Hi! 21 year old university dropout located in Melbourne, Australia. Coming from a background of mostly philosophy, linguistics, and science fiction but now recognising that my dislike for maths and hard science comes from a social dynamic at my high school: humanities students were a separate clique from the maths/sci students and both looked down on each other, and I bought into it to gain status with my group. So that’s one major thing that LW has done for me in the few months I’ve been reading it: helped me recognise and eventually remove a rationalisation that was hurting my capabilities.
That explains why I stayed here; I think I first got here through something about the Agreement Theorem, as well as reading this pretty interesting Harry Potter fanfic. I’d gotten through to about ten chapter when I checked the author and thought it was quite odd that it was also LessWrong… but if you see an odd thing once, you start seeing it everywhere, right? So I very nearly chalked it up to some sort of perceptual sensitivity. The point about knowing biases making you weaker is very clear to me from that.
Anyway, I’m somewhat settled on being an author as a profession, I’d like to add to LessWrong in the capacity of exploring current philosophical questions that impinge on rationality, truthseeking, and understanding of the mind, and I would like to take from LessWrong the habit of being rational at all times.
Hi! 21 year old university dropout located in Melbourne, Australia. Coming from a background of mostly philosophy, linguistics, and science fiction but now recognising that my dislike for maths and hard science comes from a social dynamic at my high school: humanities students were a separate clique from the maths/sci students and both looked down on each other, and I bought into it to gain status with my group. So that’s one major thing that LW has done for me in the few months I’ve been reading it: helped me recognise and eventually remove a rationalisation that was hurting my capabilities.
That explains why I stayed here; I think I first got here through something about the Agreement Theorem, as well as reading this pretty interesting Harry Potter fanfic. I’d gotten through to about ten chapter when I checked the author and thought it was quite odd that it was also LessWrong… but if you see an odd thing once, you start seeing it everywhere, right? So I very nearly chalked it up to some sort of perceptual sensitivity. The point about knowing biases making you weaker is very clear to me from that.
Anyway, I’m somewhat settled on being an author as a profession, I’d like to add to LessWrong in the capacity of exploring current philosophical questions that impinge on rationality, truthseeking, and understanding of the mind, and I would like to take from LessWrong the habit of being rational at all times.
Another from Melbourne! Welcom.