Nanashi

Karma: 474

Nanashi May 28, 2015, 12:40 PM
4 points
in reply to: estimator’s comment on: The most important meta-skill
Well of course they do. Because these things are necessary to learning a language. This is the 20% that’s most efficient. By definition someone who puts in 100% of the effort will be doing what I did.

The efficiency of this approach revolves around what you don’t do. You’re excising the 80%. I didn’t spend long hours learning katakana, hiragana and kanji. I didn’t learn the more complex tenses and conjugations. I didn’t spend time on vocabulary words that are highly situational. Contrast this to a typical Japanese textbook.

Nanashi May 27, 2015, 11:27 PM
2 points
in reply to: estimator’s comment on: The most important meta-skill
I’ll give a more in depth breakdown soon but for now, I’d probably take a similar approach that I took to learning to read Japanese : learn basic sentence structure, learn top 150ish vocabulary words, avoid books written in non-romaji. Practice hearing spoken word by listening to speeches and following their transcriptions. My exception protocol for unrecognized words was to look them up. And for irregular sentence structure, to guess based on context. It worked for watching movies and reading, mostly but as you can tell, yoi kakikomu koto ga dekimasen*. I’d have to do some thinking on the writing part, it would most likely involve sticking to simple sentences.

*thats terrible Japanese for “I cannot write well”. I think. I hope.

Nanashi May 27, 2015, 10:29 PM
2 points
in reply to: estimator’s comment on: The most important meta-skill
Also, when you say “intermediate level language knowledge”, what exactly do you mean? One of the key steps is defining exactly what you want to accomplish and why. I don’t want to create a whole write-up, only to realize that you and I have two different definitions of “intermediate level language knowledge”.

So if you’d tell me the “what” and the “why”, I’ll do the rest.

Nanashi May 27, 2015, 10:26 PM
2 points
in reply to: estimator’s comment on: The most important meta-skill
Basketball is an example. I’m about to head home so I’ll do the ultra-abbreviated TL;DR version:
1. Goals: Score points, prevent opponent from scoring points.
2. Archetypes: Offense (2-point), Offense (3-point), Defense
3. Process How-To: Googled “how to layup”, “how to shoot a 3-pointer”, and “how to steal a ball” 3a. Process Failure Points: Missing a shot, getting the ball stolen, missing a pass. 3b. Process Difficulties: Anything involving ball handling or dribbling. Defense.
4. Exception Protocol: On offense: Pass the ball to a better player than myself, or set a pick. On defense: play very close to my opponent. 5a. Avoid anything involving dribbling but not scoring. 5b. Prepare and practice two-point shots. 5c. Focus on getting open for a 3-point shot. Practice consistently shooting from 3-point line.
5. Get better by playing.
I would say basketball is fairly complex. One thing I didn’t mention in the original post (mainly because it starts to get into the “how do individual people learn”) but for me, I don’t get good at a competitive skill by competing against people who also suck. By getting good enough to be able to play with people who are actually good, it made it easier for me to learn the advanced part of the game faster.

Also, this post has a list of (at least what I think to be) fairly non-trivial skills that I have trained using this method.

Nanashi May 27, 2015, 9:44 PM
0 points
in reply to: Lumifer’s comment on: The most important meta-skill
Ha ha, when I first read that, I thought “furriner” was another nickname for Furries and I was very, very confused.

Nanashi May 27, 2015, 9:19 PM
3 points
in reply to: Lumifer’s comment on: The most important meta-skill
I took your advice as well as estimator’s into account and added two paragraphs at the beginning to offer 1. Some research showing that many systems follow a distribution where a small portion of work accounts for a large portion of results, and 2. and explanation as to why it’s generalizable.

Nanashi May 27, 2015, 8:48 PM
3 points
in reply to: estimator’s comment on: The most important meta-skill
That’s totally fine, like I said, your post made sense and was consistent with what I’ve seen.

I still don’t really think that stating my qualifications would do much. In this context, it still just seems too much like bragging. “I helped build a multi-million dollar company, I compete in barbecue competitions and consistently place in the top 10% of the field and was sponsored by a major barbecue website, was ranked in the top 100 players in the world for a popular collectible card game, learned how to code with no formal education (and used that knowledge wrote a somewhat well-received calibration test, and also write a bunch of boring business platforms), wrote an article about a baseball statistic I co-developed and was published in a publication that’s important for people who care about baseball stats, learned how to be a carpenter, at one point was a licensed pharmacy technician, blah blah blah”

Even though I’m sure there’s a less crass way to phrase it, to me it still sounds exceedingly arrogant. I might be overreacting though. You tell me: if I prefaced my post with that, would you be more or less inclined to take me seriously?

I do like the idea of explaining why I think the advice works in the first place. I will start writing something up about that and append it to the original post.
What links here?
- Nanashi's comment on The most important meta-skill by Nanashi (May 27, 2015, 10:26 PM; 2 points)

Nanashi May 27, 2015, 7:50 PM
5 points
in reply to: Sniffnoy’s comment on: The most important meta-skill
Bad editing on my part. Ill update the post and include the original here for posterity

Nanashi May 27, 2015, 6:40 PM
0 points
in reply to: estimator’s comment on: The most important meta-skill
Yup, pretty much. To quote myself

TL;DR: The fastest way to learn new skills is to 1. Break it down into enough “recipes” or “how-to” guides that they cover most of what you might encounter, and 2. Figure out how to eloquently ask for help if you don’t know what to do.

(Incidentally, the link you posted does not work, it’s giving me a 404).

Nanashi May 27, 2015, 6:36 PM
4 points
in reply to: estimator’s comment on: The most important meta-skill

Articles on such topics are notorious for their average bad quality.

That’s interesting, I wasn’t aware of that reputation. That’s good to know and certainly justifies your skepticism.

All that said, I think one can still evaluate your point (and in my case, my Less Wrong post) based on its internal logic and how consistent it is with one’s own observations, without needing research to back it up. It would be easy enough to dismiss your own post for the very reasons you cited. Consider the following:

“In general, people new to a community are notoriously bad at gauging the pulse of said community. To reformulate in Bayesian terms, based on the length of time you’ve been posting here, the prior probability of your statement being true is low, so shouldn’t you provide some proofs or evidence—or why should I (or anyone) believe you?”

But to me, your logic checks out, and is fairly consistent with my own observations (that most self-help publications tend to be garbage), so that shifts the probabilities significantly in your favor. I’m hoping that people will evaluate my own post by similar criteria, rather than immediately dismissing it.

Nanashi May 27, 2015, 6:02 PM
0 points
in reply to: Jiro’s comment on: The most important meta-skill
I agree that in some cases, it’s better than nothing to include personal achievements (as I did when I was discussing socializing in another thread). I just don’t really think that’s the case here. I’ll say the same thing that I said to estimator: if you genuinely think that my personal achievements would make a difference to you, I’ll be glad to tell you.

As for relevant research, well, (and I might be wrong on this) I thought one of the purposes of LW was to produce original content. Again, I might be misinterpreting things here. But if there was research that said, “Such-and-such approach to skill-learning works well”, why not just link to that instead of trying to paraphrase it?

Nanashi May 27, 2015, 5:37 PM
2 points
in reply to: estimator’s comment on: The most important meta-skill
Sure, I could, but would that make you any more likely to accept it? Generally I’ve found that the more someone expounds on their own credentials, the less credible (and likable) they sound.

If my own personal achievements would genuinely make a difference to you personally, then I’d be glad to tell you them. If not, then I don’t quite see the point.

Nanashi May 27, 2015, 4:21 PM
5 points
on: The most important meta-skill
Here’s an example of this process applied to learning a foreign language:

Define the goal: I want to be able to a. interact and b. converse and c. function in a society that speaks a different language.

Archetypes: Most of the time I spend talking with others in person is spent a. eating/drinking/buying things, b.asking for assistance, c. meeting new people. To break those down into subtypes, I’d say:
- Ordering food
- Ordering drinks
- Buying products
- Inquiring about a location
- Need help
- Asking “small talk” questions
- Giving “small talk” answers
Processes: Learn to say the following sentences for each archetype, along with the various vocabulary words. Also list out possible responses to each sentence and learn to understand them.
- Food: I’d like to order [food], Is [food item] [adjective]?, [Compliments], [Complaints],
- Drinks: Can I have a [drink], Another [drink], Do you have [specific drink]?, No thanks.
- Products: Do you carry [product]?, I am looking for [description].
- Landmarks: Where is [location]?, Thank you.
- Help: I need help, I have [condition], I am sick, Where is the hospital?, I am from [country], I am staying at [place], My emergency contact is [person].
- Small Talk Questions: Hi, How are you?, Where are you from?, How do you like it here? What do you do?
- Small Talk Answers: I’m doing well, I’m from [country], It’s great here, I like [thing], I don’t like [thing], I am a [occupation].
Exception Protocol: There are two main non-redundant failure points: “Someone uses a vocabulary word I don’t recognize” and “There is a complete gap in understanding.” Two different exception protocols can handle these, depending on the situation:
- Learn to say, “Sorry, I’m from America and don’t speak [language] as a first language. Do you know English… or, can you say that again?”
- Use Google Translate to translate what I am trying to communicate.
Strategy: Avoid situations that have the potential to become high-stakes. Prepare for situations where it may be loud/fast-paced and hard to understand people. Focus on scenarios that involve fairly low-stakes interactions and simple conversations. Practice my “Sorry, I’m from America” line until I can say it and sound good. Make sure my Google Translate app is readily available.

Improvement. Any time I have to use my exception protocol, make sure to look up the sentence that I was trying to say or was being said to me, and remember it. Take note of any recurring scenarios that I haven’t learned an appropriate sentence for. Expand my vocabulary list for the scenarios that are most common.
What links here?
- satt's comment on The most important meta-skill by Nanashi (Jun 2, 2015, 12:36 AM; 0 points)

The most important meta-skill

NanashiMay 27, 2015, 3:51 PM

14 points

70 comments4 min readLW link

Nanashi May 26, 2015, 9:44 PM
3 points
in reply to: Vaniver’s comment on: Rationality is about pattern recognition, not reasoning
I definitely agree that you shouldn’t be so brief as to not get your point across, I think the level of brevity depends on what your goal is. In this case, he’s asking for help. It isn’t until 1,500 words in that the two most important questions: “What does he want?” and “Why should I help him?” are answered.

(Besides, he specifically wanted help in communicating things succinctly.)

Nanashi May 26, 2015, 8:52 PM
5 points
in reply to: JonahS’s comment on: Rationality is about pattern recognition, not reasoning
Not a problem at all. What you’re talking about is something I believe in, so I’m glad to help.

Nanashi May 26, 2015, 8:50 PM
9 points
in reply to: Nanashi’s comment on: Rationality is about pattern recognition, not reasoning
Here is the even-further edited version, condensed to 150 words.

I have a lot of evidence that the most effective people in the world have a very specific way of thinking. They use their brain’s pattern-matching abilities to process the world, rather than using explicit reasoning.

Our brain can pattern match much more efficiently than it can reason. Most people can recognize a cat very easily. But creating an algorithm to recognize cats is far more difficult. And breakthroughs of any kind are very rarely made via explicit reasoning, but rather through a complex and rapid-fire combination of ideas.

Doing this is something that many people are capable of learning. But, it took me 10,000+ hours to learn how to “see” the world way that I can now, and I do not know how to communicate this process succinctly. In order to help people, I need collaborators who are willing to help clarify my thoughts. I’d welcome any suggestions.

You’ll note it very quickly gets to the three main points:
- What are you talking about?
- Why should we listen to you?
- What do you want?
Let me know if I summarized any part of your thoughts incorrectly.

Nanashi May 26, 2015, 8:26 PM
15 points
in reply to: Nanashi’s comment on: Rationality is about pattern recognition, not reasoning
Per our email exchange, here is the condensed version that uses only your original writing:

“Our brains’ pattern recognition capabilities are far stronger than our ability to reason explicitly. Most people can recognize cats across contexts with little mental exertion. By way of contrast, explicitly constructing a formal algorithm that can consistently cats across contexts requires great scientific ability and cognitive exertion.

Very high level epistemic rationality is about retraining one’s brain to be able to see patterns in the evidence in the same way that we can see patterns when we observe the world with our eyes. Reasoning plays a role, but a relatively small one. Sufficiently high quality mathematicians don’t make their discoveries through reasoning. The mathematical proof is the very last step: you do it to check that your eyes weren’t deceiving you, but you know ahead of time that it’s your eyes probably weren’t deceiving you.

I have a lot of evidence that this way of thinking is how the most effective people think about the world. I would like to share what I learned. I think that what I’ve learned is something that lots of people are capable of learning, and that learning it would greatly improve people’s effectiveness. But communicating the information is very difficult.

It took me 10,000+ hours to learn how to “see” patterns in evidence in the way that I can now. Right now, I don’t know how to communicate how to do it succinctly. In order to succeed, I need collaborators who are open to spend a lot of time thinking carefully about the material, to get to the point of being able to teach others. I’d welcome any suggestions for how to find collaborators.”

Notes:
- I removed all the quotations. Although I’m guessing they were probably key to your own understanding of the issue, I don’t think they are an efficient way to improve other people’s understanding.
- Much of the post was dedicated (unnecessarily) to why your viewpoint is right rather than just stating your viewpoint. People who agree with you don’t need to be convinced. People who disagree with you aren’t going to be swayed by your arguments.
- I removed a few paragraphs that repeated themselves.
What links here?
- Rationality is about pattern recognition, not reasoning by JonahS (May 26, 2015, 7:23 PM; 45 points)

Nanashi May 26, 2015, 8:07 PM
9 points
on: Rationality is about pattern recognition, not reasoning
I’d be glad to offer what help I can. Based on other posts of yours, I would definitely practice brevity. This post is over 1000 words long and easily could be condensed to 250 or less.

Nanashi May 26, 2015, 4:29 PM
0 points
in reply to: Creutzer’s comment on: How my social skills went from horrible to mediocre
There’s a pretty noticeable difference between someone doing something for their own sake and someone doing something for the sake of another. Compare two pretty universal experiences: “Talking to someone who is only interacting with you because they want something” and “Being the recipient of a no-strings-attached favor”.

This attitude is universal; it’s not specific to business. Everyone has wants and goals, not just business people. What you imagine my life situation to be isn’t really very relevant. Unless you live in a solitary confinement, this is applicable to you.

Nanashi

The most im­por­tant meta-skill

The most important meta-skill