“Irrationality offers all the things rationality does not: creativity, a sense of “magic”, ecstasy, revelation, cosmic awe, passion and pure psychic power”
i think you misunderstand what we mean by rationality. If we wanted these things, which most of us do, then it’d be rational to be irrational. using the words that way is just silly.
Thanks Kaj, That’s some useful stuff.
Could you please direct me to your source, if you have one?
Hey Luke,
Thanks again for your work. You are by far the greatest online teacher I’ve ever come across (though I’ve never seen you teach face-to-face). you are concise, clear, direct, empathetic, extremely thorough, tactful and accessible. I am in awe of your abilities. You take the fruit that is at the top of the tree and gently place it into my straining arms! Sorry for the exuberant worship but I really want to express my gratitude for your efforts. They definitely aren’t wasted on me.
Heavy questions for someone who merely wrote:
“This should be of interest to a few members of this forum”
To understand the potential for bias allows you to be cautious of it, which is good, but this type of critique can be counter-productive and a conversation killer. If a post as simple as this encounters this much scrutiny at initial submission, then we’re going to have less and less contributions and discussion.
One of the big things about improving rationality is ‘Getting Crap Done’ and I think the problem is that for an online community wherein most of us are anonymous, there’s not a lot on here to help us with that.
Now this site has helped me conceptualize and visualize in a way that I didn’t realize was possible. It helped me to see things as they are, and how things could be. The problem is that whilst I’m flying ahead in terms of vision, I still sleep in and get to work late, I still play world of warcraft over going to the local toastmasters meetup, I still haven’t opened up my online trading account.
It’s like I know what to do, but in terms of generating the willpower and committment and motivation to do it, this site just becomes another of many shiny distractions. The thing is as an online community I’m not sure how much you could remedy that.
The Meetups however I think is possibly the best thing to come out of this site so far, as it has inspired me to start my own, which has come to great success, even after a somewhat rocky start, and provides a way for those who feel isolated to find a network of support.
Just my two humble cents.
It’s hard to articulate all the benefits it’s had in my life, but I’ll name some that I’ve really noticed:
Self evaluation and development: Many of the posts on Bias and human behaviours have helped me understand myself as a very primal creature, and in distinguishing the difference between the rational logic in my head, and the very human part of me that exists in day-to-day, and because I have the tools to understand those subjective parts of me, I can essentially ‘manipulate’ myself for my own benefit. For example, Luke’s article on The Good News of Situational Psychology helped me to understand how influenced I am by my situation, and that I need to pro-actively place myself in situations that will encourage me to make better decisions. Also the ability to be objective about myself and my emotions allows me to do a cost-benefit analysis on what parts of me need the most work.
Social interaction: Many of the same tools have given me a stronger understanding of humans as social creatures, with many similar behaviours and mannerisms as animals, and being able to see things in that light has allowed me to take advantage of these social norms, even in terms of encouraging positive behaviours in my friends and family, and optimizing our lives.
Those are the main two, but they sort of underly everything else that goes on in my life as well....
Yeah rationality has helped me realize just how foolish my workplace is.(how irrational it is, actually)
For me, motivation came from doing a cost-benefit analysis on what I do at work.
Firstly, I love most of my colleagues, so I don’t want to let them down, so any work associated with them must meet or exceed their expectations and not harm them.
Secondly, I do what I commit to do, so integrity motivates me. That being said, doing extra tends to be wasted on those I do it for. So I don’t. it’s like ‘bare minimum’ but in the sense that I do the bare minimum, very well, because thats what I said I’d do. Extra mile stuff doesn’t bring enough benefit to anyone to be worth doing.
So instead, when I find myself with more time on my hands than I know what to do with, i re-invest it in myself. Growing skills, namely in Office programs, email etc, because that also serves the company in that it improves my utility. Better than if I drew up a report that no one would read.
That analysis is updated as the nature of my job changes. Currently it remains there, although that is likely to change, as people have noticed my skillset improving, and the quality of the work that I do to meet expectations is of high quality.
anyway, just my two cents, if anyone finds that useful.
Please do this.
I’d love to be able to understand and harness this resource.
but then he had a baby :p
Forgive me if someone has already mentioned this but making sure your sleep space is a nothing else space helps a lot too.
For me, bedtime was a place for cognitive exercise, wherein I awoke my mind to all the things that required thought, generally speaking a poor idea when your trying to get your mind to slow down. Also now that I’m married it’s a place for discussion and other enjoyable activities.
Ideally though, the Bed should be for sleep and sleep alone, no thinking, no reading, etc. If your thinking a lot or feel like reading, maybe do it at your desk until your feeling more drowsy.
Apparently it trains your body to instinctively think it’s time for sleep if the environment provided for sleep is consistently exclusive. I have a friend who did this and managed such deep sleep that he could get by on 6 hours a day without need for naps or catch up days.
I have very little faith in the general population to take this threat seriously. I believe if salvation comes it will be from that small minority of those who always seek to move society forward, and covers for the rest of it’s mistakes. I’m guessing some type of technological invention or discovery, with a few good powerful people manipulating the rest to embrace it. Even then though, the ramifications are more far-reaching and complicated than I can get my head around, so whilst I fear the consequences I still have very few strong opinions in the area. I will share one though: The people sticking their heads in the sand are morons.
I admire your enthusiasm and vision, but I think it needs to be tempered with some realism. What your trying to do is fantastic, but the unfortunately reality is that LW is ultimately an online interaction, and thus has certain limits that would severly impair an initiative such as this. To give you an idea here’s my own personal hurdles in fully embracing this:
a) I already engage in face-to-face communities which whilst differnt to what you have described shares many similar values. Energy into this means less energy into them, and currently those groups reap the most reward.
b) to offer good advice to each other we need to know about each other. Whilst I can obtain huge amounts of useful advice from LW in terms of my own rationality, and how I can evanglize it, employ it etc. in terms of my actual day to day situation I can really rely on this place, for example: what should I do about Chris’ depression? That’s not to say I couldn’t get any advice, but truly helpful stuff would be a bit beyond us because none of you know Chris.
c) If I were to devote more energy to a project such as this, it would be too the Less Wrong Sydney Meetup as posted on this site, as having face-to-face meetings and interactions has considerably more potential than something that would have too, for a long time remain online.
d) These values you can play out in day to day life without too much trouble.
I don’t want to discourage you, on the contrary I think your desire to do something like this is wonderful, but we want you to be effective. I personally think a great place to start channeling this energy would your local LW Meetup if you have one, and if not, maybe make one. The NYC chapter I think is a great success story and shows the potential benefits of carrying through with your type of energy and enthusiasm.
I saw this talk not too long ago on their podcast and it got me quite excited. Most Ted talks I find enjoyable but I’m not such a fan of their drive for diversity for the sake of diversity. (You can get some pretty bizzare types) but this one in particular was exciting because she made something as fundamental to rationality as this interesting and highly accesible; essentially creating another gateway for the masses.
This is the type of thing that Less Wrong needs to get behind if we want the rationality movement to go forward. both depth and breadth are required.
I always feel sad when I hear about suicide. Wasted potential. But then I think about all wasted potential and suicide just becomes one of many very depressingly true things that I can’t pretend away.
Goodybe Chris. At least your not hurting anymore. I’m not sure what to feel or even think about the rest of it.
It makes me want to go to sleep, and not mind so much if I wake up or not. Not in a depressed way. Just in a ‘This-is-all-there-is’ way. Guess I’ll just try my best and enjoy it. Wouldn’t be much else to do around here anyway :)
I’d love to come but we’ll see.it’s quite a trek for me.