atucker comments on Levels of Action - Less Wrong

106 Post author: alyssavance 14 April 2011 12:18AM

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Comment author: atucker 14 April 2011 03:33:27AM 3 points [-]

Interesting post, I liked it a lot.

I think one thing to note though is that Level 2 improvements are accomplished by a bunch of Level 1 actions -- there are a bunch of specific step-by-step things that you have to do to get better at reading.

However, in order for the higher levels to be useful within a specific project, that project has to incorporate all the steps from the meta level back down to the object level, and this becomes much more difficult with each meta level added.

This helped crystallize an idea that I was dimly aware of -- the fact that any improvement to your ability to do something works as a conjunction. In order for a Level 3 action to pay off in a particular area, it needs to pay off on Level 2, which also needs to pay off on Level 1. The more levels removed, the more tenuous its ability to foster improvement in a particular area.

Hopefully, your higher level actions will be applicable enough that you get to try them in so many areas that it pays off in a few of them.

But naysayers will probably be able to find a specific area and say that your Level N stuff doesn't help you there. Which is true, but not a sufficient demonstration of the uselessness of your Level N improvement.