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“I don’t care about this instance - I don’t care about any instances! Life is too short to care about anything but the general case!” Yes, the general case is drawn from instances, I’m saying that we shouldn't get caught up in the details unless they really matter. And if...
A large element of instrumental rationality consists of filtering, prioritizing, and focusing. It's true for tasks, for emails, for blogs, and for the multitude of other inputs that many of us are drowning in these days[1]. Doing everything, reading everything, commenting on everything is simply not an option - it...
The following should sound familiar: A thoughtful and observant young protagonist dedicates their life to fighting a great world-threatening evil unrecognized by almost all of their short-sighted elders (except perhaps for one encouraging mentor), gathering a rag-tag band of colorful misfits along the way and forging them into a team...
Introduction Less Wrong is explicitly intended is to help people become more rational. Eliezer has posted that rationality means epistemic rationality (having & updating a correct model of the world), and instrumental rationality (the art of achieving your goals effectively). Both are fundamentally tied to the real world and our...
Here's a little Sunday irreverence. Someone else has probably written this story before, and I'm sure the points have been made many times, but it popped into my head when I woke up and I thought it might be fun to write it out. Last week I was walkin' along...
This idea has been mentioned in several comments, but it deserves a top-level post. From an ancient, ancient web article (1995!), Stanford philosophy professor John Perry writes: > I have been intending to write this essay for months. Why am I finally doing it? Because I finally found some uncommitted...
A great piece from The Onion, inside the mind of someone arguing emotionally: Oh, No! It's Making Well-Reasoned Arguments Backed With Facts! Run! Pure genius.