the world, no matter what your AI assumptions are, or where the innovation/research takes place.
Keep in mind that budgeting Schelling Fences is really important, the author (squirrelinhell) tried that as well as like 5 other things at once (including self-inflicted sleep deprivation), in addition to being a roko’s basilisk researcher, and they literally died from it. When you do even one really intense mind-improving thing, it’s hard to keep track of all the things you took for granted but might no longer apply- and even harder when you’re doing lots of weird stuff at once.
Oh, I’m quite wary of mental modifications. I’ve both had some poor experiences myself, and listened to enough stories by people who’ve done far more substantial changes to their cognition, to know that this is dangerous territory.
Incidentally, I showed that skill from BWT to someone who claims to have done great amounts of mental surgery. They stated that the skill isn’t a bad solution to the problem, but the author of the page didn’t know what the problem even is. Namely, that people didn’t spend enough time thinking alone as a kid due to repeated distractions, which caused firmware damage. N.B. they only read the “Tuning your cognitive strategies page”. I think they also claimed that this damage was related to school, or perhaps social media?
I’m not sure what to make of that claim, but the fact is that I have many instinctive flinches away from entering the state of mind which that skill-page describes. These flinches are, I think, caused by a fear of failure to solve problems or produce valuable thoughts. Which, you know, does sound like the kind of damage that school or social media could do.
That’s really interesting, do you have a list of resources you could recommend to me for things that are similar to/better than BWT? I wasn’t aware that finding more was even possible.
I don’t have anything that is better than BWT. I’ve just read, and heard, people who claim to have done substantial mental modifications talking about their experience. The guy I was talking about claimed that 1) This stuff is dangerous, so he won’t go into details and 2) You really have to develop your own techniques. He seems quite sharp, so I’m inclined to trust his word, but that’s not much evidence for you. And I haven’t done much myself other than mess up my brain a few times, and practiced BWT-related focusing enough times that I started getting something out of it.
I’m really glad to see people are taking it seriously. This is legitimately something that could save the world, no matter what your AI assumptions are, or where the innovation/research takes place.
Keep in mind that budgeting Schelling Fences is really important, the author (squirrelinhell) tried that as well as like 5 other things at once (including self-inflicted sleep deprivation), in addition to being a roko’s basilisk researcher, and they literally died from it. When you do even one really intense mind-improving thing, it’s hard to keep track of all the things you took for granted but might no longer apply- and even harder when you’re doing lots of weird stuff at once.
Oh, I’m quite wary of mental modifications. I’ve both had some poor experiences myself, and listened to enough stories by people who’ve done far more substantial changes to their cognition, to know that this is dangerous territory.
Incidentally, I showed that skill from BWT to someone who claims to have done great amounts of mental surgery. They stated that the skill isn’t a bad solution to the problem, but the author of the page didn’t know what the problem even is. Namely, that people didn’t spend enough time thinking alone as a kid due to repeated distractions, which caused firmware damage. N.B. they only read the “Tuning your cognitive strategies page”. I think they also claimed that this damage was related to school, or perhaps social media?
I’m not sure what to make of that claim, but the fact is that I have many instinctive flinches away from entering the state of mind which that skill-page describes. These flinches are, I think, caused by a fear of failure to solve problems or produce valuable thoughts. Which, you know, does sound like the kind of damage that school or social media could do.
That’s really interesting, do you have a list of resources you could recommend to me for things that are similar to/better than BWT? I wasn’t aware that finding more was even possible.
I don’t have anything that is better than BWT. I’ve just read, and heard, people who claim to have done substantial mental modifications talking about their experience. The guy I was talking about claimed that 1) This stuff is dangerous, so he won’t go into details and 2) You really have to develop your own techniques. He seems quite sharp, so I’m inclined to trust his word, but that’s not much evidence for you. And I haven’t done much myself other than mess up my brain a few times, and practiced BWT-related focusing enough times that I started getting something out of it.