I want to be informed and to act because I have evaluated the evidence, not just go "with the  herd." There's a stigma against simply taking the word of an authority, and rightly so; on the  net, the world would be better if more people stopped to think for themselves (does anyone disagree?). But it is also the case that there are many fields in which I have to defer to experts because I simply am not equipped to deal with or consider the problems.

I wonder, is it even worth my doing research on charities, when there exist resources like givewell, which will almost certainly be able to do a more thorough and more accurate analysis than I would be able to do? Should I just defer to givewell when giving my effective charity?

I'll note that there is a difference between values and facts: I might decide for myself that I care more about some issues than others, due to variations in my personal moral calculus (for instance, I may value the well being of no-human mammals, relative to human mammals, more than others, and so chose to support animal rights groups, instead of poverty elimination), but might still defer to the experts with regards to how to most efficiently accomplish my stated goals.

Also, do I have good evidence to defer to the expertise of givewell? I like the idea, their analysis seems insightful, and people on this forum often speak highly of them. But these are all relativity superficial and don't seem like sufficient reason to allow them to dictate my giving (that's just lazily, submitting to the slick-looking authority). How do I evaluate the expertise of experts?

In line with my continuing  self eduction...

What are the most important or personally influential academic papers you've ever read? Which ones are essential (or just good) for an informed person to have read?

Is there any body of research of which you found the original papers much more valuable than than the popularizations or secondary sources (Wikipedia articles, textbook write ups, ect.), for any reason? What was that reason? Does anyone have a good heuristic for when it is important to "go to the source" and when someone else's summation will do? I have theoretical preference for reading the original research, since if I need to evaluate an idea's merit, reading what others in that field read (instead of the simplified versions) seems like a good idea, but it has the downside of being harder and more time-consuming.

I have wondered if the only reason to bother with technical sounding papers that are hard to understand is that you have to read them (or pretend to read them) in order to cite them.

I discovered podcasts last year, and I love them! Why not be hearing about new ideas while I'm walking to where I'm going? (Some of you might shout "insight porn!", and I think that I largely agree. However, 1) I don't have any particular problem with insight porn and 2) I have frequently been exposed to an idea or been recommenced a book through a podcast, on which I latter followed up, leading to more substantive intellectual growth.)

I wonder if anyone has favorites that they might want to share with me.

I'll start:

Radiolab is, hands down, the best of all the podcasts. This seems universally recognized: I’ve yet to meet anyone who disagrees. Even the people who make other podcasts think that Radiolab is better than their own. This one regularly invokes a profound sense of wonder at the universe and gratitude for being able to appreciate it. If you missed it somehow, you're probably missing out.

The Freakonomics podcast, in my opinion, comes close to Radiolab. All the things that you thought you knew, but didn’t, and all the things you never knew you wanted to know, but do, in typical Freakonomics style. Listening to their podcast is one of the two things that makes me happy.

There’s one other podcast that I consider to be in the same league (and this one you've probably never heard of) : The Memory Palace. 5-10 minute stories form history, it is really well done. It’s all the more impressive because while Radiolab and Freakonomics are both made by professional production teams in radio studios, The Memory Palace is just some guy who makes a podcast.

Those are my three top picks (and they are the only podcasts that I listen to at “normal” speed instead of x1.5 or x2.0, since their audio production is so good).

I discovered Rationally Speaking: Exploring the Borderlands Between Reason and Nonsense recently and I’m loving it. It is my kind of skeptics podcast, investigating topics that are on the fringe but not straight out bunk (I don't need to listen to yet another podcast about how astrology doesn't work). The interplay between the hosts, Massimo (who has a PhD in Philosophy, but also one in Biology, which excuses it) and Julia (who I only just realized is a founder of the CFAR), is great.

I also sometimes enjoy the Cracked podcast, which has topics that touch on cognitive bias and statistics but also analysis of (pop) culture and interesting things about the world in general. They are comedians, not philosophers or social scientists, and sometimes their lack of expertise shows (especially when they are discussing topics about which I, and I think the average LW reader, know more than they do), but comedians often have worthwhile insights and I have been intrigued by ideas they introduced me to or gotten books at the library on their recommendation.

To what is everyone else listening?

Edit: On suggestion from several members on LessWrong I've begun listening to Hardcore History and it's companion podcast Common Sense. They're both great. I have a good knowledge of history from my school days (I liked the subject, and I seem to have strong a propensity to retain extraneous  information, particularly information in narrative form), and Hardcore History episodes are a great refresher course, reviewing that which I'm already familiar, but from a slightly different perspective, yielding new insights and a greater connectivity of history. I think it has almost certainly supplanted the Cracked podcast as number 5 on my list.

I have started to put together a sort of curriculum for learning the subjects that lend themselves to rationality. It includes things like experimental methodology and cognitive psychology (obviously), along with "support disciplines" like computer science and economics. I think (though maybe I'm wrong) that mathematics is one of the most important things to understand.

Eliezer said in the simple math of everything:

It seems to me that there's a substantial advantage in knowing the drop-dead basic fundamental embarrassingly simple mathematics in as many different subjects as you can manage.  Not, necessarily, the high-falutin' complicated damn math that appears in the latest journal articles.  Not unless you plan to become a professional in the field.  But for people who can read calculus, and sometimes just plain algebra, the drop-dead basic mathematics of a field may not take that long to learn.  And it's likely to change your outlook on life more than the math-free popularizations or the highly technical math.

I want to have access to outlook-changing insights. So, what math do I need to know? What are the generally applicable mathematical principles that are most worth learning? The above quote seems to indicate at least calculus, and everyone is a fan of Bayesian statistics (which I know little about). 

Secondarily, what are some of the most important of that "drop-dead basic fundamental embarrassingly simple mathematics" from different fields? What fields are mathematically based, other than physics and evolutionary biology, and economics?

What is the most important math for an educated person to be familiar with?

As someone who took an honors calculus class in high school, liked it, and did alright in the class, but who has probably forgotten most of it by now and needs to relearn it, how should I go about learning that math?