= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
This link should work. The other one has some extra text - probably intended to be a tag of some kind - that fouls it up.
Yeah, it was intended to be the link title attribute--in Markdown, of course, but I didn't close a quote around what was supposed to be the title attribute's value.
I'd really like to be able to preview comments here. It would prevent me from further embarrassing myself.
I got the location from the google calendar posted a few weeks ago.
http://lesswrong.com/lw/1am/lw_meetup_google_calendar/
The link you included does not resolve correctly for me.
(Thanks Robin)
I see. Thanks for the feedback! I'll see if we can get that fixed for next time.
ETA: I give you Karma for helpfulness.
In response to
Less Wrong / Overcoming Bias meet-up groups
I love the idea of LW/OB meetups.
In fact I showed up for one listed in NYC at Georgia's Bake Shop (corner of 89th st and Broadway) but no one else did :(
Sorry we missed you! Last week we had to change locations (Georgia's Bake Shop has become too small) and at the moment we are still looking for a suitable venue for general gatherings. Are you subscribed to the mailing list? Please do!
Also, you mentioned the meeting place is "listed"... do you mean somewhere here on the main blog or on the Wiki? I was wondering if people were using the wiki to list meetup groups/locations, so we can prevent such difficulties as you experienced.
In response to
The Value of Nature and Old Books
It seems to me that one good reason to do so is that for all the ways that these works have been analyzed and surpassed in the intervening years, the reader can be sure that what is written there is not the product of manipulation by the forces that are at work in the reader's own time and place. So it represents another way to gain valuable freedom and distance.
Outside of learning about the context/history of some field of thought, I think that's the general reason people give for recommending "classic" works of nonfiction.
Older works can also differ in their presentation, which can make them more interesting. You bring up Euclid, so I feel I'm free to mention I really, really wish I'd learnt Calculus from a high-level text like Courant, instead of Stewart and Sallas+Hille+Etgen. I would've have become more enthusiastic about math much earlier. (Maybe. Ah, counterfactuals.)
In response to
Near and far skills
I agree with you, it's a superstimulus. Nowadays information is cheap and abundant(Internet) and since we are wired to seek information we are constantly chasing after the next bit. It's a coincidence, but before reading this article I was thinking about how the internet was supposed to make life easier since it makes all this information available for everyone. But the contrary has become true: now people waste countless hours chasing after meaningless(as in not applied in practice) stuff. The solution? Purposeful disconnect yourself and choose to practice whatever skills you want to improve. This is also advocated in some books, Tim Ferriss in his "4 hour work week" advises on minimizing email time etc... I know, I know, it's easier said than done.
There's a good point: part of the general issue is whether the information we're acquiring is relevant. Feedback from doing (whether procedural or propositional) is probably more relevant to the task you're trying to accomplish than information gleaned from a broad search, like reading newspapers, etc--and experience can greatly help to establish just how important the information is.
In response to
Near and far skills
Sounds like main problem in the examples you give is overconfidence about our ability to transform propositional knowledge into procedural knowledge.
Overweighting the propositional knowledge we have beforehand can cause us to discount ignore important information that we might pick up by doing--it can inhibit our ability to be empirical through the mechanisms of familiar biases. Planning fallacies, and problems of being unable to respond to unforseen circumstances--or recognize opportunity!--can come soon after.
Seems similar to the distinction Taleb makes between 'Practitioners' and 'Theorists', actually. I tend to be of the Not yet! I don't know enough! group, so this summer I've been trying to find ways to encourage myself to be more of a practitioner than a theorist in certain domains of life.
My problem was more an emotional need to know as much as I can about the task and the context of the task before executing, or even practicing. I think this is a "nerd" tendency. Even excluding the epistemological pitfalls there is an opportunity cost for putting something off until later that needs to be part of the calculation.
In response to
New Haven/Yale Less Wrong Meetup: 5 pm, Monday October 12
Interesting. I have a friend at Yale (Neuro/Psych) who doesn't read this blog, but expressed interest in the Summit. I'll send this info over to him; thanks!
In response to
Rationality Quotes - June 2009
I have suspected that history, real history, is more modest and that its essential dates may be, for a long time, secret. A Chinese prose writer has observed that the unicorn, because of its own anomaly, will pass unnoticed. Our eyes see what they are accustomed to seeing.
--Jorge Luis Borges
In response to
With whom shall I diavlog?
what i'd actually like to see would be Robin Hanson v Mencius Moldbug
I would like to see Mencius Moldbug versus...
...Mencius Moldbug.
Not for insight or informational content, but perhaps as a sort of Théâtre de l'Absurde.
I think Robin has been right in not wasting his time further.
= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d){kind=logo}
Meetup listing in Wiki? MBlume created a great Google Calendar for meetups. How about some sort of rudimentary meetup "register" in the LW Wiki? I volunteer to help with this if people think it's a good idea. Thoughts? Objections?
ETA: The GCal is great for presenting some information, but I think something like a Wiki page might be more flexible. I'm especially curious to hear opinions from people who are organizing regular meetups, how that's going, and interest in maintaining a Wiki page.
ETA++: AndrewKemendo has a more complex, probably more useful idea that I passed over in my overcaffeinated eagerness.