Lulie

Beware Social Coping Strategies

Worlds The world is a huge, complex, scary place. Winter used to freeze us dead, and today lives are still destroyed by natural disasters like tsunami and forest fires. Plagues used to destroy our communities, and people still die from disease every day. We want more power over our surroundings — more intelligent computers, better space rockets — but construction is difficult and often dangerous. As a child, navigating the world directly is also terrifying: sharp objects, distressingly loud sounds, heights, electric shocks, etc. It takes an incredible amount of thought to merely understand and predict the world, let alone to avoid being hurt by it. The social world is even worse. Every person is a world in themselves. Every person has their own model of the world, plus their own thoughts and dreams and desires and morality. These may not always be consistent with your own, and that can cause conflicts. Their preferences are not always consistent with the preferences of other people, and conflicts between them can affect you. Individuals can also have conflicts inside themselves, making them unpredictable and confusing. And it's not just individuals you have to navigate. When people get together, they form groups and institutions. You are born, and find it's not just sharp objects you have to watch out for, but violating codes that were made up by people you've never met. You find yourself in complicated systems with their own logic and rules: government, school, a family structure, religious or political groups. These systems are additional worlds to learn — and they share the frustrating property of individuals that they are not entirely consistent. Navigating all these worlds, and learning how to follow or evade their rules without getting hurt, is tough. Being Thwarted As if that weren't bad enough, the social world has a special property that the natural world doesn't have: adaptive problems. That is, problems which adapt when you try to s

57Feb 5, 2018

Lulie

Message

Critical rationalist interested in where Bayesian rationality intersects, where it doesn't, and how both could be improved by each other.

250

16y

Criticism Scheduling and Privacy

Scheduling criticism > "Two times two is four ‘tis true But too empty and too trite I would rather seek a clue To some matters not so light." — W. Busch, Schein und Sein (Karl Popper's translation) Being in control of when, how, and what you get criticism on is...

Sep 29, 201844

Privacy: Defining Yourself

> A girl needs a room of her own. — paraphrasing Virginia Woolf It's important to control the amount of information people have about you, especially for creative tasks or in areas you expect you might want to change. Defining yourself is risky, because then it becomes hard to change...

Jun 18, 201839

What are Trigger-Action Plans (TAPs)?

Disclaimer: This is a technique I learnt at CFAR (which said it's backed by a large amount of Science!, but I haven't looked into original sources much). This post is to explain TAPs simply, including for people unfamiliar with CFAR/LW, with a quick 'getting started' guide. It is not intended...

May 7, 201818

Beware Social Coping Strategies

Feb 5, 201857

LESSWRONG
LW

LESSWRONG
LW

Lulie

Lulie

Lulie

Beware Social Coping Strategies

Criticism Scheduling and Privacy

Privacy: Defining Yourself

What are Trigger-Action Plans (TAPs)?

Lulie

Criticism Scheduling and Privacy

Privacy: Defining Yourself

What are Trigger-Action Plans (TAPs)?

Beware Social Coping Strategies

Criticism Scheduling and Privacy

Privacy: Defining Yourself

What are Trigger-Action Plans (TAPs)?

Beware Social Coping Strategies

Beware Social Coping Strategies

Criticism Scheduling and Privacy

Privacy: Defining Yourself

What are Trigger-Action Plans (TAPs)?