All of Will_Euler's Comments + Replies

The cover makes me less likely to send the link to a friend not familiar with the content.

I also don't want to have to explain the first thing my students will see if/when I offer the link to my critical thinking class.

1Paul Crowley
I've replaced the image in both the MOBI and EPub editions with something more sober.
0Paul Crowley
I agree. Please supply alternate cover and I'll produce a new edition. Thanks!

Thank you. I find this valuable.

However, I personally find the cover distasteful, even though it is obviously meant to be in jest.

I think it is better to avoid any hint of the trappings of religion or Eliezer as the great prophet.

I have personally encountered people who are sympathetic to Eliezer's ideas but are wary because of the pattern-matching going on that makes them think "potentially dangerous cult leader". The cover doesn't help that problem; in fact, it perpetuates it--whatever the content of the document.

As we know from presidential politics, impressions matter, even or maybe especially when they are superficial.

This quote was written in 1965 by a psychoanalyst, so I don't even know if they had the same diagnostic criteria for Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder that they do today. He's talking about "styles" of behavior. Based on a little searching, it seems to me that a preoccupation with rules is characteristic of what is called Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder. As is so often the case, there's a broad spectrum from quirky behavior to personality disorder.

What makes it a disorder is if it is interferring with your enjoyment of life. It is irrationa... (read more)

-2roland
talk therapy doesn't work see "House of Cards" by Robyn Dawes. Instead use CBT cognitive behavioral therapy. The cognitive part is understanding that your rituals/behavior are irrational and the behavioral part is actually acting on that understanding against the subjective pull to do otherwise. Good advice on the latter can be found in the link below, with video: http://www.ocduk.org/2/foursteps.htm
1MixedNuts
The problem is not to muster the courage to break rules, it's to decide what to do when you don't have relevant rules.

"When he is confronted by the necessity for a decision, even one which may be trivial from a normal standpoint, the obsessive-compulsive person will typically attempt to reach a solution by invoking some rule, principle, or external requirement which might, with some degree of plausibility, provide a "right" answer....If he can find some principle or external requirement which plausibly applies to the situation at hand, the necessity for a decision disappears as such; that is, it becomes transformed into the purely technical problem of apply... (read more)

3MixedNuts
Please post anything there might be on how to deal with that. I'm exactly like that, and my rules often break down and then I'm unable to decide. I've known someone else like that. She made rules about food because it made it easier to decide what to eat. Could you also post the cites on why "obsessive-compulsive"? Neither I nor the other person have an OCD diagnosis or seem to match the criteria. Any OCD LWers want to chip in?

The ideas below would probably work best for focused discussion on certain specific issues (e.g. reasons for hard takeoff, threat from nanotechnological disasters), but I think what I say below is relevant to rationalist training.

I personally often find that simple freeflowing discussion can be less than optimally effective. I often wish there was a more organized way to focus discussion to get maximum skill development. I'm afraid I'm not aware of research into refinements of general discussion designed to improve knowledge and skill acquisition.

Here are ... (read more)

I'm also keen to find out what role hypnosis can play in optimizing one's life. Based on its effectiveness at reducing chronic pain and helping people to quit smoking it seems like there could be real benefits to employing hypnosis.

At first I was thinking of more lifestyle benefits but now that I think about it there could be real benefits in hypnotically inducing people to do things like seek to be accurate or to consider the opposite. I've never seen post-hypnotic rationality-training studied but it would certainly be interesting to experiment with it if you could get someone. Seems like little downside, some possible upside anyway. Even a null result would be interesting.

I'm interested in doing this. I live in NYC.

-1xamdam
Hi Will, the 2 NYCers interested in the PTLOS will be at this: http://www.meetup.com/Less-Wrong-Overcoming-Bias-NYC in case you're interested.
0xamdam
+1 for NYC.

We read frequently if unknowingly, in quest of a mind more original than our own.

--Harold Bloom

2Will_Euler
I recommend the "Prologue: Why Read?" from Bloom's book How to Read and Why. http://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Why-Harold-Bloom/dp/product-description/0684859076

Let's say someone (today, given present technology) has the goal of achieving rational self-insight into one's thinking processes and the goal of being happy. You have suggested (in conversation) such a person might find himself in an "unhappy valley" insofar as he is not perfectly rational. If someone today -- using current hedonic/positive psychology --undertakes a program to be as happy as possible, what role would rational self-insight play in that program?

How does the goal of acquiring self-knowledge (for current humans) relate to the goal of happiness (insofar as such a goal can be isolated)?

If one aimed to be as rational as possible, how would this help someone (today) become happy? You have suggested (in conversation) that there might be a tradeoff such that those who are not perfectly rational might exist in an "unhappy valley". Can you explain this phenomenon, including how one could find themselves in such a valley (and how they might get out)? How much is this term meant to indicate an anal... (read more)

While I find I have benefitted a great deal from reading posts on OB/LW, I also feel that, given the intellectual abilities of the people involved, the site does not function as an optimally effective way to acquire the art of rationality. I agree that the wiki is a good step in the right direction, but if one of the main goals of LW is to train people to think rationally, I think LW could do more to provide resources for allowing people to bootstrap themselves up from wherever they are to master levels of rationality.

So I ask: What are the optimal softwar... (read more)

2FrankAdamek
I think this is a great idea. I'm aware of one simple technology which uses spaced repetition (items you remember or "get correct" taking longer to reappear, for optimal learning), is pre-existing and would be easy to use, which is that of flash card programs. There are a number of free ones out there, two of the best that I found are: Mnemosyne and Anki. I have been using Anki for about half a year now for learning vocabulary (largely for the GRE) and am very happy with it, wish I had discovered such programs earlier. While they're pre-existing and easy to use (and to share and add "cards"), two imperfections stand out. First, I'm not aware of any functionality that lets you actually select an answer. You could look at the question and possible answers and then pick one mentally, but the "answer side" couldn't be customized to the selection you made. Secondly, you of course wouldn't be able to calibrate the questions to your level as the program won't know what you answered. You're able to select to repeat an item very soon, or after short, medium or long intervals (relative to how many times you've answered correctly, by your own scoring), but it's not quite the same. I might be wrong and some existing flash card program might allow for the selection of answers. Or perhaps more promising Anki is open-source, so perhaps with only a bit of work we could build a quiz-version.
6wedrifid
Worth a top level post.