Raemon

Feedbackloop-first Rationality

I've been workshopping a new rationality training paradigm. (By "rationality training paradigm", I mean an approach to learning/teaching the skill of "noticing what cognitive strategies are useful, and getting better at them.") I think the paradigm has promise. I've beta-tested it for a couple weeks. It’s too early to tell if it actually works, but one of my primary goals is to figure out if it works relatively quickly, and give up if it isn’t not delivering. The goal of this post is to: * Convey the framework * See if people find it compelling in its current form * Solicit ideas for improvements, before I decide whether to invest heavily into a larger experiment around it. Rationality needs better feedback loops Claim: Feedback loops are the most important thing ever. Hard things are hard because they have bad feedback loops. Some of the most important things (e.g. x-risk mitigation research) have the worst feedback loops. Bold prediction: You can learn to think better, even about confusing, poor-feedback domains. This requires developing the art of inventing feedback loops. And then, actually putting in a lot of deliberate practice effort. I've long been haunted by this Romeo Stevens comment (slightly paraphrased)[1] > Deliberate practice deliberate practice until you get really good identifying good feedback loops, and working with them. > > People have a really hard time with interventions often because they literally do not have a functioning causal model of the skill in question. People who apply deliberate practice to a working causal model often level up astonishingly quickly. Don't know if you have the appropriate causal model? Well, when you apply deliberate practice do you not get better? You're pulling on fake levers. In the past, I've tried to practice thinking. I've done explicit puzzle-solving exercises, and I have a day job that forces me to think about challenging questions on a regular basis.

209Aug 7, 2023

Raemon

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LessWrong team member / moderator. I've been a LessWrong organizer since 2011, with roughly equal focus on the cultural, practical and intellectual aspects of the community. My first project was creating the Secular Solstice and helping groups across the world run their own version of...

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15y

You get about.... how many words exactly?

You Get About Five Words seems to be among my most-cited posts (although credit for the idea actually goes to Catherine Olsson). Back when it went through the Annual Review, @DanielFilan left a review noting that the post is erring on the side of "simplistic poetry", at the expense of...

Feb 1221

Finding Cruxes: Help Reality Punch You In the Face

Figuring out "what would actually change your mind?" is among the more important rationality skills. Being able to do change your mind at all is a huge project. But, being able to do it quickly is much more useful than being able to do it at all. Because, then you...

Feb 570

Conditional Kickstarter for the "Don't Build It" March

tl;dr: You can pledge to join a big protest to ban AGI research at ifanyonebuildsit.com/march, which only triggers if 100,000 people sign up. You can also sign up to be notified (of that protest, and other potential protests that might take a different shape) The If Anyone Builds It website...

Feb 2164

What's a good methodology for "is Trump unusual about executive overreach / institution erosion / corruption?"

Updated title to include "corruption", and changed some framing in the post. Critics of Trump often describe him as making absolutely unprecedented moves to expand executive power, extract personal wealth, and impinge on citizens’ rights. Supporters counter that Trump’s actions are either completely precedented, or are the natural extension of...

Jan 2551

Deeper Reviews for the top 15 (of the 2024 Review)

We're extending the Discussion Phase of the 2024 Annual Review. One thing I'm particularly hoping for is to get more in-depth reviews (especially critical ones) of the posts that currently look likely to be in the top-10 or so. (Ideally the entire top 50, but seemed particularly worthwhile to give...

Jan 1445

Strong, bipartisan leadership for resistance to Trump.

This was written for FB and twitter where my filter bubble is strongly Democrat / Blue Tribe. I'd ideally update some of my phrasing for the somewhat more politically diverse LW, though I'm hoping my actual talking points still land pretty reasonably. ... I am not currently Trying For Real...

Jan 1182

Overwhelming Superintelligence

There's many debates about "what counts as AGI" or "what counts as superintelligence?". Some people might consider those arguments "goalpost moving." Some people were using "superintelligence" to mean "overwhelmingly smarter than humanity". So, it may feel to them like it's watering it down if you use it to mean "spikily...

Jan 179

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Raemon

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Feedbackloop-first Rationality

Subskills of "Listening to Wisdom"

The "Think It Faster" Exercise

You Get About Five Words

Raemon

You get about.... how many words exactly?

Finding Cruxes: Help Reality Punch You In the Face

Conditional Kickstarter for the "Don't Build It" March

What's a good methodology for "is Trump unusual about executive overreach / institution erosion / corruption?"

Deeper Reviews for the top 15 (of the 2024 Review)

Strong, bipartisan leadership for resistance to Trump.

Overwhelming Superintelligence

Feedbackloop-first Rationality

Subskills of "Listening to Wisdom"

The "Think It Faster" Exercise

You Get About Five Words

You get about.... how many words exactly?

Finding Cruxes: Help Reality Punch You In the Face

Conditional Kickstarter for the "Don't Build It" March

What's a good methodology for "is Trump unusual about executive overreach / institution erosion / corruption?"

Deeper Reviews for the top 15 (of the 2024 Review)

Strong, bipartisan leadership for resistance to Trump.

Overwhelming Superintelligence