WannabeChthonic

• WannabeChthonicOct 12, 2019, 5:39 AM

  1 point

  in reply to: diegocaleiro’s comment on: For progress to be by ac­cu­mu­la­tion and not by ran­dom walk, read great books

  I agree with you so much. Since I have limited time (like everyone) I should maximize learning/​time when pursuing learning. Some old classics are still worth their weight (e. g. Plato Republic). Most however, are not.

  Even tho a lot of crap books exist today due to unedited selfpublishing and whatnot one can make the case that in general, there are better books out there for nearly any learning purpose than the original.

  I’d argue that a original work has historical significance and that someone can learn something by analyzing it. On the other hand one is advised to learn the initial concept from a modern textbook (e. g. modern evolution theory is much more advanced than what darwin thought of).

• WannabeChthonicOct 12, 2019, 5:28 AM

  1 point

  on: For progress to be by ac­cu­mu­la­tion and not by ran­dom walk, read great books

  I have to admit that personally I don’t see a golden thread in the post. What was the core argument? As far as I understood it the pot reasons about “relative per-capita intellectual impressiveness of people who study only condensations and people who study original works”.

  Which is… to be honest, just a mockup. Who cares about the “impressiveness” while studying? Why should one optimize “impressiveness” in ones study?

  Personally I think that original works carry a lot of baggage. For example the language is older, the theories sometimes incredibly outdated, … etc. It’s fun to read about this “new discovered oil” and that “this black oil will never run out!” but tbh not all books age the same. Plato ages well but 500 year old books on eye surgery are probably completely useless by now.

  So I’d argue that there’s value in the “modern, condensed” form. Some expert which tells me “this obscure line has the meaning of x. Don’t mistake it for an y”.

• WannabeChthonicOct 12, 2019, 4:35 AM

  1 point

  on: For progress to be by ac­cu­mu­la­tion and not by ran­dom walk, read great books

  This recent blog post

  Link to infiniteinjury.org seems to be down.

• WannabeChthonicOct 11, 2019, 12:01 AM

  3 points

  on: Open & Wel­come Thread—Oc­to­ber 2019

  I found out about LessWrong via this community session on the 35. Chaos Communication Congress. It was by far the best talks I had while on congress. And that says something because during congress I usually have lot and lots of good talks.

  Personally I feel like there are rather-emotional and rather-rational people. Personally I’m far into the rather-rational territory and I look forward to meeting new people, learning about new ideas and generally advancing my decision making.

  I study computer science and I read one or another grand philosophical book so far… I’d personally consider myself “GIT/​GP/​GO” which is Geek Code V3 for “Geek of Information Technology /​ Geek of Philosophy /​ Geek of Other”.

• WannabeChthonicOct 10, 2019, 8:44 PM

  1 point

  on: Hu­mans are not au­to­mat­i­cally strategic

  Thanks so much for writing this great article! I’m new so for all of you this is an old hat. I want to add my 2ct anyways.

  Do you agree with (a)-(h) above? Do you have some good heuristics to add? Do you have some good ideas for how to train yourself in such heuristics?

  The above mentioned steps are the best system for progressing in life in general which I was able to find so far. I’ve read and applied lots of self-help in recent years and I can definitely agree that applying the theory is incredible hard (and I fail at that like >90% of all time—only very few things stick but those really are my superpowers in everyday life). Rewiring habits is really hard.

  I can recommend The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business and Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business. They are both really good books.

  Do you agree with (a)-(h) above?

  While I’ve seen them before this is the best summary I found in the internet so far. I’m definitely going to bookmark this!

  I don’t know how other people do this but when I want to wire something in my brain I first need to research it. Then I sit down quietly together with pen and paper and I work through the concept until it feels natural to me. Most of the time this requires regular breaks and/​or sleeping over weather I really like this and/​or researching some more. Then, when I’m ready to make this part of my identity I append this to my Horizons of Focus Document. It’s a 15ish page document which I review semi-regularely (yeah it’s hard...).

  Writing things down won’t make me apply it. Doing autosuggestive training makes me do things. I became good in math by performing autosuggestive training. And I became self-organized due to autosuggestive training. Please note that up to this point I haven’t read the core sequences and/​or the “How to teach yourself” article yet. Tricking my brain into believing something through constant repeating (“autosuggestive training”) is the only tool which worked for me so far. I’m ready to hear your opinion on how to incorporate these steps into ones life!

• WannabeChthonicOct 10, 2019, 8:30 PM

  1 point

  on: Hu­mans are not au­to­mat­i­cally strategic

  Why do many who type for hours a day remain two-finger typists, without bothering with a typing tutor program?

  Because science shows, that being a two-finger typists can be of comparable speed of a ten-finger typist. I’m guilty of being a two-finger typists. But I’m also guilty of having learned the 10 finger way, practicing ot for days ongoing and then just dropping it when I realized that “this learning curve is way to steep for my 5 % realistic speed improvements”.

  Besides I figured “why the heck do I need to write fast anyways? 90 % of my computer time is thinking about what to write, not actually writing”. My job is solving problems with my brain. My fingers are just a way to communicate with the primary tool of choice: the computer.

  Convince me of why I should pursue the 10 finger way of writing. I’m a QWERTZ user by the way...