Read literature with an old writing style, especially if you dislike said writing style. The more opaque and complicated, the better.

I find that I'm a very fidgety reader, unconsciously skipping words, or even whole sentences, skimming over words I don't actually know the meaning of, and failing to connect the context of words that I do know the meaning of with the rest of the narrative or lecture. This I do with both literature and more importantly, when reading science. I've decided to read At The Mountains of Madness and penalize myself for every time I lose track of the narrative, and reward myself for every time I recognize when one sentence adds or contributes to something implied by another sentence earlier on in the paragraph, and so on. Furthermore, I will do this for only literature, and not with learning new scientific concepts, or even old ones that I have already learned. The problem is with reading comprehension, not with understanding concepts, and exercising two skills at once prematurely may cause problems. I hope this will instill genuine patience, so that being careful and observant becomes a natural thing, rather than the uncomfortable thing I wrestle with.

Read the Boring Advice Less Wrong thread periodically and do what it says.

I'm more than a little ashamed to admit I'm only reading this now, after writing about half of a first draft of what is nominally a piece of "Rationalist Fiction," Erica's Adventures In The Multiverse.. I say nominally, because reading this I realized that I didn't even know what "rationalist fiction" is, despite having read and loved HPMOR and having other, even more embarrassing reasons, to school myself in this regard.

The good news is, I'm going through what I've written so far, and I think I can salvage what's good about it while reconstructing what needs to be reconstructed to transform the thing from fake rationalist fiction to something hopefully worthy of the label. It's invigorating, actually.

I've amended the date accordingly.

Great post. Here's my unvarnished answer: I wouldn't jump, and the reasons why involve my knowledge that I have a 7-year old daughter and the (Motivated Reasoning and egotism alert!!) idea that I have the potential to improve the lives of many people.

Now of course, it's EXTREMELY likely that one or more of the other people in this scenario is a parent, and for all I know one of them will invent a cure for cancer in the future. In point of fact, if I were to HONESTLY evaluate the possibility that one of the other players has a potential to improve the planet more than I do, the likelihood may be as great as the likelihood that one of the other players is also a parent. Which makes me think that yes, my incentives are screwed up here and the correct answer is: I should be as willing to jump as to push the fat man off the bridge.

I also note that, if my wife or daughter was one of the people tied to the track, I would unhesitatingly throw myself off. This makes me conclude that I should want to throw myself off the bridge (because the supposedly, flimsily 'rational atruistic' reason -- that I have the potential to help people -- is revealed to be bogus). I still wonder, however, if there is any possible rational reason to not choose to sacrifice oneself in the scenario. I am unable to come up with one.

What? I'm not saying insufficient parental nurturing is the cause of all psychological problems, I'm just saying that

parenting has close to zero effect on how children turn out.

is a very strong claim, and that I have seen very strong evidence against it. You're going to need to make a hell of a case. (please note: linking two pop-psych books and saying that my politely disagreeing with you constitutes proof is not much of a case at all.) This makes me think of someone looking at the equations for electromagnetism and gravitation, then concluding "logically" that gravity will have nearly zero effect on the path of a projectile.

As elucidated by Judith Rich Harris in The Nurture Assumption and Steven Pinker in The Blank Slate, and completely contrary to our current cultural fad of attributing all neurosis to the failure of parents to properly nurture their children, parenting has close to zero effect on how children turn out. How our peers interact with us has a far greater impact on personality development than whatever our parents do or don't do, whether they abuse us, slather us with affection every day, ignore us, constantly berate us, constantly tell us we are wonderful, et cetera.

No, I'm pretty sure PTSD from parental abuse is a real phenomenon.

As elucidated by Judith Rich Harris in The Nurture Assumption and Steven Pinker in The Blank Slate, and completely contrary to our current cultural fad of attributing all neurosis to the failure of parents to properly nurture their children, parenting has close to zero effect on how children turn out. How our peers interact with us has a far greater impact on personality development than whatever our parents do or don't do, whether they abuse us, slather us with affection every day, ignore us, constantly berate us, constantly tell us we are wonderful, et cetera.

Hofstadterian thinking also makes you a much more competent AGI programmer if you're into that kinda thing. In fact Hofstadter's team's Copycat is an example. ETA: Apparently pre-optimization-enlightenment Eliezer agrees.