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Alicorn comments on Open Thread: August 2009 - Less Wrong
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No. I'm saying that fun is my motivation for studying philosophy, because when I decide how to invest years of my life, I want to choose fun investments. Your genie opens up the options of choosing to (productively) invest directly in the practice, rather than the study, of various fields. There are fields that I think I would enjoy being an expert in that I would not enjoy the process of studying to become an expert in, especially when you consider that intrinsic talent/motivation/etc. might block me from acquiring expertise in some fields that the genie could make me brilliant at. Some of those fields might also net me money. Bypassing a potentially-unfun studying step makes several of them more appealing than philosophy.
OK, I see where you're coming from. Learning to play the violin is frustrating, but it's probably fun once you can do it.
So if we could find a way to make learning easier, hypothetically speaking, you would use that opportunity to be a better generalist rather than further specialising in your chosen area? That's interesting because specialists are usually better paid. I wonder if that's a common point of view.
LWers are generalists, in general. Most of us know some psychology, some economics, some philosophy, some programming and so on. But I wonder what Less Wrong would be like if we all specialised, while remaining united by the pursuit of rationality. I think Robin Hanson said something similar in that post where he compared us to survivalists, trying to learn everything and failing to reap the benefits of specialisation and cooperation.
Anyway sorry for rambling like this. I tend to use these open threads as an opportunity to think out loud, and nobody's told me to shut up yet so I just keep going.
If learning, in general, became easier for me, I would learn more, in general. I don't think I'd use it to do more philosophy; I think I'd use it to do the same amount of philosophy in less time.
If learning became a whole lot easier, I'd probably study foreign languages in my spare time. The ability to communicate in more languages would open up more learning potential than most other tasks.