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I meant especially in individual members such as described in the point "priorities." Somewhat along the lines that topics in LW are not a representative sample concerning which topics and conclusions are relevant to the individual. In other words: The imaginary guide I write for my children "how to be rational" very much differs from the guide that LW is providing.
Sure. And if you ever write that guide, you're still going to borrow heavily from LW. And someone else, writing "how to use your musical talent rationally" or "how to pick your career rationally" or whatever, can so the same.
That is the true value of LW in my book - it presents useful ideas in a sufficiently abstract fashion to make them obviously applicable across a wide range of topics, and does so in a way a smart high school student can understand. Sure it sacrifices brevity in order to do so, and its lack of infographics and other multimodality is a huge drawback, and it spends time on topics most people won't care about, and I'm sure there are other valid concerns. But still, if you want to do better, LW isn't a competitor, it's a shoulder to stand on.
In other words, if you give this as advice to someone random, will they end up successful or an outcast. I'd guess the latter in most cases.
The whole thing reads like a fairly standard (but very disorganized) self-help tract trying to exhort people into being more agenty and strategic. Some of it maps directly onto LW self-help posts, even, like 'people are not automatically strategic' and existing techniques like COZE.
Since, for better or worse, most self-help material doesn't wind up helping or harming even when someone actually tries to use them, I don't think that this particular self-help tract will be any different - anyone trying to use the ideas and aspire to be a chef rather than a cook will wind up probably in the same place as they would before. People aren't going to either become billionaires or homeless just because they read something online; if writing could reliably have that sort of impact, we would live in a very different and much more interesting world than we do...
I agree with OP that most people do have sub-optimal levels of agentiness and planning and have really wacky evaluations of risk (consider anything to do with children, or terrorism), so if it did do anything, it would probably be helpful on net.
Aren't you underestimating how the form of this article makes it different from self-help tracts and LW?
It exploits the Musk cult to spread LW-ish ideas. It contains excitement and humor that makes it palatable for people who can't stomach the dry LW style. With WaitButWhy's considerable reach, it'll be seen by people who've never seen LW or self-help tracts.
In response to
Open thread, Nov. 09 - Nov. 15, 2015
Short version: If telecommuting was an option, would you live in a big city? Why? Why not?
I don't know whether I am overestimating the impact of city population on my daily life. What change can I expect from moving from a city with a population of 200K to one with 2M(and between that and one of 20M)? (or, on the contrary, to one with 20K) I always wanted to move to {regional large city}, but I can't name anything that my current locale lacks, that I would really like it to have. (I know that we don't have toastmasters here, but that's not an active current desire of mine. Some specific goods ren't sold in the shops, but those need to be so specific, that eBay becomes the standard venue for acquiring them anyways.) Jobs don't matter for me specifically, as I can work from anywhere.
I think I've seen more people with colorful hair there, and traffic seemed like it could easily turn into a nightmare. (which is less of an issue, if I intend to use the underground. I don't have a car either way)
Looking into the demographics, the average age is higher, number of children low, with a significant trend of people over 20 to migrate there. I couldn't determine the make up of the migrants from a glance, but I suppose with the help of an actuarian table, I could calculate the difference between expected number of people of that age, versus actual.
I don't know whether absolute number of people with similar interests to mine, or their relative density matters more.
I am wary that I may 'want to be where it's at', or where I assume it's at, shouldering the financial costs, and not getting any of the expected benefits. (I assume job opportunities are the usual attractors)
I'm out in a small town pretty much every week, and I'm always happy to go back to the city.
Mostly it's the people. Everybody smart enough to do a knowledge worker job has left. Everybody creative enough to make art has left. Everybody who understands the value of excellent education for their kids has left. Everybody young and beautiful enough to get into the dating scene has left. Everybody who wants an exciting life has left. The people who remain are still nice (everybody everywhere is nice, really) and often admirably hard-working, but they're slow and seem to live inside fairly tight horizons. I like to be among people I can learn from, and I find those in the city.
I also like life in the city because I like to travel, mine has an airport and excellent public transport, and I really like not owning a car. To live an hour away from the nearest big city would mean that everything in the world would be an hour further away.
So I might reconsider when I can call up a self-driving electric taxi to take me places at any time, or when VR takes off in earnest and I spend much of my time in there. But by that time, I imagine life in the city will have become even more interesting, and life in the country will have fallen even further behind.
In response to
Solstice 2015: What Memes May Come? (Part I)
Is this the kind of event you can bring a Small Child to?
We had a little girl at the Leipzig Solstice last year, 4 years old IIRC. She loved it. Of course she didn't speak any English, so I don't know if the talk of death would have bothered her if she did, but people and candles and singing isn't a hard sell to a small kid.
A majority of people in academia don't strike me as actually that high-IQ.
Compared to what?
Compared to groups of other people selected for intelligence, like engineers, mathematicians or professional politicians.
What I find remarkable about academics is that they seem to have much longer attention spans than any of these other groups. But in quick learning, logical reasoning or handling unfamiliar information, few academics impress me as much as a typical member of these other groups will.
This is strictly my informal observation, but I've studied and worked in universities for 17 years now, so I do think it is a fairly informed one.
Not quite -- this assumes there is a high opportunity cost to high-IQ people being in academia.
A majority of people in academia don't strike me as actually that high-IQ.
That does not mean their time couldn't be more valuable elsewhere.
In response to
Rational approach to finding life partners
Many articles at that blog are worth reading, not just this one.
In response to
Open Thread, Jul. 27 - Aug 02, 2015
Is there a subreddit or some other place where I can describe ideas for products or services, explicitly forfeit any rights to them, and they are actually as good as I imagine (maybe other user can help rate, or say how much it'd be worth to them), have a chance someone with the resources to do so will actually implement one or another?
In response to
Open Thread, Jul. 27 - Aug 02, 2015
"The Games of Entropy", which premiered at the European Less Wrong Community Weekend 2015, chapter two of the science and rationality promoting art project Seven Secular Sermons, is now available on YouTube. The first chapter, "Adrift in Space and Time" is also there, re-recorded with better audio and video quality. Enjoy!
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Ambiguity has its uses. In flirting for example, where the offer of intimacy is made implicitly so rejection can be given implicitly (by pretending not to have heard the offer) in order to avoid the pain of explicit rejection.
And in all sorts of situations where explicit statements of particular facts or opinions are punishable, the ability to make them in ambiguous, i.e. deniable form, can be crucial.
But I find the baseline of unintentional ambiguity in most forms of human-to-human communication to be a problem, not an asset, most of the time.