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.

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.

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.

The first answer that occurs to me:

• I am very significantly happier and more even-tempered.

To expand: I have long suffered from mood swings in which I would 'enjoy' a month or two of borderline hypomania, followed by one to four months of depression and anxiety, accompanied by a lot of akrasia and mildly self-destructive behavior.

Before my 'rationalist conversion' in 2005, my main support system for dealing with these problems had become various Alcoholics Anonymous-style 12-step groups. After my rationalist conversion (I'll use BRC and ARC from here), I realized these programs don't have very good efficacy, especially for their primary purpose of helping people quit self-destructive behaviors. They have a secondary purpose, which is enhancing adherents' quality of life, for which they are somewhat more efficacious, but they promote too many irrational beliefs to be recommended for this purpose IMO.

ARC I went on a fairly intense quest to discover better means to improve the quality of my life by rational means, which ultimately led me here, among other places. One of these other places was that I learned to practice on myself the psychological techniques of Stoicism (I use that to refer the ancient Greek and Roman philosophical school that was the basis for Cognitive Behavior Therapy, not the modern slang term), as outlined by William Irvine in A Guide To The Good Life.

Without writing a long post about Stoicism, one of the core techniques is to doubt the validity of your thoughts and interpretations, especially thoughts that you find disturbing or that give you pleasure. The reason is that you have zero, or close to zero, influence over many of the things that happen that you get disturbed or ecstatic about. The Stoics hold that it is irrational to get worked up over things about which you can do nothing. Thus the aim of Stoicism is to train yourself to pursue and avoid only those things it is possible to EFFECTIVELY pursue and avoid, and to cultivate serene acceptance of the The Things You Cannot Change. (Yes, this is the 12-steppers' Serenity Prayer, but with a much better set of psychological techniques for cultivating the lofty state it describes.)

In a nutshell, learning these techniques has allowed me to effectively short-circuit the mental habit of going into a "tizzy," which is what I call that thing where you start playing an anguish-provoking mental loop in your head over and over again. This in turn has reduced the cognitive component of my depression down close to nothing. It has also diminished some of the cognitive component of hypomania, by instilling a habit of being skeptical of my "high" thoughts as much as I am of my "low" thoughts. This also has a positive impact on my overall happiness by softening the crash that occurs when my rose-colored notions about things I am going to do (get rich by starting my own business, usually) fail to come true. (Note that none of this means I shouldn't start a business or aspire to become rich!! However there is a big difference in the hard-headed mental state that would set a person up for success in starting and running a business, and the fragile high I am describing.)

Bottom line: I've experienced a major improvement and stabilization in my mood, without antidepressants or other psychoactive drugs. (I do get regular exercise -- another direct outcome of Stoic practice -- and this also helps.) I haven't had a serious bout of depression in two years, which is unprecedented in my adult life.

I've got to stop writing, so for the moment I will just list a couple of other major benefits of my rationalist conversion, to be unpacked later:

• I indulge in fewer self-destructive/addictive behaviors, have lost a lot of weight, I exercise regularly, work harder and am more productive -- in short, I have less Akrasia.

This is a result of various aspects of rationality kung fu, most recently Less Wrong, commitment contracts, and Beeminder.

I also arguably:

• Make more money than I would have otherwise (because I studied negotiation techniques)

• Read and study more

• Sleep better

• And the skin on my hands is less dry, especially in winter. (I really like that last one, which is a nice little object lesson in rationality in itself, but in the interest of getting something posted, I will elaborate later.)

I think I may have a valuable point or two to contribute because of some of my life experience, e.g.:

• I had a business as a Life Coach (in California in the 90's).

• I used to be a fairly avid consumer of various flavors of coaching, motivational programs, self help etc. (I still am, I've just gotten MUCH more discriminating -- that's why I'm here.)

My primary reactions to your post are:

• There is almost certainly a market for the service you describe. Your big problem, especially at first, is going to be sales and marketing. I'm sure this much is obvious, but you probably ought to ask yourself if you have an appetite for doing full-time sales and marketing, because that is your future for the next 5+ years if you start this business and want it to be successful. This leads me to the next point:

• Be careful what you wish for. I often think about going back into some kind of coaching business, but when I do, I remember what it was like, and that gives me pause. I didn't like having to constantly market myself as a coach. There were a number of things that felt unsavory about it, including the fact that all my friends were now prospective clients. Surprisingly, I also really dreaded my coaching calls, even though there was frequently a nice feeling I had helped someone AFTER the call. My point is that it's hard to predict whether you are going to enjoy being a practicing coach or not, and I judge that it probably takes a very specific kind of personality type -- an aggressively extroverted sales-oriented type -- to really enjoy that business. This should be an important element of your consideration IMO.

• Another judgment I have is that coaching is hard, and it's hard in subtle ways. People are not very amenable to change, even if they THINK they are amenable. The behaviors that would make an actual difference to our lives are not as accessible to conscious tinkering as we expect them to be. As you contemplate starting this business, you may also want to ponder if you will be frustrated when you observe people not changing as much as you'd like them to change, in response to your coaching. Letting go of the results is a subtle and important skill IMO.

All of this is not meant to discourage you -- I think you have an interesting idea for a business, and I encourage you to pursue it IF none of the above puts you off. Just pay close attention and try to determine how much fun, or not, this is actually going to be. I think you should only do it if it is actually fun. It was not fun for me.