I think this is pretty informative! I think we should focus on both mundane familiar stuff and more head-in-the-clouds stuff. I sympathize with some of your aversion to high-falutin’ talk about why it’s good to be rational more than practical techniques to do it, but it’s important to realize that Eliezer has been writing a book on OB and he mostly focuses on the philosophical framework, not a nitty-gritty compilation of everyday insights. I’m sure he could produce the latter as well, but would probably consider it a waste of time. People have to figure out the low-level details for themselves, based on abstract motivation from “higher” arguments.
It actually does look like there can be little tricks to being more rational, like doing the math. If rationality were so easy, then it wouldn’t require pioneers and geniuses to establish and contribute to fields like heuristics and biases. We would have recognized and corrected for the H&B long ago if “everyday experiences” were enough.
I think this is pretty informative! I think we should focus on both mundane familiar stuff and more head-in-the-clouds stuff. I sympathize with some of your aversion to high-falutin’ talk about why it’s good to be rational more than practical techniques to do it, but it’s important to realize that Eliezer has been writing a book on OB and he mostly focuses on the philosophical framework, not a nitty-gritty compilation of everyday insights. I’m sure he could produce the latter as well, but would probably consider it a waste of time. People have to figure out the low-level details for themselves, based on abstract motivation from “higher” arguments.
It actually does look like there can be little tricks to being more rational, like doing the math. If rationality were so easy, then it wouldn’t require pioneers and geniuses to establish and contribute to fields like heuristics and biases. We would have recognized and corrected for the H&B long ago if “everyday experiences” were enough.