My language becomes more precise. Where others use one word, I now use two, or six.
I have recently read “Science and Sanity” (the book written by the “a map is not the territory” guy), and I got the impression that in author’s opinion the most frequent cause of “insanity” (in the LW sense) is using the same word for two or more different things, and then implicitly treating those things as the same thing.
So yeah, using two labels for two different things is an improvement in situations where the differences matter.
I see more confusion all around.
Reading LW for me almost completely ruined reading online political debates. Now I look there and only see long lists of logical fallacies. I briefly think about saying something, then I remember the thing about inferential distances, and then I just sigh and close the browser tab.
Similarly, when my non-rationalist friends share something about “quantum physics” on facebook.
Polarization in my evaluations increases. E.g. two sensible sounding ideas become one great idea and one stupid idea.
I suspect this is because where you previously had “two ideas that sound sensible, but I have no idea about the details”, now you have “an idea that sounds sensible, and the details seem correct” and “an idea that may sound sensible, but the details are completely wrong”. That is, the ‘polarization’ is caused by seeing inside the previously black boxes.
I start getting strong impulses that tell me to educate people who I now see are clearly confused, and could be saved from their mistake in one minute if I could tell them what I know… (spoiler alert, this doesn’t work).
Same here. Seemingly educatable people never fail to disappoint. When I think they have become smarter, it’s usually because they didn’t have time to write me a proper reply yet.
Now I feel like it’s best to model people as if their thinking and behavior never changes. It’s probably partially wrong in long term (think: years or decades), but in short term it is usually much better than imagining that people can learn. (Not conductive to growth mindset, though. Should I hypocritically assume that I can grow, but most people can’t?)
I stop having problems in my life that seem to be common all around, and that I used to have in the past.
I would describe it that I stoped generating some kinds problems for myself. Because I was partially responsible for a lot of chaos. (On the other hand, this is difficult to disentangle from problems that went away for other reasons, e.g. because I became adult, because I have more money, or because I met the right people.)
I forget how it is to have certain problems, and I need to remind myself constantly that what seems easy to me is not easy for everyone.
I usually don’t write diaries. But I found one that I kept writing for a few weeks, many years ago. I looked there, shivered, and quickly destroyed the evidence.
Writings of other people move forward on the path from intimidating to insightful to sensible to confused to pitiful.
I usually don’t get to the last step, because I stop reading at the “confused” moment.
I start to intuitively discriminate between rationality levels of more people above me.
My experience is that I start seeing difference between other people (a) having an expertise in one domain, and (b) being good thinkers in general. (Two independent scales. Or perhaps, being a good thinker usually implies expertise in some domain, because smart people usually have some hobby. But being an expert in some domain does not imply good thinking.) Some people who seemed “smart” in the past were reclassified as merely “domain experts”.
Intuitively judging someone’s level requires less and less data, from reading a book to reading ten articles to reading one article.
Sometimes an article is enough to illustrate the typical mistakes the person makes. On the other hand, I would expect even a smart person to write a crappy article once in a while; the level of rational behavior may fluctuate, especially when the person is tired or annoyed, etc.
I have recently read “Science and Sanity” (the book written by the “a map is not the territory” guy), and I got the impression that in author’s opinion the most frequent cause of “insanity” (in the LW sense) is using the same word for two or more different things, and then implicitly treating those things as the same thing.
So yeah, using two labels for two different things is an improvement in situations where the differences matter.
Reading LW for me almost completely ruined reading online political debates. Now I look there and only see long lists of logical fallacies. I briefly think about saying something, then I remember the thing about inferential distances, and then I just sigh and close the browser tab.
Similarly, when my non-rationalist friends share something about “quantum physics” on facebook.
I suspect this is because where you previously had “two ideas that sound sensible, but I have no idea about the details”, now you have “an idea that sounds sensible, and the details seem correct” and “an idea that may sound sensible, but the details are completely wrong”. That is, the ‘polarization’ is caused by seeing inside the previously black boxes.
Same here. Seemingly educatable people never fail to disappoint. When I think they have become smarter, it’s usually because they didn’t have time to write me a proper reply yet.
Now I feel like it’s best to model people as if their thinking and behavior never changes. It’s probably partially wrong in long term (think: years or decades), but in short term it is usually much better than imagining that people can learn. (Not conductive to growth mindset, though. Should I hypocritically assume that I can grow, but most people can’t?)
I would describe it that I stoped generating some kinds problems for myself. Because I was partially responsible for a lot of chaos. (On the other hand, this is difficult to disentangle from problems that went away for other reasons, e.g. because I became adult, because I have more money, or because I met the right people.)
I usually don’t write diaries. But I found one that I kept writing for a few weeks, many years ago. I looked there, shivered, and quickly destroyed the evidence.
I usually don’t get to the last step, because I stop reading at the “confused” moment.
My experience is that I start seeing difference between other people (a) having an expertise in one domain, and (b) being good thinkers in general. (Two independent scales. Or perhaps, being a good thinker usually implies expertise in some domain, because smart people usually have some hobby. But being an expert in some domain does not imply good thinking.) Some people who seemed “smart” in the past were reclassified as merely “domain experts”.
Sometimes an article is enough to illustrate the typical mistakes the person makes. On the other hand, I would expect even a smart person to write a crappy article once in a while; the level of rational behavior may fluctuate, especially when the person is tired or annoyed, etc.