This is the public group instrumental rationality diary for the week of July 23rd. It's a place to record and chat about it if you have done, or are actively doing, things like:
- Established a useful new habit
- Obtained new evidence that made you change your mind about some belief
- Decided to behave in a different way in some set of situations
- Optimized some part of a common routine or cached behavior
- Consciously changed your emotions or affect with respect to something
- Consciously pursued new valuable information about something that could make a big difference in your life
- Learned something new about your beliefs, behavior, or life that surprised you
- Tried doing any of the above and failed
Or anything else interesting which you want to share, so that other people can think about it, and perhaps be inspired to take action themselves. Try to include enough details so that everyone can use each other's experiences to learn about what tends to work out, and what doesn't tend to work out.
Thanks to everyone who contributes!
Today at work my co-workers gave me what I consider to be one of the greatest compliments I've ever received in my life and possibly evidence of my success as an aspiring rationalist. It was something like, "You're like a robot or a computer, it is impossible to get you to change your opinion unless someone gives you data."
My 1st thought was, Wow! Isn't that how it is supposed to be? Shouldn't everyone be that way?
She went on to talk about her own skepticism of data, which is itself data that should be taken into account, I should have gone on to say. It is a huge problem here in China where all of the data is heavily biased, filtered, and controlled by the government.