Konkvistador comments on Less Wrong Should Confront Wrongness Wherever it Appears - Less Wrong

24 Post author: jimrandomh 21 September 2010 01:40AM

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Comment author: komponisto 21 September 2010 03:03:34AM 11 points [-]

I would want to go even further, and strike out (perceived) "importance" as a barrier. Thinking in terms of "importance" will tend to cause our minds to stay within certain topic clusters, when what we actually want is more variety of topics. Rationality lessons are often most illuminating when applied in situations we don't stereotypically think of as illustrating rationality lessons. People may have pet topics or specialized areas of expertise that they would like to post on, but don't because of a fear that their subject isn't "important enough" (which in practice tends to mean being about the topics most commonly discussed here). This is unfortunate, because rationality literally applies everywhere; and I think an aspiring rationalist should seek out as many diverse opportunities for honing their general rationality skills as possible. This will prove useful when it comes to the "important" topics.

On the other hand,

These have already been discussed so they would be discouraged as duplicates rule (except for substantially new approaches),

I actually wouldn't want to restrict duplicates to new approaches to the subject itself; I think a new specific lesson on rationality should suffice. Familiarity has its advantages too. (For example, there are a number of Bayesian lessons that I have learned from my study of the Knox case since the original discussion, and I would hope to be able to post in the future on some subset of these, using this particular vivid illustration, without too much objection on the grounds that the topic "has already been done".)

Comment author: [deleted] 21 September 2010 04:20:52PM *  2 points [-]

To be honest at one point I considered talking about how rationality could be used to improve AI, game play and gaming skills in computer and video games, especially the strategy genre.

Would you consider such a discussion too trivial for rationality insights? Or would its usefulness be limited just to outreach and popularization of rationality?

PS Is anyone here a Civlization player?

Comment author: sketerpot 21 September 2010 11:24:53PM 2 points [-]

PS Is anyone here a Civlization player?

The thing with those games is that there are so many approaches you can go with, and you need to be uncommonly rational in choosing. For example, the usual advice in the early game is to build new cities as quickly as you can, because the sooner you build them, the sooner they can start expanding and producing resources -- it's a straightforward example of exponential growth and compound interest. But what if the map is set up with mostly water, and you start on an island without much space? You've got to adapt your play-style, and you've got to do it decisively. You expand as much as you can, then focus your efforts on improving the cities you do have, until you get boats and can start expanding again, this time backed by a nice industrial base and plenty of population. Because you're on an island, you can leave cities undefended without too much risk, so you can devote more of your crucial early resources to things that will yield compound interest, like terrain enhancements.

It feels like an exercise in min-maxing, and more importantly, figuring out what to focus on and what to neglect -- and having the audacity to go through with a plan that feels crazy but is actually very sane. I think that's the main rationality habit you can take from playing Civilization.

Comment author: kodos96 22 September 2010 12:03:54AM 6 points [-]

I think that's the main rationality habit you can take from playing Civilization.

I think the main rationality habit you can take from playing Civilization is "Don't play Civilization if you value your time at all".

Not that I intend to actually follow that advice once Civ 5 comes out.... oh crap, that's today isn't it? Why did you have to remind me?

Comment author: wedrifid 22 September 2010 12:20:17AM 2 points [-]

No More Turns!

I never played Civ IV, quite deliberately.

Comment author: wnoise 22 September 2010 12:48:17AM 1 point [-]

Then I suggest you don't play sword of the stars either.

Comment author: wedrifid 22 September 2010 01:06:16AM 1 point [-]

That was just cruel! ;)