There's a famous I'm struggling to find but it's along the lines of:

'Those who are wise seek clarity. Those who wish to merely appear wise seek obscurity'

It's great for getting a read on people and their intention.

Does anyone know who said it and what the original quote is?

Hi Everyone,

I host a fortnightly Less Wrong Meetup self improvement logic teaching thing with some close friends of mine, and next session I want to look at Communication.

I was wondering what you guys thought would be some good resources for this, not only from the Less Wrong catalogue, but even elsewhere.

Particular things I would like to do is:

* Empower us with the tools to recognize, call out and defeat logical fallacies and outrageous claims

* Examine the more instinctive behaviours in human interaction, and ourselves within that.

* Simple ways to improve our social skills in our daily lives.

Any contributions are hugely appreciated :)

Is there any reason this doesn't exist yet?

Just wondering. Wasn't sure where else to ask. Would be great if we could get a part of the website dedicated to this.

Hi everyone,

I currently head up a Sydney Less Wrong Meetup, which is actually just me and a group of my friends trying to improve our own rationality.

Several are uni students, so I was thinking of doing powerpoint and initiating some discussion on learning optimization, and exploring what helps us learn and absorb information, and see what devices we can find to help us maximize our learning capability.

Anyone know any particuarly good articles/websites/concepts that would be good for the meetup?

All advice is always appreciated.

Hey everyone,

I'd like too see if I can utilize the rational powers of Less Wrong

Currently I work full time. Am well paid for my age. Have approximately $20,000 AU in savings.

My spouse is in uni. Will finish this year and begin working next year. But currently I am supporting our household.

I have recently concluded that $20k is too much to be sitting idle, and the rational thing to do would be to find a way of putting those savings to work in some fashion. But how?

What would be the best way of utilizing these finances in terms of self-development and/or monetary return?

A few things to consider:

a) My skillset at the moment is limited, but I am eager to learn anything.

b) I only desire money in that it enables me to carry out many plans that would be difficult otherwise.

c) Relationships are far more important to me than money, however money is still pretty high up there.

I come to Less Wrong because it is the only community whose advice I would trust. The rest of the internet as many scammers, most friends and family feel threatened by the idea of investment/new things etc. Also they just aren't as rational as Less Wrong.

I would be so appreciative of any advice given.

Also anyone in the same boat?

Hi Everyone,

I've been conducting a LW meetup in West Sydney. had 3 somewhat succesful sessions. Covered the following topics:

1. What is rationality? Who uses it? Why be less wrong?

2. Map and Territroy

3. Belief: functions, proper and imporper and other things pertaining.

I'm wondering what would be a good topic for the next session, so any suggestions would be much appreciated. I'm finding whilst people enjoy the conversations for the most part, they find it hard to make it applicable and marry it back to real life situations.

Any ideas on how I can help communicate that what we study and do at the meet up is relevant and applicable in their day to day lives? And what would be a good topic to do this on?

I get the feeling this will require people to sort of open up and share themselves with the group. Any good ways of cultivating that type of environment?

Thanks in advance.

Hi Less Wrongers and Less Wrongerettes,

Doing a fortnightly Less Wrong group with some friends, and next session we're planning to scrutinize belief, hoping to touch on belief in belief, belief as attire etc. but I wanted to start by examining what belief is and the functions of belief. I have a few subtitles:

The function of belief -To anticipate experience

Belief in Belief -

Belief as attire - (the two are pretty closely related)

Free Floating Belief - beliefs that are useless

Correct belief - when beliefs are held for poor reasons, but turn out to be correct, why they are still inaccurate

Making beliefs pay rent - Don't ask what to believe, ask what to anticipate. Want to finish on this one because I think it's applicability is limitless.

just wanted some critiques/suggestions. Particuarly concerned with the first one, defining belief and it's purpose. I need help making the concepts clear and concise.

The more accessible to the layman the better!

Hi everyone,

Recently have started a discussion group amongst some of my friends and aquaintences in an attempt to study and improve our rationality.

What I tend to do, is using the sequences as 'source' material, write up a lesson plan that attempts to be a bit more accesible to the layman and go through it with them as slowly and meticulously as needed.

Only had one meeting so far, but it's been exciting seeing it come together and people get engaged with the idea of improving their rationality.

My question is regarding the "Map and Territory" analogy, which is what we're planning to look at indepth next meeting.

Could you further the analogy and say that the paths that you write on your map, to get you to and from different points be considered the application of Instrumental Rationality? (As charting the map is the application of epistemic) You could point out that Instrumental Rationality also requires you to have a good map.

Any thoughts/comments would be appreciated.