Meetup : Portland, OR: Improv for Rationalists

1 VAuroch 01 October 2014 05:45AM

Discussion article for the meetup : Portland, OR: Improv for Rationalists

WHEN: 18 October 2014 01:00:00PM (-0700)

WHERE: 2945 NE 64th Ave, Portland, OR

Last meetup we discussed using techniques from acting improv to improve social skills and impose personal habits. This month we'll be putting some of that into practice with lessons and practice. Discussion to follow.

Discussion article for the meetup : Portland, OR: Improv for Rationalists

Meetup : Portland Teachable Skills Discussion

1 VAuroch 10 September 2014 02:26AM

Discussion article for the meetup : Portland Teachable Skills Discussion

WHEN: 20 September 2014 01:00:00PM (-0700)

WHERE: 2945 NE 64th Ave, Portland, OR

First meetup in Portland after a long break. This month's meetup will be a discussion on Teachable Skills; what are you learning, what can you teach, what do you need practice in, etc. It may break off into groups practicing specific skills, or we may arrange to do so at future meetups.

Discussion article for the meetup : Portland Teachable Skills Discussion

Rationality Quotes July 2014

6 VAuroch 06 July 2014 06:51AM

Another month, another rationality quotes thread. The rules are:

  • Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be upvoted or downvoted separately. (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments. If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)
  • Do not quote yourself.
  • Do not quote from Less Wrong itself, HPMoR, Eliezer Yudkowsky, or Robin Hanson. If you'd like to revive an old quote from one of those sources, please do so here.
  • No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please.
  • Provide sufficient information (URL, title, date, page number, etc.) to enable a reader to find the place where you read the quote, or its original source if available. Do not quote with only a name.

[LINK] Latinus rationalior ist.

3 VAuroch 06 March 2014 06:32PM

http://mappingignorance.org/2014/02/03/mandela-was-right-the-foreign-language-effect/

 

Summary: Across the board, people are less prone to cognitive bias in a non-native language.

Conclusion: If all important discourse was conducted in Latin, or any other language native to no one, people would make better decisions.

Corollary: All the attempts to make a constructed "scientific language" actually could have worked relatively well, for reasons entirely unconnected to the painstaking scientific structure of the languages.

[LINK] Reinventing Explanation: Data Presentation as Intuition Pump

4 VAuroch 05 February 2014 01:00AM

A great article by Michael Nielsen on failures of intuition and ways to present data more effectively so that we don't get caught by those failures. It reminded me of concepts like log odds in common use around here, and also to the recent discussion of teaching rationality techniques to average people.