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All of Chaeris's Comments + Replies

Wisdom for Smart Teens - my talk at SPARC 2014
Chaeris00

In exchange of your knowledge, I think I should add that I know of a website ( http://stumbleupon.com ), where you can specify your "interests" from a list, and pressing a button brings you a page on the subject (relatively recent, so that you don't get a false or outdated information).

I have found already many texts of the same quality as here on the pages I read (currently ~50K), and I believe you could greatly benefit from using this website. You should just be cautious about what I call "infected interests" : they sound appealing, ... (read more)

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Wisdom for Smart Teens - my talk at SPARC 2014
Chaeris00

Well thank you very much ! And sorry for taking some of your time (to find out which article to give me).

I've got quite a lot of reading now (I figured out already that many articles are wrote in response or in reference to yet an older article that you need to read first, and I started training speed reading for that matter). You don't really have any "responsability", as being on this website was already the right choice for me, and I think I would probably eventually stumble upon those articles that you pointed out (I just feared that, not finding the specific important articles, I'd stop reading Less Wrong out of interest).

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0Chaeris
In exchange of your knowledge, I think I should add that I know of a website ( http://stumbleupon.com ), where you can specify your "interests" from a list, and pressing a button brings you a page on the subject (relatively recent, so that you don't get a false or outdated information). I have found already many texts of the same quality as here on the pages I read (currently ~50K), and I believe you could greatly benefit from using this website. You should just be cautious about what I call "infected interests" : they sound appealing, like "Psychology" (note : I am not sure Psychology is one of them, just check). But their content is filled with basic or unsupported claims that make the whole "interest" not suitable for learning and often annoying (like you could find "The 10 Most Bizzarre Signs That You're A Psychopath", hence why you would unsubscribe from the interest "Psychology" : because it's just clickbaits). I currently have subscribed to more than 50 interests (math, physics, biology, sociology, archaelogy, nanotechnology... some of them are slight variations, like biotechnology and bio engineering), and I sometimes have trouble counting the amount of different informations of all kinds I have seen in one day.
Wisdom for Smart Teens - my talk at SPARC 2014
Chaeris30

Hello, this is my first post on this website, I am currently sixteen. So to help me discover the concept of this website better, I would like someone to point me to recent posts considered as "important" by you (this is always purely objective, I think). Since you wrote you wish you had known about Less Wrong when you were 15/16, I think you were unconsciously talking about several particular things you've seen, and watching them could help me.

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5MathiasZaman
Welcome to Less Wrong. You've given me quite a responsibility here and I'm not sure if I'm qualified as the Less Wrong Ambassador for Smart Teens. This probably deserves a thread of its own. Anyway, I'll give it my best shot. The Sequences are often considered the main point of entrance for Less Wrong. I don't quite agree (I wouldn't have read all of that when I was 16, I'm sure), but if you can stomach it: best start reading now. Another point of entry is [Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality], which is more accessible but the style isn't for everyone. If you read very quickly, you might be able to catch up before the finale. Here are a couple of Less Wrong posts I'd wish I read when I was about your age: * Tsuyoku Naritai! (I Want To Become Stronger) * Scope Insensitivity * http://lesswrong.com/lw/i2/two_more_things_to_unlearn_from_school/ * Making Beliefs Pay Rent (in Anticipated Experiences) * Absence of Evidence Is Evidence of Absence * Planning Fallacy * Something to Protect * If You Demand Magic, Magic Won't Help Alright. That should be enough to get your started for now. I'll think it over more and maybe (but know that I'm extremely prone to procrastination) I'll start a Discussion thread on this sort of introductory material. The main thing I want you to learn from Less Wrong, to start with, is that you should do more than what is required of you. If you're even slightly intelligent or clever, school will not push you. Your friends will not push you. Your parents will not push you. People will be content with only a bare minimum of your actual capabilities. It's up to you to reach your full potential. Don't count on external sources to do this for you.
0negamuhia
The core ideas in LW come from the Major Sequences. You can start there, reading posts in each sequence sequentially.