Jonathan_Graehl comments on Self-Improvement or Shiny Distraction: Why Less Wrong is anti-Instrumental Rationality - Less Wrong

105 Post author: patrissimo 14 September 2010 04:17PM

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Comment author: Will_Newsome 14 September 2010 07:08:48PM *  17 points [-]

My list of daily self-improvement activities for while I'm in Tucson (on vacation):

  • One hundred pushups workout
  • 20 sessions of dual n-back
  • 30 minutes of meditation
  • 2 miles running
  • 30 minutes weight lifting
  • 300 ab lounger crunches
  • 30 minutes of focused online blitz chess
  • <30 minutes on whitelisted sites.
  • 30 minutes of active binaural beat listening
  • 30 minutes of music composition (guitar or Ableton Live)
  • 90 minutes of dead tree reading (currently evo. psych. books)
  • 1000 words of writing (not including LW comments etc.)
  • 30 minutes of email and outreach
  • 45 minutes of IA research (following links online, etc.)
  • barfing as many comments onto Less Wrong as I can (hitting the 'comment' button impulsively) so as to get critiques of my writing ability and especially my epistemic rationality, as well as get practice writing in a pseudo-academic setting.

As I build up my mind/body I'll probably spend less time there and more time on things like keeping up with my email and staying in contact with the Singularitarian community. I'm trying to make the transition from Hufferpuffer to Slytherclaw.

Comment author: Jonathan_Graehl 14 September 2010 10:23:35PM 1 point [-]

These are mostly activities you already know are worthwhile for you? I've done similar and while I think I have a decent chance at understanding what's helpful without actually trying all subsets (or greedy leave-one-out or add-one-in), I've been confused when I periodically ponder what I should keep doing.

It's interesting that nothing (except 2 miles running and pushups) is less than 30 minutes. I've favored 15 minutes but that might be too short.

Comment author: Will_Newsome 14 September 2010 10:40:18PM 6 points [-]

20 sessions of dual n-back and 1000 words of writing feel like they take a long time but I'd be surprised if they took 30 minutes or more in reality. 300 ab lounger crunches takes less than 10 minutes.

Honestly the highest value thing on that list is probably the 45 minutes of IA research, followed by the 30 minutes of email and outreach. Everything else is more about cultivating the self-image of someone who consistently does things to make themself more awesome. In so doing I hope to gain an aura of competence, after which I'll be more effective at doing whatever it is I want to do. (Currently, that is to contribute significantly to SIAI's IA division when I get back to California.)

Comment author: gwern 14 September 2010 11:43:38PM *  2 points [-]

Nitpick: the default settings in Brainworkshop, one of the more popular DNB implementations, take 72 seconds per session for a minimum of 24 minutes for 20 sessions. Adding in saccading between sessions (20-30 seconds) or tweaking options could add in still more time.

24 minutes is pretty close to 30 minutes.

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