Just curious, whatever happened to EY’s rationality books? You invested months of effort into them. Did you pull a sunk cost reversal? Or is publishing them not on the schedule till next year.
The drafts came out unexciting according to reader reports. I suspect that magical writing energy [‘magic’ = not understood] was diverted from the rationality book into the first 63 chapters of HPMOR which I was doing in my ‘off time’ while writing the book, and which does have Yudkowskian magic according to readers. HPMOR and CFAR between them used up a lot of the marginal utility I thought we would get from the book which diminishes the marginal utility of completing it.
It’s better not to publish than to publish something unpolished. “This is just a draft” wouldn’t sufficiently counteract the impression of “I read something of perceived-lower quality, and it’s from EY.”
They aren’t a priority for this year. We briefly contracted with two different writers who might have been able to finish the books without pulling Eliezer away from his other priorities, but that didn’t work. We’re still thinking about what is best to do with the drafts.
Just curious, whatever happened to EY’s rationality books? You invested months of effort into them. Did you pull a sunk cost reversal? Or is publishing them not on the schedule till next year.
The drafts came out unexciting according to reader reports. I suspect that magical writing energy [‘magic’ = not understood] was diverted from the rationality book into the first 63 chapters of HPMOR which I was doing in my ‘off time’ while writing the book, and which does have Yudkowskian magic according to readers. HPMOR and CFAR between them used up a lot of the marginal utility I thought we would get from the book which diminishes the marginal utility of completing it.
Shoulda hired Yvain to retell them :)
We tried that experiment, but Yvain was heading off to a new job and his first stab didn’t seem to be a quick fix.
That makes a lot of sense actually. I can’t think of anyone who could do a better job.
You should consider posting the drafts somewhere. At the very least, we’ll get new material to add to the wiki. Wikis don’t need ‘magic.’
It’s better not to publish than to publish something unpolished. “This is just a draft” wouldn’t sufficiently counteract the impression of “I read something of perceived-lower quality, and it’s from EY.”
Publish unpolished and perish, if you will.
I wasn’t especially happy with the reception / effects of publishing the unpolished TDT draft.
They aren’t a priority for this year. We briefly contracted with two different writers who might have been able to finish the books without pulling Eliezer away from his other priorities, but that didn’t work. We’re still thinking about what is best to do with the drafts.