SlateStarCodex, EA, and LW helped me get out of the psychological, spiritual, political nonsense in which I was mired for a decade or more.

I started out feeling a lot smarter. I think it was community validation + the promise of mystical knowledge.

Now I've started to feel dumber. Probably because the lessons have sunk in enough that I catch my own bad ideas and notice just how many of them there are. Worst of all, it's given me ambition to do original research. That's a demanding task, one where you have to accept feeling stupid all the time.

But I still look down that old road and I'm glad I'm not walking down it anymore.

Epistemic activism

I think LW needs better language to talk about efforts to "change minds." Ideas like asymmetric weapons and the Dark Arts are useful but insufficient.

In particular, I think there is a common scenario where:

• You have an underlying commitment to open-minded updating and possess evidence or analysis that would update community beliefs in a particular direction.
• You also perceive a coordination problem that inhibits this updating process for a reason that the mission or values of the group do not endorse.
  • Perhaps the outcome of the update would be a decline in power and status for high-status people. Perhaps updates in general can feel personally or professionally threatening to some people in the debate. Perhaps there's enough uncertainty in what the overall community believes that an information cascade has taken place. Perhaps the epistemic heuristics used by the community aren't compatible with the form of your evidence or analysis.
• Solving this coordination problem to permit open-minded updating is difficult due to lack of understanding or resources, or by sabotage attempts.

When solving the coordination problem would predictably lead to updating, then you are engaged... (read more)

Things I come to LessWrong for:

• An outlet and audience for my own writing
• Acquiring tools of good judgment and efficient learning
• Practice at charitable, informal intellectual argument
• Distraction
• A somewhat less mind-killed politics

Cons: I'm frustrated that I so often play Devil's advocate, or else make up justifications for arguments under the principle of charity. Conversations feel profit-oriented and conflict-avoidant. Overthinking to the point of boredom and exhaustion. My default state toward books and people is bored skepticism and political suspicion. I'm less playful than I used to be.

Pros: My own ability to navigate life has grown. My imagination feels almost telepathic, in that I have ideas nobody I know has ever considered, and discover that there is cutting edge engineering work going on in that field that I can be a part of, or real demand for the project I'm developing. I am more decisive and confident than I used to be. Others see me as a leader.

Chemistry trick

Once you've learned to visualize, you can employ my chemistry trick to learn molecular structures. Here's the structure of Proline (from Sigma Aldrich's reference).

Before I learned how to visualize, I would try to remember this structure by "flashing" the whole 2D representation in my head, essentially trying to see a duplicate of the image above in my head.

Now, I can do something much more engaging and complex.

I visualize the molecule as a landscape, and myself as standing on one of the atoms. For example, perhaps I start by standing on the oxygen at the end of the double bond.

I then take a walk around the molecule. Different bonds feel different - a single bond is a path, a double bond a ladder, and a triple bond is like climbing a chain-link fence. From each new atomic position, I can see where the other atoms are in relation to me. As I walk around, I get practice in recalling which atom comes next in my path.

As you can imagine, this is a far more rich and engaging form of mental practice than just trying to reproduce static 2D images in my head.

A few years ago, I felt myself to have almost no ability to visualize. Now, I am able to do this with relative ease. So... (read more)

Math is training for the mind, but not like you think

Just a hypothesis:

People have long thought that math is training for clear thinking. Just one version of this meme that I scooped out of the water:

“Mathematics is food for the brain,” says math professor Dr. Arthur Benjamin. “It helps you think precisely, decisively, and creatively and helps you look at the world from multiple perspectives . . . . [It’s] a new way to experience beauty—in the form of a surprising pattern or an elegant logical argument.”

But math doesn't obviously seem to be the only way to practice precision, decision, creativity, beauty, or broad perspective-taking. What about logic, programming, rhetoric, poetry, anthropology? This sounds like marketing.

As I've studied calculus, coming from a humanities background, I'd argue it differently.

Mathematics shares with a small fraction of other related disciplines and games the quality of unambiguous objectivity. It also has the ~unique quality that you cannot bullshit your way through it. Miss any link in the chain and the whole thing falls apart.

It can therefore serve as a more reliable signal, to self and others, of one's own learning capacity.

Experiencing a subject like that can be training for the mind, because becoming successful at it requires cultivating good habits of study and expectations for coherence.

What gives LessWrong staying power?

On the surface, it looks like this community should dissolve. Why are we attracting bread bakers, programmers, stock market investors, epidemiologists, historians, activists, and parents?

Each of these interests has a community associated with it, so why are people choosing to write about their interests in this forum? And why do we read other people's posts on this forum when we don't have a prior interest in the topic?

Rationality should be the art of general intelligence. It's what makes you better at everything. If practice is the wood and nails, then rationality is the blueprint. 

To determine whether or not we're actually studying rationality, we need to check whether or not it applies to everything. So when I read posts applying the same technique to a wide variety of superficially unrelated subjects, it confirms that the technique is general, and helps me see how to apply it productively.

This points at a hypothesis, which is that general intelligence is a set of defined, generally applicable techniques. They apply across disciplines. And they apply across problems within disciplines. So why aren't they generally known and appreciated? Sh... (read more)

School teaches terrible reading habits.

When you're assigned 30 pages of a textbook, the diligent students read them, then move on to other things. A truly inquisitive person would struggle to finish those 30 pages, because there are almost certainly going to be many more interesting threads they want to follow within those pages.

As a really straightforward example, let's say you commit to reading a review article on cell senescence. Just forcing your way through the paper, you probably won't learn much. What will make you learn is looking at the citations as you go.

I love going 4 layers deep. I try to understand the mechanisms that underpin the experiments that generated the data that informed the facts that inform the theories that the review article is covering. When I do this, it suddenly transforms the review article from dry theory to something that's grounded in memories of data and visualizations of experiments. I have a "simulated lived experience" to map onto the theory. It becomes real. 

There are many software tools for study, learning, attention programming, and memory prosthetics.

• Flashcard apps (Anki)
• Iterated reading apps (Supermemo)
• Notetaking and annotation apps (Roam Research)
• Motivational apps (Beeminder)
• Time management (Pomodoro)
• Search (Google Scholar)
• Mnemonic books (Matuschak and Nielsen's "Quantum Country")
• Collaborative document editing (Google Docs)
• Internet-based conversation (Internet forums)
• Tutoring (Wyzant)
• Calculators, simulators, and programming tools (MATLAB)

These complement analog study tools, such as pen and paper, textbooks, worksheets, and classes.

These tools tend to keep the user's attention directed outward. They offer useful proxy metrics for learning: getting through 20 flashcards per day, completing N Pomodoros, getting through the assigned reading pages, turning in the homework.

However, these proxy metrics, like any others, are vulnerable to streetlamp effects and Goodharting.

Before we had this abundance of analog and digital knowledge tools, scholars relied on other ways to tackle problems. They built memory palaces, visualized, looked for examples in the world around them, invented approximations, and talked to themselves. They relied on t... (read more)

Thoughts on cheap criticism

It's OK for criticism to be imperfect. But the worst sort of criticism has all five of these flaws:

1. Prickly: A tone that signals a lack of appreciation for the effort that's gone in to presenting the original idea, or shaming the presenter for bringing it up.
2. Opaque: Making assertions or predictions without any attempt at specifying a contradictory gears-level model, evidence basis, even on the level of anecdote or fiction.
3. Nitpicky: Attacking the one part of the argument that seems flawed, without arguing for how the full original argument should be reinterpreted in light of the local disagreement.
4. Disengaged: Not signaling any commitment to continue the debate to mutual satisfaction, or even to listen to/read and respond to a reply.
5. Shallow: An obvious lack of engagement with the details of the argument or evidence originally offered.

I am absolutely guilty of having delivered Category 5 criticism, the worst sort of cheap shots.

There is an important tradeoff here. If standards are too high for critical commentary, it can chill debate and leave an impression that either nobody cares, everybody's on board, or the argument's simply correct. Sometimes, an idea ca... (read more)

A "Nucleation" Learning Metaphor

Nucleation is the first step in forming a new phase or structure. For example, microtubules are hollow cylinders built from individual tubulin proteins, which stack almost like bricks. Once the base of the microtubule has come together, it's easy to add more tubulin to the microtubule. But assembling the base - the process of nucleation - is slow without certain helper proteins. These catalyze the process of nucleation by binding and aligning the first few tubulin proteins.

What does learning have in common with nucleation? When we learn from written sources, like textbooks or a lecture, the main sensory input we experience is typically a continuous flow of words and images. All these words and phrases are like "information monomers." Achieving a synthetic understanding of the material is akin to the growth of larger structures, the "microtubules." Exposing ourselves to more and more of a teacher's words or textbook pages does increase the "information monomer concentration" in our minds, and makes a process of spontaneous nucleation more likely.

At some point, synthesis just happens if we keep at it long enough, the same way that nucleation and the gr... (read more)

Personal evidence for the impact of stress on cognition. This is my Lichess ranking on Blitz since January. The two craters are, respectively, the first 4 weeks of the term, and the last 2 weeks. It begins trending back up immediately after I took my last final.

Thinking, Fast and Slow was the catalyst that turned my rumbling dissatisfaction into the pursuit of a more rational approach to life. I wound up here. After a few years, what do I think causes human irrationality? Here's a listicle.

1. Cognitive biases, whatever these are
2. Not understanding statistics
3. Akrasia
4. Little skill in accessing and processing theory and data
5. Not speaking science-ese
6. Lack of interest or passion for rationality
7. Not seeing rationality as a virtue, or even seeing it as a vice.
8. A sense of futility, the idea that epistemic rationality is not very useful, while instrumental rationality is often repugnant
9. A focus on associative thinking
10. Resentment
11. Not putting thought into action
12. Lack of incentives for rational thought and action itself
13. Mortality
14. Shame
15. Lack of time, energy, ability
16. An accurate awareness that it's impossible to distinguish tribal affiliation and culture from a community
17. Everyone is already rational, given their context
18. Everyone thinks they're already rational, and that other people are dumb
19. It's a good heuristic to assume that other people are dumb
20. Rationality is disruptive, and even very "progressive" people have a conservative bias to stay the same, conform with their pee

Are rationalist ideas always going to be offensive to just about everybody who doesn’t self-select in?

One loved one was quite receptive to Chesterton’s Fence the other day. Like, it stopped their rant in the middle of its tracks and got them on board with a different way of looking at things immediately.

On the other hand, I routinely feel this weird tension. Like to explain why I think as I do, I‘d need to go through some basic rational concepts. But I expect most people I know would hate it.

I wish we could figure out ways of getting this stuff across that was fun,  made it seem agreeable and sensible and non-threatening.

Less negativity - we do sooo much critique. I was originally attracted to LW partly as a place where I didn’t  feel obligated to participate in the culture war. Now, I do, just on a set of topics that I didn’t associate with the CW before LessWrong.

My guess? This is totally possible. But it needs a champion. Somebody willing to dedicate themselves to it. Somebody friendly, funny, empathic, a good performer, neat and practiced. And it needs a space for the educative process - a YouTube channel, a book, etc. And it needs the courage of its convictions. The sign of that? Not taking itself too seriously, being known by the fruits of its labors.

Markets are the worst form of economy except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.

I'm annoyed that I think so hard about small daily decisions.

Is there a simple and ideally general pattern to not spend 10 minutes doing arithmetic on the cost of making burritos at home vs. buying the equivalent at a restaurant? Or am I actually being smart somehow by spending the time to cost out that sort of thing?

Perhaps:

"Spend no more than 1 minute per $25 spent and 2% of the price to find a better product."

This heuristic cashes out to:

• Over a year of weekly $35 restaurant meals, spend about $35 and an hour and a half finding better restaurants or meal

Don't get confused - to attain charisma and influence, you need power first.

If you, like most people, would like to fit in, make friends easily, and project a magnetic personality, a natural place to turn is books like The Charisma Myth and How to Make Friends and Influence People.

If you read them, you'll get confused unless you notice that there's a pattern to their anecdotes. In all the success stories, the struggling main character has plenty of power and resources to achieve their goals. Their problem is that, somehow, they're not able to use that powe... (read more)

How I boosted my chess score by a shift of focus

For about a year, I've noticed that when I'm relaxed, I play chess better. But I wasn't ever able to quite figure out why, or how to get myself in that relaxed state. Now, I think I've done it, and it's stabilized my score on Lichess at around 1675 rather than 1575. That means I'm now evenly matched with opponents who'd previously have beaten me 64% of the time.

The trick is that I changed my visual relationship with the chessboard. Previously, I focused hard on the piece I was considering moving, almost as if... (read more)

We do things so that we can talk about it later.

I was having a bad day today. Unlikely to have time this weekend for something I'd wanted to do. Crappy teaching in a class I'm taking. Ever increasing and complicating responsibilities piling up.

So what did I do? I went out and bought half a cherry pie.

Will that cherry pie make me happy? No. I knew this in advance. Consciously and unconsciously: I had the thought, and no emotion compelled me to do it.

In fact, it seemed like the least-efficacious action: spending some of my limited money, to buy a pie I don't... (read more)

Make sentences easier to follow with the XYZ pattern

I hate the Z of Y of X pattern. This is a sentence style presents information in the wrong order for easy visualization. XYZ is the opposite, and presents information in the easiest way to track.

Here are some examples:

Z of Y of X: The increased length of the axon of the mouse

XYZ: The mouse's axon length increase

Z of Y of X: The effect of boiling of extract of ginger is conversion to zingerol of gingerol

XYZ: Ginger extract, when boiled, converts gingerol to zingerol.

Z of Y of X: The rise of the price of st... (read more)

From 2000-2015, we can see that life expectancy has been growing faster the higher your income bracket (source is Vox citing JAMA).

There's an angle to be considered in which this is disturbingly inequitable. That problem is even worse when considering the international inequities in life expectancy. So let's fund malaria bednets and vaccine research to help bring down malaria deaths from 600,000/year to zero  - or maybe support a gene drive to eliminate it once and for all.

At the same time, this seems like hopeful news for longevity research. If we we... (read more)

Telling people what they want to hear

When I adopt a protocol for use in one of my own experiments, I feel reassured that it will work in proportion to how many others have used it before. Likewise, I feel reassured that I'll enjoy a certain type of food depending on how popular it is.

By contrast, I don't feel particularly reassured by the popularity of an argument that it is true (or, at least, that I'll agree with it). I tend to think book and essays become popular in proportion to whether they're telling their audience what they want to hear.

One problem ... (read more)