The problem is reception of reliable information not production of reliable information.
I’ve actually just wondered if you need to move science veracity to some external right leaning institution like betting on scientific markets or voting on replication experiments or something.
This does sound OCD in that all the psychic energy is going into rationalizing doom slightly differently in the hopes that this time you’ll get some missing piece of insight that will change your feelings. Like I think we can accrue a sort of moral OCD that if too many people behavior as if p(doom)=low we must become the ascetic who doesn’t just believe it’s high but who has many mental rituals meant to enforce believing it’s high as many hours a day as possible.
ERP (exposure/response prevention) is gold standard for OCD, not ACT or DBT. I mean, there’s overlap, because ACT emphasizes cognitive defusion which is basically what ERP produces, and dialectics can be exposures to that thing you’re avoiding. And there’s a more OCD-treating way to do “radical acceptance,” it’s less like focusing on the truth of the unpleasant thing and “watch” the thoughts go by like “leaves on a stream.”
I think an exposure for you might be more “p(doom) is close to 0, I was mistaken”, and in rationalist-speak privately steelman this for 1-5 minutes, but also you know like a “butterfly thought,” where you don’t want to crush the butterfly. And just to emphasize this is a private exercise, if you “actually” believe p(doom) is 0 for 2 minutes, it’s really not going to hurt you. The more I make it a rationalist exercise the less it’s an ERP and the more it’s just more rationalization, but I feel I need to “steelman” just exiting the space of constant high focus on high p(doom) at all. An ERP might look like this example but a therapist might also try to keep it more “low key,” like pick an easy exposure to skill-build on, like if you’re afraid of everyone dying and also spiders, therapy might target spiders as just easier to practice with.
For me the ACT perspective is things I care about include: 1. job 2. family 3. doom. What I don’t include in this list is 4. figuring out the most important thing and only doing that. Yes it’s compartmentalizing and I haven’t endowed “doom” with any ability to leave its box and it’s actually still #3 not 1 or 2. I mean this is a work-in-progress for me too but this sort of enumerated-values approach has been materially helpful every day.
Any rats chess players? I won’t spoil my rating but broadly and subjectively in the “intermediate” tier. Chess as in chess.com or lichess.org, not deception chess or alignment chess or other rationalist-themed chess. I’d be up for a rapid game (10-20 min).
I’m sorry but I was just so lost by the end of this article. I have no explanation for why Hreha doesn’t know what a UX researcher is or that they professionally do behavorial economics all day including designing nudge-like behavior, like for instance a tip app screen, that nudges you to tip $1 on a $3 coffee.
You’re allowed to ask your CEO “why’d you do X”, you’re allowed to ask a senior Go player “why’d you do X.” They’re more similar than different. As for “punching down,” yeah, chess/go probably have a lot more serious culture of public critical feedback, you could probably write a thinkpiece just on this, but factors include low ego culture and objectivity of sr->jr feedback.
One difference is with CEO is it’s incomplete info. You may be surfacing something they don’t know. Another difference is your interests are different. You’re telling them they made you unhappy and you’re upset about that; that’s not really a thing in a board game where the cultural norm is “try to win.” But if you really are talking to your CEO like “I know better than you” then you do sound like the novice Go player.
Also “omgz thank you for asking your incisive question” is not necessarily a compliment anymore than “your shoes look comfortable.” One explanation is you have a better grasp that publicly punching up is OK and publicly punching down is not OK. Another explanation is they think you’re insane, and you already know they’re quite passive about critical feedback so that would be in character.
My only eyebrow-raise was at all the wealthier people who go to AA. There are a lot of broke-ass people at AA. If you can acquire alcohol you can get to an AA meeting.
Bigger question: is it a generally difficult problem to analyze like, “this thing claims to help, but only people who are motivated will do it, so we can’t really tell if it further acts positively on motivated people or if it’s a total useless thing?” Like if I’m motivated to learn and I read a book and get smarter you wouldn’t exactly say the book did nothing, even if the main thing is the motivation level of the learner, not the availability of the book.
This is cool. It comes up with meta-contrarianism. There’s another concept I might write up that goes something like, “you don’t always have to name the concept you’re defending.”
For example, I wanted to do a meetup on why gen z men are more religious in celebration of International Men’s Day.
Just think of how the two topics in that sentence interact. It’s more likely I’m going to have a meetup on “whether it’s okay to have a meetup about International Men’s Day” than anything. And if I wanted to promote men in any broad sense, it seems like doing the topic without mentioning International Men’s Day is an entirely acceptable and useful idea. So it’s a “choose your battles” thing. If I think having a big argument about International Men’s Day is a good payout, then I can do that, but it’s definitely not, so don’t.
I’ve found this on reddit… sometimes it’s easier to defend capitalism by just explaining capitalism at least as I understand it without actually saying capitalism. That last battle where I get them to understand that they just agreed with a capitalist analysis nips in the bud some open mindedness we had just worked to create.
Keep in mind their goal is to take money from gambling addicts, not predict the future.
oh ok you said “has obvious adhd” like you’re inferring it from a few minutes observation of her behavior, not that she told you she has adhd. in general no you can’t get an accurate diagnosis by observing someone, you need to differential diagnosis hypomania, hyperthyroidism, autism, substance abuse, caffeine, sleep deprivation, or just enjoying her hobby, plus establish whatever behavior is adhdlike happens across a variety of domains going back some time.
Adhd is not legible just by being in the same room as someone.
Furthermore it’s pretty basic flaws by LW standards, like the “map/territory” which is the first post in the first sequence. I don’t think “discussing basic stuff” is wrong by itself, but doing so by shuttling in someone else’s post is sketch, and when that post is also some sort of polemical countered by the first post in the first sequence on LW it starts getting actively annoying.
convenient fiction aka a model. Like they almost get this, they just think pointing it out should be done in a really polemical strawmanny “scientists worship their god-models” way.
It’s telling they manage to avoid using the word “risk” or “risk-averse” because that’s the most obvious example of a time when an economist would realize a simpler form of utility, money, isn’t the best model for individual decisions. This isn’t a forgivable error when you’re convinced you have a more lucid understanding of the model/metaphor status of a science concept than scientists who use it, and it’s accessible in econ 101 or even just to common sense.
More specifically, the correctness of the proof (at least in the triangles case) is common sense, coming up with the proof is not.
The integrals idea gets sketchy. Try it with e^(1/x). It’s just a composition of functions so reverse the chain rule then deal with any extra terms that come up. Of course, it’s not integrable. There’s not really any utility in overextending common sense to include things that might or might not work. And you’re very close to implying “it’s common sense” is a proof for things that sound obvious but aren’t.
Claude 3.7 is too balanced, too sycophantic, buries the lede
me: VA monitor v IPS monitor for coding, reducing eye strain
It wrote a balanced answer, said “IPS is generally better” but it’s kind of sounding like 60⁄40 here, and it misses the obvious fact that VA monitors are generally the curved ones. My older coworkers with more eye strain problems don’t have curved monitors.
I hope on reddit/YT and the answer gets clear really fast. Claude’s info was accurate yet missed the point and I wound up only getting the answer on reddit/YT.
One I’ve noticed is pretty well-intentioned “woke” people are more “lived experiences” oriented and well-intentioned “rationalist” people are more “strong opinions weakly held.” Honestly, if your only goal is truth seeking, and admitting I’m rationalist-biased when I say this and also this is simplified, the “woke” frame is better at breadth and the “rationalist” frame is better at depth. But ohmygosh these arguments can spiral. Neither realize their meta is broken down. The rationalist thinks low-confidence opinions are humility; the woke thinks “I am open to others’ lived experience outside of my own” is humility.
Experientially, yes, I’ve seen both “sides” be well intentioned, in reasonably good faith, both trying to act above a baseline level of rational, and a baseline level of humble along privilege concerns. IDK the solution but the general pattern should be something like reverting to “human” norms not “debate” norms, like use “I feel” statements and draw on what you genuinely have in common at point of debate. (If the answer is “nothing” then either your norms difference escalated to a real fight or you have different instrumental goals so go do something else.)
I’m kind of interested in this idea of pretending you’re talking to different people at different phases. Boss, partner, anyone else, …
Hadn’t thought of the unconscious->reward for noticing flow. Neat!
Some of these follow from the “central fallacy,” e.g. just because penguins are birds doesn’t mean they’re typical birds, which typically can fly. I nicknamed this “semantic bounty” in a short post—if you spend 45 minutes convincing somebody something is X, e.g. X = discriminatory because X is probably gonna be something values-infused rather than feel like an arbitrary label, you’re more likely to win the argument that something is technically X and therefore doesn’t get a whole lot of properties of X, when you were hoping you get all the properties of X as a bounty for your opponent conceding the is-ness.