jetm comments on Welcome to Less Wrong! (5th thread, March 2013) - Less Wrong

27 Post author: orthonormal 01 April 2013 04:19PM

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Comment author: jetm 09 April 2013 02:29:40AM 6 points [-]

I've been browsing the site for at least a year. Found it through HP:MoR, which is absolutely amazing. I've been coming to the LessWrong study hall for a couple weeks now and have found it highly effective.

For the most part, I haven't really applied this at all. I ended up making a final break with Christianity, but the only significant difference is that I now say "Yay humanism!" instead of "Yay God!" I've used a few tricks here and there, like the Sunk Cost Fallacy, and the Planning Fallacy, but I still spent the majority of my time not thinking about things. Because thinking is hard.

Then I started trying again to figure out what I should do with my life. Now, the first time I tried this I spent less effort on the decision than I did on most papers I've written for class. Ended up signing a five-year contract with miserable results. Now I'm actually thinking. It is incredibly difficult, but I am convinced that it is worth it.

My current goals are to broaden my knowledge (I know a ton of information about classical music but almost nothing else) and sharpen my critical thinking skills.

Comment author: ModusPonies 12 April 2013 02:20:51PM *  0 points [-]

Now I'm actually thinking. It is incredibly difficult, but I am convinced that it is worth it.

I strongly agree with both of those statements.

Do you know what you'd like to do with the knowledge and skills you're acquiring, or is that still an open question?

Comment author: jetm 12 April 2013 09:24:34PM 1 point [-]

What I want to do is to figure out what I want to do. My basic (and vague) goal is to do the most amount of good with my future career. If I make that decision with my current tools, I will likely overlook something.

Comment author: ModusPonies 12 April 2013 10:25:47PM 0 points [-]

Have you looked at 80,000 hours? They have a lot of great resources for people in exactly your situation, including individual advice. I've found a lot of their posts extremely useful. (I'm currently earning to give, largely as a result of arguments I ran into here on LW. I'd be happy to talk in more depth, if you think it would be useful.)