(Co-authored with Sailor Vulcan) Follows from: What Do We Mean by Rationality? No Really, Why Aren't Rationalists Winning? Related resources: Inadequate Equilibria Instrumental Rationality sequence How the ‘Magic: The Gathering’ Color Wheel Explains Humanity What’s Going On Here? As I was growing up, I could tell that something critical was missing from many of the adults that I encountered, and from the way society as a whole functioned. People regularly made decisions that seemed obviously stupid, and the institutions they built were little better. When I eventually learned of others who agreed that society was doing a poor job of addressing problems, I was relieved, but still puzzled that nobody had managed to fix the situation yet. As I learned the basics of rationality, I became more confused. People had created formalized methods for making better decisions based on understanding how systems and logic worked, which was amazing. However, not only had these methods failed to become the default standard of human adulthood, not only were they not used to guide policy decisions in the public and private sectors, but the methods were obscure. Barely anybody knew they existed. The world rationalists said they wanted was nowhere in sight. I concluded that there had to be more to implementing effective policies and institutions than just knowing how things worked. If I wanted to solve any important problems like that, I would have to develop other skills. Since all I had was the proverbial hammer of understanding ideas and mechanisms, I embarked on a journey to hammer out an understanding of skills. I asked myself, what do I need to do to build the world I expect? A look at the people who seemed to be the ones building the world prompted further questions: Why are non-rationalists having so much more impact than rationalists? What skills are they applying that rationalists aren’t? And how do these non-rationalists successfully learn and apply skills they d