Learning to street fight was a good exercise in this for me. Not so much "how would you use this to kill someone" as training the subconscious process of identifying a handy object and a combat-specific use for it very quickly, faster than you'd be able to reason it out. What's interesting is that it didn't take much to get the ball rolling -- mentor simply had to demonstrate the concept with a handful of loose change. It's a bit weird when I realize people don't relate to objects in their environment that way, now -- but I've noticed that my casual willingness to look a little weird when solving problems seems to touch off a lot of lightbulbs for other people.
This reminds me... I have read in a book, I believe it was "The Gift of Fear", that a good way to increase your safety is trying to think like a criminal. For example if you want to assault a person, which place would you choose? You need a hidden place (so that nobody else catches you in the act) near a widely open area (so that you can check that your victim is alone, and no other people are near). You want a place where people walk rarely (to have an opportunity to catch someone alone), but near a place where people often go (so that you don't...
This is the public group instrumental rationality diary for the week of September 17th. It's a place to record and chat about it if you have done, or are actively doing, things like:
Or anything else interesting which you want to share, so that other people can think about it, and perhaps be inspired to take action themselves. Try to include enough details so that everyone can use each other's experiences to learn about what tends to work out, and what doesn't tend to work out.
Thanks to everyone who contributes!
Previous diary; archive of prior diaries.
(Sorry for being late, I don't even have an excuse at all! Oh well.)