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Yvain comments on Never Leave Your Room - Less Wrong
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The few times I experimented with similar techniques (usually expressed as self-help rather than magic), I found it impossible to suspend disbelief, and ended up laughing at myself and giving up. I wonder if other rationalists would have the same experience, and if this would be different between self-selected rationalists and random people put through a course in a rationality dojo. I'd also like to see to whether this is mediated by the hypnotizability trait.
So many studies to do, so little status as a real psychologist who can do studies and stuff. I do want to run a survey of Less Wrong members and gather some demographic/other interesting data once I get working survey software, though.
The most interesting thing I've read on it says you ought to laugh and make fun of yourself, because chaos magic is ridiculous and can't possibly be real. Then you forget about it, and then it works.
I'm not sure about the last bit, though.
I found it reasonably easy to suspend my disbelief when I was messing with chaos magick, but I did also find it easy to tell that it didn't work, so...
I did a ritual with them once. She observed that I was not putting the work into running an event because I had not mentally committed to running it, that I was half convinced I would drop out. So she sat me down and said "now's the time to decide, are you doing this or not?" and presented me with... a red and a blue Smartie. I took the red Smartie.
...and ended up dropping out anyway a couple of months later, leaving her running things to her dismay, but coming back and playing a big role in running it later still in any case. So, a very memorable ritual, but not a great success.
Commitment rituals aren't very useful for telling whether you're actually committed. The real test is whether, for all the worst-case scenarios you imagine possible, you feel you can accept and handle that as the outcome.
That is, even if the worst happens, you believe you can feel like you made the right decision. (Not, "well, that shouldn't/probably won't happen", but "if it DID happen, could I deal with it?")
And that's not something that "taking the red pill" is going to make happen, since it most likely induced you to suppress your doubts, rather than face them.
I work for a company that programs and hosts market research surveys - feel free to drop me a line and I'll see if we're interested.
I was thinking more along the lines of something very simple and very free, since I have minimal computer skills and financial resources. I have SPSS for analysis, so all I need is a form that collects responses and sticks them into a spreadsheet. One of my friends helped me do a survey before, and I was planning to pester him until he showed me how to set something up.
If you're a professional, though, I defer to you if you want to do the Unofficial Less Wrong Survey instead. Or if you want to cooperate on it, email me at yvain314@hotmail.com. If not, no worries; I'm sure I can set something up eventually.
Dude! using surveys to collect scientific data! that would be totally awesome!
Post a poll asking people to do stuff, and then come back and use their results as the poll result. Like, "squirt water in your ear, and tell us of the result", "Ask a set of questisons to strangers in the street, 10 times dressed as in a suit, 10 times dressed as a clown, 10 times dressed as a scruffy activist".