All of P. João's Comments + Replies

Thanks Lucie Philippon! Follow the video

I'm grateful for your kind words, especially coming from someone who truly appreciates rationality. And that comment—"Your writing is more enjoyable than that of many native English speakers, and I am one"—is just so, so, so sweet!

Maybe my next story is going deeper into logos. Some about "How I Almost Got Arrested for Teaching CPR (And Why ‘Staying Alive’ Could Be Ironic)"—a.k.a. 
How to Save Lives & Offend Generals
 I've even got a video of my classes at the military school for you. Cheers, and thanks again for the encouragement!

Ben, my brother in chaos, you’re about to unlock Level 2 of my military lore. 

Training duration:

Imagine a Brazilian telenovela directed by Bear Grylls—1 year total, culminating in a final jungle camp (but with more mosquito-borne diseases).

Cast of characters:

Around 120 firefighters, split into four platoons.

My origin story:

I trained for nine years just to get in—which is ironic, considering I was an asthmatic allergic to:

• Pollen
• Military hierarchy
• Taking life seriously

But first—somes links to you:

That time I almost got arrested for teaching CPR:
 

Bec... (read more)

Thanks! My goal with this story was to talk about a time when I was running away from rationality. Back then, I thought the adrenaline of military life was the real deal—the peak of intensity. But looking back, it was nothing compared to the kind of thrill I get from tackling complex problems with mathematics.

here: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5XznvCufF5LK4d2Db/the-semi-rational-wildfirefighter 

Fascinating post. It reminds me of how the human brain can 'fake alignment' through self-deception—rationalizing actions to seem aligned with values while masking deeper misalignment. Could insights into LLM alignment help us understand and mitigate this kind of 'auto-corruption' in ourselves?

Curious if you've thought about parallels like this.

How often do we risk losing something important by assigning too high a priority to a bad vibe?

Personally, I try not to ignore any vibe or thought, but I also attempt to prioritize them by importance. Maybe I should start a 'bad vibes journal'—a record of every time I feel something off and then compare it to the actual outcomes. My sense is that I often misjudge, but without tracking it, I can’t really calibrate my accuracy.
 

when I first encountered Eliezer Yudkowsky, I actually had a bad vibe about him. If I’d followed that feeling, I would’ve missed out on learning from one of the authors who has helped me a lot.

Have you ever been completely wrong about a bad vibe? If so, what did you learn from it?

You make a very good point—there are different ways to create contrasts in information that are quickly recognized, and that’s how I’ve come to understand humor. The faster the brain recognizes the information, the higher the chance it triggers a sense of pleasure, or perhaps falls somewhere along a spectrum of pleasure tied to recognizing patterns or resolving contrasts.

I also agree that many jokes can reduce authority. They signal that someone is not a threat, that they lower themselves to gain acceptance, which is often done by people who aren’t strong ... (read more)

Thank you for your interest! My first idea for a post on LessWrong was actually about that—my journey from being a firefighter to discovering rationality. However, I hesitated because it felt very personal, and some of the most interesting parts of my story would be hard to verify. To summarize, I found myself unable to adapt to the "ethics" of the role, which eventually led me to leave and seek rationality as a way to rebuild my life. At the time, it felt like I had nothing left, as I had dedicated my entire life to becoming a firefighter.

Interestingly, t... (read more)

Hi! Thank you so much for your comment—it’s incredibly thoughtful and motivating. I couldn’t agree more that humor can be a powerful pedagogical tool, especially for topics like CPR, where emotions play a key role in memory retention. I also laughed at your line, “I first understood that as resuscitating people by telling them jokes. Like, when you laugh hard enough, your heart starts beating again.” 😂 Your humor actually helped me see the ambiguity in my explanation and understand where I might have made that part clearer.

In my case, as a former military... (read more)

Hey, as a friend, I know my bias could tilt things, but I've tried to analyze your work as independently as I can. I've thrown some crappy criticisms your way, along with (hopefully) a few useful ones. But, from the very first time you told me about this, I was like: wow! This solves some complex problems, I didn't even know existed.

Although I find the text inspiring and its principles interesting, I have some questions:

• How were these twelve virtues specifically identified?
• Is there a particular reason for this order, starting with curiosity and ending with emptiness?
• Are there any studies or practical experiences that support that these particular virtues are more effective than others in improving rational thinking?

I believe that having answers to these questions would significantly strengthen the argument and help in better implementing these virtues in practice.

Has anyone else reflected on these aspects?

It seems you’ve considered a lot of interesting variables, which would likely lower the overall probability.

Thank you for this insightful post! When discussing value distribution with my partners, we faced the challenge of fairly allocating contributions without precise knowledge of their impact. I proposed a solution: involving an external evaluator with business expertise but no direct access to the function. Their task was to predict value splits, and their reward was proportional to how accurate their estimates were compared to the final distribution.

This approach aimed to handle uncertainty while guiding team efforts strategically. It’s fascinating to see how Shapley values offer a theoretical foundation for such practical challenges.

What type of voice analysis do you use to minimize errors and potential biases? With each iteration of improvement, do you not notice any significant enhancements? Nothing at all?

I answered your email :)

Thank you for the suggestion! Offering coaching is indeed a great way to test and refine the framework. If anyone is interested, I’d be happy to provide free coaching sessions based on this method.

We have an initial evaluation form that can serve as a starting point, and I can guide participants through it. I only ask for some patience as my dyslexia can sometimes slow communication slightly.

If you're interested or know someone who might be, please feel free to contact me at sistemaestimat@gmail.com. Sharing your email would also help coordinate further.

Looking forward to exploring this opportunity!

Hi Matt Goldenberg,
I’m truly happy. In a world with so much information available, catching someone’s interest made me yell like a rooster.

I see that having more tested evidence would be ideal. Since 2013, I’ve been looking for ways to battle-test ESTIMAT. That year, I had to leave the military firefighting corps in Brazil because I disagreed with their "ethics," so to speak.

I decided to start a business, and at first, ESTIMAT was a way to distribute profits by merit in a company I started with a friend. We used an experience points (XP) system for this. A... (read more)

Thanks! I'm working on the text!

Thanks for the feedback, abstractapplic. You’re right—adding real-world examples could make the dialogue feel more grounded, so I'll focus on that in the revision.

The "Yolo" suggestion makes sense to capture the spirit of System 1 without unintended associations, so I’ll go with that.

Regarding Metaculus: it’s a good platform for practicing probabilistic thinking, but I think there might be value in a more structured self-evaluation to narrow down specific behaviors. Do you know of any frameworks that could help with that—maybe something inspired by Superfo... (read more)

Haha, sorry and thank you! Maybe now:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/WbQRxeCCmypgKrT7R/when-x-negotiatiates-with-y

Thank you so much for this insightful comment! Your words gave me just the encouragement I needed to go ahead with my post, and the references you mentioned were truly inspiring. Knowing about the tradition of using dialogues to explore complex ideas, from Gödel, Escher, Bach to Galileo’s Dialogue, helped me see the potential in this approach to reach different types of readers.

Thanks to your encouragement, I’ve now published my first post! I’d be thrilled to hear any feedback you have, as you so kindly offered. Here’s the link: When X Negotiates with Y. I hope you enjoy it, and thank you again for your support 😊.