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passive_fist comments on Less Wrong lacks direction - Less Wrong Discussion

9 Post author: casebash 25 May 2015 02:53PM

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Comment author: RichardKennaway 26 May 2015 11:31:25AM 0 points [-]

What is the theory that you think LW has such a spiral around?

Comment author: passive_fist 26 May 2015 10:14:54PM 0 points [-]

The idea that you can actually optimize your thought processes using deliberate rational will and analysis of biases, as exemplified by the home page, and specifically the extreme version of this idea that some users try to adopt.

Comment author: estimator 26 May 2015 10:34:51PM 0 points [-]

Can you unpack "optimizing thought processes"? Under some definitions the statement is questionable, under others trivially true.

Also, the articles you've linked to describe techniques that are very popular outside -- so if they are overrated, it isn't a LW-specific mistake.

Comment author: passive_fist 27 May 2015 02:25:49AM 0 points [-]

I can try to elaborate on the criticisms of the pages I linked. There hasn't been any study of the long-term effects of spaced repetition. There are indications that it may be counter-productive and that it may act as an artifical 'importance inflator' of information, desensitizing the brain's long-term response to new knowledge that is actually important, especially if one is not consciously aware of that.

About the pomodoro technique, it's even less researched than spaced repetition and there's very little solid evidence that it works. One thing that seems a bit worrying is that it seems like a 'desperate measure' adopted by people experiencing low productivity, indicating some other problem (depression/burnout etc.) that should be dealt with directly. In these cases pomodoros would make things far worse.

It could be said that none of these are criticisms of LW, but just criticisms of these specific techniques that arose outside of LW. However, if one is too eager to adopt and believe in such techniques, it betrays ADS-type thinking as relating to the idea that optimization of thought processes can be done through 'productivity hacks'.

Comment author: RichardKennaway 26 May 2015 10:33:43PM 0 points [-]

The idea that you can actually optimize your thought processes using deliberate rational will and analysis of biases, as exemplified by the home page,

How are you distinguishing an affective death spiral from people thinking that something is a good idea?

and specifically the extreme version of this idea that some users try to adopt.

People using Anki and Pomodoros (neither of which were invented on LW or by LWers) doesn't look extreme to me.