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Annoyance comments on Bad reasons for a rationalist to lose - Less Wrong
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Awesomely summarized, so much so that I don't know what else to say, except to perhaps offer this complementary anecdote.
Yesterday, I was giving a workshop on what I jokingly call "The Jedi Mind Trick" -- really the set of principles that makes monoidealism techniques (such as "count to 10 and do it") either work or not work. Towards the end, a woman in the group was having some difficulty applying it, and I offered to walk through an example with her.
She picked the task of organizing some files, and I explained to her what to say and picture in her mind, and asked, "What comes up in your mind right now?"
And she said, "well, I'm on a phone call, I can't organize them right now." And I said "Right, that's standard objection #1 - "I'm doing something else". So now do it again..." [I repeated the instructions]. "What comes to mind?"
She says, "Well, it's that it'll be time to do it later".
"Standard objection #2: it's not time right now, or I don't have enough time. Great. We're moving right along. Do it again. What comes to mind?"
"Well, now I'm starting to see more of what I'd actually be doing if I were doing it, the visualization is getting a lot clearer."
"Terrific, do it again. Now, don't try to actually do the task, just pay attention to what you're seeing and feeling, and you may begin to notice some of your muscles beginning to respond, like they're trying to actually do some of the things you're picturing, like starting to twitch..."
And she burst out laughing, because, she said, her legs had already started twitching and she was feeling like, "well, the files are right over there we could just go and get started..."
Had she given up at standard objection #1 or #2, she wouldn't have learned the technique or gotten the result. But it's not the content of the objection that matters, it's that ANY objection that stops you from actually trying something useful, means you fail. You lose. You are not being a smart, rational skeptic, you're being a dumbass loser.
In the workshop, I explained how our own objections and doubts are also doing the Jedi Mind Trick... but on US. "It's not time now..." they say, and like a hypnotized stormtrooper we nod and agree, "It's not time now." And it doesn't matter if those doubts are saying, "It's not time now" or "It's not peer-reviewed" -- because you still lose, either way.
However, if you simply ignore those doubts and objections, and continue what you're doing, they cannot stop you. If the objection you think is real, is in fact real, well, then you've only lost a little time by trying. But if you believe an objection that isn't real, then you've lost much, much more than that.
Much of the time, the primary function of a (good) personal coach or teacher -- whether in pickup, personal development, or even business and marketing! -- is simply to drag someone (kicking and screaming, if necessary) past their objections into actually doing something the teacher or coach already knows will work.
And when that happens, what the student usually finds is that it isn't really as hard as they thought it would be, or that, yes, that crazy mumbo-jumbo actually works, no matter how irrational it might have sounded before they had any personal point of reference.
The woman on the call only needed about two minutes, to try a technique four times in a row and get a result. If she'd been doing it on her own, she might have given up after only one try. And a lot of folks on LW would likely not have tried even that once!
On LW, I mostly bide with polite patience those people who talk about the stuff I teach as if it's a matter of variation from person to person as to whether stuff works, or that things sometimes work and sometimes not, or whatever, blah blah fudge factor nonsense they individually prefer. That's all well and good here, because those people are not my clients.
But if I were to accept that sort of bullshit from one of my clients, then I would have failed them. It's all very well and good for the client to come to me believing that his or her problems are special and unique and that, in all the world, they are the worst person ever at doing something. But if they leave me still thinking that, then I have not done my job.
My job is to say, fuck that bullshit. Do this. No, not that, this. Good. Do it again. Again. That's better. Now do this.
Dunno about rationality, but ISTM that's how a dojo is actually supposed to work. If the master sat there listening to people's inane theories about how they need to punch differently than everybody else, or their insistence that they really need to understand a complete theory of combat, complete with statistical validation against a control group, before they can even raise a single fist in practice, that master would have failed their students AND their Art.
Just as EY fails his students and his art by the public positions he has taken on his weight and akrasia. To fail at solving those problems is fine. To excuse his failure to even try is not, even by the rules of his own art.
(And remember, "I don't have time" is just standard objection #2.)
Excellent comment. I have only two objections. First, this statement:
is good on its merits, but I caution everyone to be careful about asserting that some technique or other is "something useful". There are plenty of reasons not to try any random thing that enters into our heads, and even when we're engaged in a blind search, we shouldn't suspend our evaluative functions completely, even though they may be assuming things that blinds us to the solution we need. They also keep us from chopping our legs off when we want to deal with a stubbed toe.
My second objection deals with the following:
What grounds are there for assigning EY the status of 'master'? Hopefully in a martial arts dojo there are stringent requirements for the demonstration of skill before someone is put in a teaching position, so that even when students aren't personally capable of verifying that the 'master' has actually mastered techniques that are useful, they can productively hold that expectation.
When did EY demonstrate that he's a master, and how did he supposedly do so?
There really aren't, though one does need to jump through some hoops. That's part of what I like about this analogy.
A lot of martial arts schools are more about "following the rules" and going through the motions of ritual forms than learning useful stuff.
As has been mentioned here before multiple times, many martial artists do very poorly in actual fights, because they've mastered techniques that just aren't very good. They were never designed in light of the goals and strategies that people who really want to win physical combat will do. Against brutally effective and direct techniques, they lose.
Humans like to make rituals and rules for things that have none. This is a profound weakness and vulnerability, because they also tend to lose sight of the distinction between reality and the rules they cause themselves to follow.
There are no "things that have no rules". If there were, you couldn't perceive them in the first place in order to make up rules about them.
Read that as "socially-recognized principles as to how something is to be done for things that physics permits in many different ways".
Spill the salt, you must throw some over your shoulder. Step on a crack, break your mother's back. Games and rituals. When people forget they're just games, problems arise.
This tendency can be used for good, though. As long as you're aware of the weakness, why not take advantage of it? Intentional self-priming, anchoring, rituals of all kinds can be repurposed.
Because repetition tends to reinforce things, both positive and negative.
You might be able to take advantage of a security weakness in your computer network, but if you leave it open other things will be able to take advantage of it too.
It's far better to close the hole and reduce vulnerability, even if it means losing access to short-term convenience.
...and most of those reasons are fallacious.
The opposite of every Great Truth is another great truth: yes, you need to look before you leap. But he who hesitates is lost. (Or in Richard Bandler's version, which I kind of like better, "He who hesitates... waits... and waits... and waits... and waits...")
I never said he did.