I strongly suspect the real list of most important habits and skills fall within running, weight training, and cooking, but this is not the forum I'd typically go for advice on those topics.

Backed!!

This is amazing news, both that the book is coming along, and that there will be a professional Audiobook version. This will make it easier to spread the sequences, and may even mean that I'll actually finish the sequences myself, something I still haven't done.

Btw, two logistical questions (for Luke mostly): 1. Was there any similar campaign for the book version? 2. I understand that MIRI isn't paying for this Audiobook version? I ask because my donations to MIRI are now employer-matched, as are I assume other people's, but this Kickstarter campaign can't be employer-matched afaik, which is a shame and a "waste" of potential donation. Any way around this? (I also donate to MIRI, but I want to specifically donate for this Audiobook being made).

Something I'm looking for:

A list of habits to take up, to improve my life, that are vetted and recommended by the community. Preferably in order of most useful to least useful. Things like "start using Anki", "start meditating", etc.

Do we have list like this compiled? If not, can we create it? I'm a big believe in the things this community recommends, and have already taken up using Anki, am working on Meditation, and am looking for what other habits I should take up.

FYI, I thought of this as I was reading gwern's Dual N-Back article, in which he mentions it's probably not worth the time, as there are much higher-potential activities to do.

(Here's the relevant excerpt from gwern: N-BACK IN GENERAL

To those whose time is limited: you may wish to stop reading here. If you seek to improve your life, and want the greatest ‘bang for the buck’, you are well-advised to look elsewhere. Meditation, for example, is easier, faster, and ultra-portable. Typing training will directly improve your facility with a computer, a valuable skill for this modern world. Spaced repetition memorization techniques offer unparalleled advantages to students. Nootropics are the epitome of ease (just swallow!), and their effects are much more easily assessed - one can even run double-blind experiments on oneself, impossible with dual N-back. Other supplements like melatonin can deliver benefits incommensurable with DNB - what is the cognitive value of another number in working memory thanks to DNB compared to a good night’s sleep thanks to melatonin? Modest changes to one’s diet and environs can fundamentally improve one’s well-being. Even basic training in reading, with the crudest tachistoscope techniques, can pay large dividends if one is below a basic level of reading like 200WPM & still subvocalizing. And all of these can start paying off immediately.)

Did the survey. It felt much shorter this year.

LessWrong-Tel Aviv members Dan Armak, Adam Mesha, Yonatan Cale, and I contributed to MIRI/CfAR in honor of Edan Maor's marriage to Sami Wexsel.

We encourage all LessWrongers to consider more donation in honor of friends' special events. It's a great way to get triple fuzzies: You, the honoree, and the wider community get to feel good about it.

I'm not sure where, but I remember Eliezer writing something like ~"one of the biggest advances in the economy is the fact that people have internalized that they should invest their money, instead of having it lying around".

I'm looking for 2 things: 1. Does anyone remember where this was written? My google-fu is failing me at the moment. 2. Can anyone point me to any economic literature that talks about this?

Question for anyone that's taking the course: is it worthwhile for the average LW'er? I assume most of us have an above-average familiarity with these topics.

Paper. Calendars. Smartphones. Asking other people for advice.

I'm trying to convince intelligent people that there are real changes we can introduce that will be adopted by most people

Well you can start with trying to convince me then. If we can't get people to stop playing the lottery, what makes you think we can get them to understand and correctly apply Bayes' Rule? BTW, I hope you don't have the bottom line already written here.

I think we should make an important distinction here: why do people adopt en masse new beliefs and behaviors, rational or not?

Do they adopt them because they become convinced of their truth, or by considering the evidence for and against them? Or do they adopt them for the same reasons they adopted the irrational ideas they are replacing - through cultural effects, following prestigious leaders and popular opinion?

I am not, by the way, trying to denigrate consensus-following. It's quite a good heuristic. But it's not what we usually mean by "rational behavior"; it is more nearly instinctive than conscious.