A list of references and resources for LW

Updated: 2011-05-24

F = Free
E = Easy (adequate for a low educational background)
M = Memetic Hazard (controversial ideas or works of fiction)

Summary

Do not flinch, most of LessWrong can be read and understood by people with a previous level of education less than secondary school. (And Khan Academy followed by BetterExplained plus the help of Google and Wikipedia ought to be enough to let anyone read anything directed at the scientifically literate.) Most of these references aren't prerequisite, and only a small fraction are pertinent to any particular post on LessWrong. Do not be intimidated, just go ahead and start reading the Sequences if all this sounds too long. It's much easier to understand than this list makes it look like.

Nevertheless, as it says in the Twelve Virtues of Rationality, scholarship is a virtue, and in particular:

It is especially important to eat math and science which impinges upon rationality: Evolutionary psychology, heuristics and biases, social psychology, probability theory, decision theory.

Contents

LessWrong.com
- Overview
- Why read Less Wrong?
Artificial Intelligence
- General
- Friendly AI
- Machine Learning
- The Technological Singularity
Heuristics and Biases
Mathematics
- Learning Mathematics
- Basics
- General
- Probability
- Logic
- Foundations
- Miscellaneous
Decision theory
- Game Theory
Programming
- Python
- Haskell
- General
Computer science
(Algorithmic) Information Theory
Physics
Evolution
Philosophy
Linguistics
Neuroscience
General Education
Miscellaneous
- Concepts
Websites
Fun & Fiction
- Fiction
- Fun
Go

LessWrong.com

This list is hosted on LessWrong.com, a community blog devoted to refining the art of human rationality - the art of thinking. If you follow the links below you'll learn more about this community. It is one of the most important resources you'll ever come across if your aim is to get what you want, if you want to win. It shows you that there is more to most things than meets the eye, but more often than not much less than you think. It shows you that even smart people can be completely wrong but that most people are not even wrong. It teaches you to be careful in what you emit and to be skeptical of what you receive. It doesn't tell y...