I was at the vet a while back; one of my dogs wasn't well (she's better now). The vet took her back, and after waiting for a few minutes, the vet came back with her.

Apparently there were two possible diagnosis: let's call them x and y, as the specifics aren't important for this anecdote.

The vet specifies that, based on the tests she's run, she cannot tell which diagnosis is accurate.

So I ask the vet: which diagnosis has the higher base rate among dogs of my dog's age and breed?

The vet gives me a funny look.

I rephrase: about how many dogs of my dog's breed and age get diagnosis x versus diagnosis y, without running the tests you did?

The vet gives me another funny look, and eventually replies: that doesn't matter.

My question for Lesswrong: Is there a better way to put this? Because I was kind of speechless after that.

My experience was that the Sequences, like most pieces of writing densely packed with information, cannot be understood on a first read-through.

Instead, following how memory works by association, the first time you read through them a little will stick, and the next time more, and so on.

To be slightly more clear:

I suggest that the first time you read through them, focus on the bigger picture. Don't worry about any particular piece you don't understand, just keep going until you finish it. A decent metaphor for this might be how buildings are constructed: during your first reading, you are laying the foundations and creating the skeleton of steel girders.

Your next read-through will help to flesh out more of the meat, and so on.

I stress that it's important to keep going; Rationality is long, and a slog the first time through. If you have to skip ahead, skip.

Hope that helps.

I went to a party recently, and the host provided the food. At the end of the party, there was an awful lot left over, and my understanding is that most of it went to waste.

I had a thought when this was happening: if I was the host, why not keep track of how much food my guests actually ate, and try adjusting the amount of food at my next party to match?

The host was not a rationalist, as I suspect most hosts aren't, but upon researching the issue, it doesn't seem as if there's a widespread solution.

There are charities that focus on "recycling" food waste, and there are plenty of suggestions for how much food to bring to parties of various size, and yet I still have the experience of purchasing/preparing far too much food for parties, and almost every party I go to has far too much food available.

What exactly is going on, and how can it be made better? It seems to me as if this is a reasonably low-hanging fruit - getting people to properly estimate how much food people actually consume at parties in order to reduce food waste. It's the sort of calculation any restaurant with an all-you-can-eat buffet has clearly made in order to determine their price point.

Is this a publicity issue, that people don't realize they can optimize the amount of food they purchase and prepare? Or is it psychological, related to akrasia or a bias? I've been told that a host's greatest fear is that they run out of food, but why? Is the way to attack this problem through exposing that fear as unfounded?

This is one of the first external questions I've considered, since committing fully to instrumental rationality.

I'd like to hear everyone's thoughts on the matter.

Thanks.

TL;DR:

Why do people waste food at parties? Is this a solvable problem?

I read about pre-mortem-like questions in a book called Decisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work by Chip Heath and Dan Heath.

Rationality lessons from Overwatch, a multiplayer first-person shooter:

1) Learning when you're wrong: The killcam, which shows how I died from the viewpoint of the person who killed me, often corrects my misconception of how I died. Real life needs a killcam that shows you the actual causes of your mistakes. Too bad that telling someone why they are wrong is usually considered impolite.

2) You get what you measure: Overwatch's post-game scoring gives metals for teamwork activities such as healing and shots blocked and this contributes to players' willingness to help their teammates.

3) Living in someone else's shoes: The game has several different classes of characters that have different strengths and weaknesses. Even if you rarely play a certain class, you get a lot from occasionally playing it to gain insight into how to cooperate with and defeat members of this class.

Have you looked into the census numbers?

Out of curiosity: because rationalists are supposed to win, are we (on average) below our respective national averages for things which are obviously bad (the low hanging fruits)?

In other words, are there statistics somewhere on rationalist or LessWrong fitness/weight, smoking/drinking, credit car debt, etc.?

I'd be curious to know how well the higher-level training effects these common failure modes.

Who's advice have you found most valuable?

I'll go first. I'm' in the process of applying for jobs in software. Furthermore, it'll be my first job out of college.

Any advice? What will I, five/ten years from now, wish that I had known now?

Should I take a job in a topic that I don't see myself in long-term?