patrissimo

Eliezer Yudkowsky Facts

Eliezer Yudkowsky's keyboard only has two keys: 1 and 0.

Replying toEliezer Yudkowsky Facts

Eliezer Yudkowsky Facts

The speed of light used to be much lower before Eliezer Yudkowsky optimized the laws of physics.

Replying toEliezer Yudkowsky Facts

Eliezer Yudkowsky Facts

Eliezer Yudkowsky doesn't have a chin, underneath his beard is another brain.

Replying toReasons for being rational

Reasons for being rational

As a contrarian rationalist, I can assure you that my attitudes are the results of my personality & upbringing, not some bold brave conscious decision. I was always different, enough that conforming wouldn't have worked, so finding true & interesting & positive-attention-capturing ways to be different was my best path. The result is that I'm biased towards contrarian theses, which I think is useful for improving group rationality in most cases, but still isn't rational.

Replying toRational Reading: Thoughts On Prioritizing Books

I am starting to believe that Patri is motivated by status and worldly accomplishment much more than by learning or curiosity, and if Patri is indeed (as this article suggests) forgoing opportunities to take pleasure in learning for the sake of optimizing his increases in status or accomplishment, well, then even though Patri certainly is a fine and commendable young man, that is a mistake

Yes, I am indeed attempting to choose my reading based on how it supports my consciously chosen goals, rather than simply the vague non-goal of "learning" or short-term hedonic utility ("pleasure"). There is a name for this - it's called "instrumental rationality", and I'm rather surprised to... (read more)

Replying toRational Reading: Thoughts On Prioritizing Books

I use audio books / podcasts some, but I don't run, have a minimal commute, and so don't end up getting much time in.

Replying toRational Reading: Thoughts On Prioritizing Books

I'm pretty good at getting rid of the worst things, still trying to figure out what the best things are.

Replying toRational Reading: Thoughts On Prioritizing Books

I see, that makes sense. I find it easiest to prioritize within a domain like "books", vs. among all possible skill-increasing activities. Also, when it comes to "generally increasing my knowledge / improving my map", that is something that I think it makes sense to allocate a fixed bucket of time to, although one should also compare alternatives like documentaries, blogs, and conversations as ways of doing it.

Replying toVerifying Rationality via RationalPoker.com

Verifying Rationality via RationalPoker.com

I personally know many people who have made those figures in the past, although high-stakes online poker has gotten much tougher in the past few years and it takes extremely high skill to make that much now.

I have personally made about $240/hr at online poker ($200 NLH SNGs on Party Poker back before the UIGEA). But I couldn't make anywhere near that nowadays.

The danger of living a story - Singularity Tropes

15y

A large element of instrumental rationality consists of filtering, prioritizing, and focusing. It's true for tasks, for emails, for blogs, and for the multitude of other inputs that many of us are drowning in these days[1]. Doing everything, reading everything, commenting on everything is simply not an option - it would take infinite time. We could simply limit time and do what happens to catch our attention in that limited time, but that's clearly not optimal. Spending some time prioritizing rather than executing will always improve results if items can be prioritized and vary widely in benefit. So maximizing the results we get from our finite time requires, for a variety of... (read 1255 more words →)

Self-Improvement or Shiny Distraction: Why Less Wrong is anti-Instrumental Rationality

15y

The following should sound familiar:

A thoughtful and observant young protagonist dedicates their life to fighting a great world-threatening evil unrecognized by almost all of their short-sighted elders (except perhaps for one encouraging mentor), gathering a rag-tag band of colorful misfits along the way and forging them into a team by accepting their idiosyncrasies and making the most of their unique abilities, winning over previously neutral allies, ignoring those who just don't get it, obtaining or creating artifacts of great power, growing and changing along the way to become more powerful, fulfilling the potential seen by their mentors/supporters/early adopters, while becoming more human (greater empathy, connection, humility) as they collect resources to prepare... (read 716 more words →)

15y

Introduction

Less Wrong is explicitly intended is to help people become more rational. Eliezer has posted that rationality means epistemic rationality (having & updating a correct model of the world), and instrumental rationality (the art of achieving your goals effectively). Both are fundamentally tied to the real world and our performance in it - they are about ability in practice, not theoretical knowledge (except inasmuch as that knowledge helps ability in practice). Unfortunately, I think Less Wrong is a failure at instilling abilities-in-practice, and designed in a way that detracts from people's real-world performance.

It will take some time, and it may be unpleasant to hear, but I'm going to try to explain what... (read 4655 more words →)

261

157

Pascal's Pyramid Scheme

Anti-Akrasia Technique: Structured Procrastination

16y

Here's a little Sunday irreverence. Someone else has probably written this story before, and I'm sure the points have been made many times, but it popped into my head when I woke up and I thought it might be fun to write it out.

Last week I was walkin' along mindin' my own business when I met a Christian Minister, who asked me if I'd accepted Jesus as my Lord and Personal Saviour. "Why I sure think so", I responded, "But...what was that name again?". "Why, Jesus!" he answered, and began to launch into an account of this man's fascinatin' historical doin's, when I interrupted him.

"Funny you should mention it", I replied. "I... (read 818 more words →)

The Onion Goes Inside The Biased Mind

16y

This idea has been mentioned in several comments, but it deserves a top-level post. From an ancient, ancient web article (1995!), Stanford philosophy professor John Perry writes:

I have been intending to write this essay for months. Why am I finally doing it? Because I finally found some uncommitted time? Wrong. I have papers to grade, textbook orders to fill out, an NSF proposal to referee, dissertation drafts to read. I am working on this essay as a way of not doing all of those things. This is the essence of what I call structured procrastination, an amazing strategy I have discovered that converts procrastinators into effective human beings, respected and admired for all

... (read 694 more words →)

Image vs. Impact: Can public commitment be counterproductive for achievement?

17y

A great piece from The Onion, inside the mind of someone arguing emotionally: Oh, No! It's Making Well-Reasoned Arguments Backed With Facts! Run!

Pure genius.

Book: Psychiatry and the Human Condition

17y

The traditional wisdom says that publicly committing to a goal is a useful technique for accomplishment. It creates pressure to fulfill one's claims, lest one lose status. However, when the goal is related to one's identity, a recent study shows that public commitment may actually be counterproductive. Nyuanshin posts:

"Identity-related behavioral intentions that had been noticed by other people were translated into action less intensively than those that had been ignored. . . . when other people take notice of an individual's identity-related behavioral intention, this gives the individual a premature sense of possessing the aspired-to identity."

-- Gollwitzer at al (2009)
This empirical finding flies in the face of conventional wisdom about

... (read 867 more words →)

Individual Rationality Is a Matter of Life and Death

17y

I'm about half-way through this fascinating book, conveniently available for free online, which is at the intersection of psychiatry and evolutionary psychology. I don't have the time to do it justice, so I'm going to post a few choice excerpts here in the hope that those who are more prolific and insightful than I am will add further analysis.

Just to make sure it's clear how this all ties in to bias, I'll start with a bias-relevant section. The book ties delusional behavior in with the theory of consciousness as primarily existing for social intelligence purposes, and thus malfunctions in our reading of the social facts such as human intention are what cause... (read 1742 more words →)