Group Rationality Diary, May 1-15

therufs

This is the public group instrumental rationality diary for May 1-15.

It's a place to record and chat about it if you have done, or are actively doing, things like:

Established a useful new habit

Obtained new evidence that made you change your mind about some belief

Decided to behave in a different way in some set of situations

Optimized some part of a common routine or cached behavior

Consciously changed your emotions or affect with respect to something

Consciously pursued new valuable information about something that could make a big difference in your life

Learned something new about your beliefs, behavior, or life that surprised you

Tried doing any of the above and failed

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 cata for starting the Group Rationality Diary posts, and to commenters for participating.

Previous diary: April 16-30

Next diary: May 16-31

Rationality diaries archive

This is the public group instrumental rationality diary for May 1-15.

It's a place to record and chat about it if you have done, or are actively doing, things like:

Established a useful new habit

Obtained new evidence that made you change your mind about some belief

Decided to behave in a different way in some set of situations

Optimized some part of a common routine or cached behavior

Consciously changed your emotions or affect with respect to something

Consciously pursued new valuable information about something that could make a big difference in your life

Learned something new about your beliefs, behavior, or life that surprised you

Tried doing any of the above and failed

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 cata for starting the Group Rationality Diary posts, and to commenters for participating.

Previous diary: April 16-30

Next diary: May 16-31

Rationality diaries archive

I'm currently updating my beliefs about the LW community and the related sister communities. I still have the sensation of an outsider looking in, but I find myself relating to or agreeing with more of the socially strange beliefs of the community. Not because they come from the community but because, as I read about these beliefs, I find they make sense. And as long as they make sense, I have no real choice but to accept that they seem to make sense until I find reasons that show them not to make sense.

This is all good. You also have to be aware of frequency bias and confirmation bias. If you see the same argument a lot, and you see a bunch of evidence for that belief (because the stuff you're reading a lot has mostly positive evidence) of course beliefs are going to sound better.

When I first came to lesswrong (I do this with any community I encounter that has certain signs of a cult), I first look for counter arguments against their core beliefs, which gives proper perspective.

This is probably, more than anything, the main trait I've noticed in the sequences. Repetition of concepts. Every other articles acts as a collector of what's been explored before. So, it becomes important to look away from the repeated and cached ideas, to make sure that they still hold up outside of an echo chamber.

The ones that still hold start to feel suspiciously more real than competing ideas. Doesn't make them perfect maps. Just better ones.