Good article! I would appreciate more examples from the real life.

What impresses me is that this post not only argues persuasively for using LessWrong as social resource, but it has provided me with convenient links to many posts I otherwise would have missed that are pretty high-quality (both for choosing what to do with my life, and general quality).

Survey done, including digit ratio. And I learned something new.

But not particularly confident in the accuracy of my measurement.

Anything equally difficult should have equal payoff. Apparently. Clearly, this is not the world we live in.

[...]

(producing utility and its bastard cousin, money)

[...]

As instrumental rationalists, this is the territory we want to be in. We want to beat the market rate for turning effort into influence.

You are speaking my language. +1. I appreciate your style.

Reality is imbalanced. Video games and roleplaying games give people the impression that all options have pros and cons, and are roughly pretty equal: the Warrior is just about as powerful as the Wizard is just about as powerful as the Rogue. Real life doesn't work like this: intelligence and charisma are overpowered, and sometimes humanity finds exploits in the rules that let us send messages nigh-instantly around the world. (And when we do, reality doesn't fix the exploit; rather, society changes.)

I wish there was a table top game where everything was completely imbalanced and players are encouraged to break the mechanics as hard as they can (but be careful, because society at large may adopt whatever exploits are found, and the antagonists are trying to become really powerful too).

This begins to suggest the sunk cost fallacy may not really be a fallacy (sometimes).

I'm not sure I follow. Not all past costs are sunk, surely. But, in your example, if writing a second book gives you more influence than learning plumbing, then I don't see where the "sunk costs" (e.g. that you wrote a book once) come into the equation.

I don't nescessarily agree this happens in most media. Most superheros for example just have their powers for no reason (some "earn" them but most don't). In many stories if you are not born part-demon or a wizard you can never be something other than canonfodder. Even in stories where training is sueful people often get OP powers for no reason.

I actually think fiction overall presents being powerful as a two factor model. Hard work and unchangeable luck. In some domains the hard work dominates and in others the "genetic" stuff does. People randomly get very OP powers all the time in many anime (if you happen to eat a strong Logia or Lengendary Zoan fruit you are automatically very strong in One piece). the details might not match up but the two factor model is basically how skill works in the real world two. With the relative importance of the two factors differing per domain.

ec:

In harry Potter you cannot be "Strong" unless you are born a wizard. There is no getting around this. In the real world you cannot be a good mathematician with an IQ of 80. This is no way around this either.

(My first post. I don't know if it's good enough for Main, but I thought I'd go for it. If you don't think so, move it and/or let me know.)

I would appreciate any feedback too!

What I enjoy most about this, after getting past the odd fictional conceit, is its sheer scope - I haven't seen imagination on this scale in a long time, and I miss it.

Thank you, Eliezer.

Now we have to get to work.

Upvoted before reading past the summary for sheer bravery.

Anyone that know's me knows that I'm quite familiar with the dark arts. I've even used hypnosis to con Christians into Atheism a half dozen times. The tempting idea is that dark arts can be used for good - and that the ends justify the means. I've since changed my mind.

The thing is, even though I don't advocate dark arts for persuasion let alone rationality, I almost entirely agree with the actions you advocate. I just disagree strongly with the frame through which you look at them.

For example, I am heavily into what you call "changing terminal goals", however I disagree that I'm changing terminal goals. If I recognize that pursuing instrumental goal A for sake of "terminal" goal B is the best way to achieve goal B, I'll self modify in the way you describe. I'll also do that thing you frame as "being inconsistent" where I make sure to notice if chasing goal A is no longer the best way to achieve goal B, I self modify to stop chasing goal A. If you make sure to remember that step, goals are not sticky. You chase goal A "for its own sake" iff it is the best way to achieve goal B. That's what instrumental goals are.

The way I see it, the difference in motivation comes not from "terminal vs instrumental", but from how you're focusing your attention. In what you call "instrumental" mode, you aren't focusing solely on your instrumental goal. You're trying to work on your instrumental goal while you keep glancing over at your terminal goal. That's distracting, and of course it doesn't work well. If it's a long term goal of course you don't see immediate improvements - and so of course you lose motivation. What you call "hacking my goals to be terminal" I call "realizing at a gut level that in order to get what I want, I need to focus on this instrumental goal without expecting immediate results on my terminal goal"

But there are also downsides to allowing yourself to "fool yourself". In particular, through that frame, the thought is "it's false, but so what? It's useful!". That stops curiosity dead when you should be asking the question "if it's false, why is it so useful? Where's the mutual information that allows it to function as a control system?" and "what true beliefs do better?".

For example, your "nothing is beyond my grasp" belief. It's empowering, sure. Just because you recognize that it isn't technically true doesn't mean you should deprive yourself of that empowerment - of course. However, lying isn't necessary for that empowerment. The problem isn't that you believe you're defeat-able. The problem is that you fear failure. So instead of focusing on the task at hand, you keep glancing over at the possibility of failure when you should be keeping your eyes on the road. One of the big take home lessons from studying hypnotism is that It's always about direction of attention. Strip away the frames and motivations and look at where the attention is.

My version or your empowering belief is (to try to crudely translate into words) "I want to succeed. I might not, and if I don't, it will be truly disappointing. And that's okay. And even though I might fail, I might not and that would be truly amazing. So I'm going to throw myself at it without looking back". And my version is better. My version is more stable under assault.

My wrestling coach would spout the cliche "If you can't believe you'll win, you wont!". If I had bought into that, the moment reality slaps me in the face I'd lose grasp of my delusion and crumble. Instead, I laughed at the idea. I went into matches already accepting defeat and focusing on winning anyway - and it allowed me to win a few matches that no one thought I could possibly win.

I probably couldn't stop noticing that it was in fact one unlucky rabbit.

A rabbit's footprint, maybe.