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nyan_sandwich comments on "Stupid" questions thread - Less Wrong Discussion
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It seems to me that, unless one is already a powerful person, the best thing one can do to gain optimization power is building relationships with people more powerful than oneself. To the extant that this easily trumps the vast majority of other failings (epistemic rationality wise) as discussed on LW. So why aren't we discussing how to do better at this regularly? A couple explanations immediately leap to mind:
Not a core competency of the sort of people LW attracts.
Rewards not as immediate as the sort of epiphany porn that some of LW generates.
Ugh fields. Especially in regard to things that are considered manipulative when reasoned about explicitly, even though we all do them all the time anyway.
Because it's hard. That's what kept me from doing it.
I am very close to explicitly starting a project to do just that, and didn't get to this point even until one of my powerful friends explicitly advised me to take a particular strategy to get relationships with more powerful people.
I find myself unable to be motivated to do it without calling it "Networking the Hard Way", to remind myself that yes, it's hard, and that's why it will work.
I would be interested in hearing about this strategy if you feel like sharing.
Soon. Would rather actually do it first, before reporting on my glorious future success.
Mmhmm, good catch. Thanks.
Not done much on it yet, but here's the plan.
Thanks for sharing. Tell me if you want me to bug you about whether you're following your plan at scheduled points in the future.
Thanks for the offer. It feels great when people make such offers now, because I no longer need that kind of help, which is such a relief. I use Beeminder now, which basically solves the "stay motivated to do quantifiable goal at some rate" problem.