Another example I've heard is SAT scores. At any given school, the math and verbal scores are negatively correlated, because schools tend to select people who have around the same total score. But overall, math and verbal scores are positively correlated.
I'm from California, where it's legal to split lanes. Most places don't allow that.
I could just decide not to, but the ability to skip traffic that way is probably the single largest benefit of having a motorcycle.
Here's one example of a change I've made recently, which I think qualifies as x-rationality. When I need to make a decision that depends on a particular piece of data, I now commit to a decision threshold before I look at the data. (I feel like I took this strategy from a LW article, but I don't remember where now.)
For example, I recently had to decide whether it would be worth the potential savings in time and money to commute by motorcycle instead of by car. I set a threshold for what I considered an appropriate level of risk beforehand, and then looked ...
Have you made efforts to research it?
This is based on my own experience, and on watching my friends progress through school. I believe that the majority of successful people find their life path because someone inspired them. I don't know where I could even look to find hard numbers on whether that's true or not, but I'd like to be that person for as many people as I can.
That sounds deep, but is obviously false... It does seem very much like you're guided by your warm fuzzies.
My emotional brain is still struggling to accept that, and I don't know wh...
For me it works in two steps: 1) Notice something that someone would appreciate. 2) Do it for them.
As seems to often be the case with rationality techniques, the hard part is noticing. I'm a Christian, so I try to spend a few minutes praying for my friends each day. Besides the religious reasons, which may or may not matter to you, I believe it puts me in the right frame of mind to want to help others. A non-religious time of focused meditation might serve a similar purpose.
I've also worked on developing my listening skills. Friends frequently mention thin...
(Sorry, I didn't see this until now.)
I'll admit I don't really have data for this. But my intuitive guess is that students don't just need to be able to attend school; they need a personal relationship with a teacher who will inspire them. At least for me, that's a large part of why I'm in the field that I chose.
It's possible that I'm being misled by the warm fuzzy feelings I get from helping someone face-to-face, which I don't get from sending money halfway across the world. But it seems like there's many things that matter in life that don't have a price tag.
"You should never bet against anything in science at odds of more than about 10^12 to 1 against."
I'm sympathetic to the effective altruist movement, and when I do periodically donate, I try to do so as efficiently as possible. But I don't focus much effort on it. I've concluded that my impact probably comes mostly from my everyday interactions with people around me, not from money that I send across the world.
For example:
It's probably too late to change this now, but I have a slight nitpick with some of the political questions.
Many of them use "No strong opinion" as the default between more and less. But I believe that leaves out those who have a strong opinion that the current level of, say, taxation is correct.