ShannonFriedman

Co-Working Collaboration to Combat Akrasia

Before I was very involved in the Less Wrong community, I heard that Eliezer was looking for people to sit with him while he worked, to increase writing productivity. I knew that he was doing important work in the world, and figured that this was the sort of contribution to improving humanity that I would like to make, which was within the set of things that would be easy and enjoyable for me. So I got a hold of him and offered to come and sit with him, and did that once/week for about a year. As anticipated, it worked marvelously. I found it easy to sit and not talk, just getting my own work done. Eventually I became a beta reader for his "Bayes for Everyone Else" which is really great and helped me in my ability to estimate probabilities a ton. (Eliezer is still perfecting this work and has not yet released it, but you can find the older version here.) In addition to learning the basics of Bayes from doing this, I also learned how powerful it is to have someone just to sit quietly with you to co-work on a regular schedule. I’ve experimented with similar things since then, such as making skype dates with a friend to watch informational videos together. This worked for awhile until my friend got busy. I have two other recurring chat dates with friends to do dual n-back together, and those have worked quite well and are still going. A client of mine, Mqrius, is working on his Master’s thesis and has found that the only way he has been able to overcome his akrasia so far is by co-working with a friend. Unfortunately, his friend does not have as much time to co-work as he’d like, so we decided to spend Mqrius’s counseling session today writing this Less Wrong post to see if we can help him and other people in the community who want to co-work over skype connect, since this will probably be much higher value to him as well as others with similar difficulties than the next best thing we could do with the time. I encourage anyone who is interested in co-working,

76Mar 9, 2013

ShannonFriedman

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Belief Chains

A belief is an acceptance that a statement is true or that something exists. As aspiring rationalists, we strive for our beliefs to be true, accurate, and minimally biased. You seldom see a single belief floating around. Typically beliefs tend to group into clusters and chains. In other words, if...

Nov 15, 201413

The Anti-Placebo Effect

Just about everyone is familiar with the placebo effect at this point. What I've discovered through my personal studies working with people suffering from anxiety and depression is that there is actually a significant related effect, which I have dubbed the anti-placebo effect. Google says: pla·ce·bo ef·fect noun 1. a...

Sep 28, 201365

Changing Systems is Different than Running Controlled Experiments - Don’t Choose How to Run Your Country That Way!

Trigger warning: Discussion of rape. Example 1: Say that each morning you tell yourself that you are lazy for not wanting to get out of bed to go to work, as a way to convince yourself to get up. Perhaps if the only variable you changed was to lower your...

Jun 11, 20131

Programming the LW Study Hall

We've had considerable interest and uptake on the Less Wrong Study Hall, especially with informal timed Pomodoro sessions for everyone to synchronize on. Working together with a number of other visible faces, and your own face visible to them, does seem effective. Keeping the social chat to the 5 off...

Mar 15, 201337

Co-Working Collaboration to Combat Akrasia

Mar 9, 201376

How to Deal with Depression - The Meta Layers

I wrote this for the Positive Vector website awhile back and lots of people have found it valuable, so I want to share it with the Less Wrong community as well. I think this applies to most people - meta suffering thing is something I see everywhere, even though it...

Oct 26, 201239

Who Wants To Start An Important Startup?

SUMMARY: Let's collect people who want to work on for-profit companies that have significant positive impacts on many people's lives. Google provides a huge service to the world - efficient search of a vast amount of data. I would really like to see more for-profit businesses like Google, especially in...

Aug 16, 201259

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ShannonFriedman

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ShannonFriedman

Co-Working Collaboration to Combat Akrasia

The Anti-Placebo Effect

Who Wants To Start An Important Startup?

How to Deal with Depression - The Meta Layers

ShannonFriedman

Belief Chains

The Anti-Placebo Effect

Changing Systems is Different than Running Controlled Experiments - Don’t Choose How to Run Your Country That Way!

Programming the LW Study Hall

Co-Working Collaboration to Combat Akrasia

How to Deal with Depression - The Meta Layers

Who Wants To Start An Important Startup?

Co-Working Collaboration to Combat Akrasia

The Anti-Placebo Effect

Who Wants To Start An Important Startup?

How to Deal with Depression - The Meta Layers

Belief Chains

The Anti-Placebo Effect

Changing Systems is Different than Running Controlled Experiments - Don’t Choose How to Run Your Country That Way!

Programming the LW Study Hall

Co-Working Collaboration to Combat Akrasia

How to Deal with Depression - The Meta Layers

Who Wants To Start An Important Startup?