Less Wrong articles categorized by reading difficulty

[lukeprog]

One thing that could help new users dive into Less Wrong would be to make some reading recommendations based on reading difficulty. (I’m including some things not hosted on LessWrong.com when they’re very LessWrong-ish and written by leading LessWrong authors.) For example:

For everyone

• Yudkowsky, Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

• Yudkowsky, Twelve Virtues of Rationality

• Yvain, The Worst Argument in the World

• Yudkowsky, Reductionism

• Lukeprog, How to Beat Procrastination

For those with some math and statistics

• Yudkowsky, Technical Explanation of Technical Explanation

• Yudkowsky, Timeless Causality

• Yudkowsky, Bell’s Theorem

For mathgods

• Nisan, Formulas of arithmetic that behave like decision agents

• Benja, A model of UDT with a concrete prior over logical statements

• cousin_it, Bounded versions of Gödel’s and Löb’s theorems

Now, I ask: What are some of your favorite articles in each of these categories?

[kilobug]

I think http://​​lesswrong.com/​​lw/​​od/​​37_ways_that_words_can_be_wrong/​​ is a good starting point too, it summarizes a lot of important things and give links to details for each (in the “for everyone” category).

[Bobertron]

I consider diseased thinking to be an unofficial part of the sequence on words (of which “37 ways words can be wrong” is the hub). It gives an example for how words can influence our thinking that is not contrived, practical, not obvious and important. It’s a nice example of clear thinking.

[[deleted]]

The Technical Explanation of Technical Explanation link points to How to Beat Procrastination instead of the intended article.

[lukeprog]

Fixed.

[Alicorn]

mathgods

I’ve seen “mathgoods” before. “Mathgods” must be even better!

[[deleted]]

But still nowhere near as awesome as superhero mathematicians.

[NancyLebovitz]

For everyone: Alicorn’s Ureshiku Naritai, though I suggest a clearer title.

[Alicorn]

It means “I want to become happier”, a la “tsuyoku naritai” meaning “I want to become stronger”.

[Zaine]

The analogue is clever and clear, however I don’t think it carries the same cultural connotations. 強くなりたい is a somewhat commonly expressed phrase, whereas 嬉しくなりたい sounds just as odd in Japanese as it does in English.

Perhaps Nancy meant that the title stretches the apropos use of Japanese in evincing the message of an essay written in English.

[NancyLebovitz]

I meant that I wouldn’t be nearly as likely to look at an article with a Japanese title (especially as someone new to LW who wouldn’t know to expect good stuff from Alicorn) as an article with a title in English which gave me something specific to be interested in.