I guess these “how stupid I have been” posts are a welcome change to the “how smart I am” posts.
I personally find the “how stupid I have been” posts useful because they demonstrate one path from stupid to smart, which is useful when knowing that I will probably run into similar realizations in the future. But I learn a lot more from the “how smart I am” posts because.. well, I’m not going to learn much by seeing that someone else made mistakes similar to the ones I used to (or still do) make, without seeing what they do about instead. This post wouldn’t mean much to me without having actually learned about optimization processes, or knowing what the Outcome Pump was, etc. Like Eliezer said—“This may seem like an obvious point, if you’ve been following Overcoming Bias this whole time...” In other words—if you haven’t read all the “how smart I am” posts, the “how stupid I have been posts” won’t be nearly as useful.
That said… I do find myself in more suspense waiting for the next post in this series than the average post, though I suspect that’s due more to the story-like nature of it than the actual material. And really, I don’t know that I can say I look forward to the next installment in this series all that much more than posts in other long series like the quantum series or the series on words.
I guess these “how stupid I have been” posts are a welcome change to the “how smart I am” posts. I personally find the “how stupid I have been” posts useful because they demonstrate one path from stupid to smart, which is useful when knowing that I will probably run into similar realizations in the future. But I learn a lot more from the “how smart I am” posts because.. well, I’m not going to learn much by seeing that someone else made mistakes similar to the ones I used to (or still do) make, without seeing what they do about instead. This post wouldn’t mean much to me without having actually learned about optimization processes, or knowing what the Outcome Pump was, etc. Like Eliezer said—“This may seem like an obvious point, if you’ve been following Overcoming Bias this whole time...” In other words—if you haven’t read all the “how smart I am” posts, the “how stupid I have been posts” won’t be nearly as useful.
That said… I do find myself in more suspense waiting for the next post in this series than the average post, though I suspect that’s due more to the story-like nature of it than the actual material. And really, I don’t know that I can say I look forward to the next installment in this series all that much more than posts in other long series like the quantum series or the series on words.