= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
patrissimo comments on Self-Improvement or Shiny Distraction: Why Less Wrong is anti-Instrumental Rationality - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (251)
I'm a relatively new lurker, still working through the Sequences. It strikes me that patrissimo's disaffection and resultant call to action are targeted at "the more advanced students", or where I hope to be at some point. To use a shop-class analogy, once you've finished Shop 101, sitting around reading back issues of Woodcrafts magazine wil be lower ROI than designing and building a Mission chest of drawers. But until you've been through the basics, "go build" is less productive and potentially dangerous. I 've discovered that reading LW has helped me notice a common thread in my haphazard intellectual explorations, and align my current ones. So a follow-up question I'll pose in 2 parts is: a) is it a fallacy to presume one must walk before learning to run?, and b) if not, how can one judge when it's time to "go build"?
If you are working through the sequences, how did you get to my post? :).
It seems that instead of paying attention to your lathe and table saw in Shop 101, you are leafing through the latest copies of "Advanced Carpentry". This can be motivation, it can add context to the class, or it can be a form of procrastination, focusing on the dream of producing great things in the future instead of the hard work of learning to produce small things in the present. Only you can decide, through conscious examination, which is.
Do you read my post (and presumably many other new LW posts, which slows your reading of the Sequences) because you truly, consciously believe that they enhance your learning of the Sequences? Or because of the dopamine hit you get by seeing something new, something timely, a post where your comments will get seen by others, rather than the sterile years-old Sequences with no feedback?