If I knew precisely what I wanted from rationality training, I wouldn’t need to buy the knowledge, would I?
What would I want from it? Immediate results that aren’t tied to an incredibly specific problem. I want procedures to define the problem clearly, to map the potential answer space, and then to organise that answer space with evidence. And I want to be able to go home and do at least one of those three things better than I could when I got there.
What do I think would be effective? Games. Why? It lets you test what you’re doing. You’re talking about making good decisions, and those decisions should make you win in a game that works with the rules that the heuristic concerns just as they would anywhere else. Even more helpfully, you can compare the results of your game to those of people who play differently.
Gambling? Probability and evidence. Role-playing? Planning. You’d probably want role-playing games based on the real world with a high rate of iteration that restart every time one side loses. Switch up the roles whenever one side starts to win consistently. Get people used to generating a load of options, losing them and chucking them away in favour of another set. Pick a general task—i.e. don’t invest too much in the background waffle or constrain the options too much....
Besides, games are fun and people learn better when they’re having fun than when they’re bored senseless.
Point out at the end how you can tie the same heuristics you’re teaching to win in the games can be applied to make money, or to achieve some other concrete goal that people are likely to want. Which should be a fairly easy step, if you actually have something to sell.
What would I pay for it? At the moment, nothing. I’ve seen no evidence you’re better at winning than me. Ideally you should have something you can show being used for a task, even if I can’t see precisely how it works, before you try and sell it to me. Otherwise I’ll be very suspicious that you’re just trying to sell a fashionable style of thought that gives people The Right Answer.
If I knew precisely what I wanted from rationality training, I wouldn’t need to buy the knowledge, would I?
What would I want from it? Immediate results that aren’t tied to an incredibly specific problem. I want procedures to define the problem clearly, to map the potential answer space, and then to organise that answer space with evidence. And I want to be able to go home and do at least one of those three things better than I could when I got there.
What do I think would be effective? Games. Why? It lets you test what you’re doing. You’re talking about making good decisions, and those decisions should make you win in a game that works with the rules that the heuristic concerns just as they would anywhere else. Even more helpfully, you can compare the results of your game to those of people who play differently.
Gambling? Probability and evidence. Role-playing? Planning. You’d probably want role-playing games based on the real world with a high rate of iteration that restart every time one side loses. Switch up the roles whenever one side starts to win consistently. Get people used to generating a load of options, losing them and chucking them away in favour of another set. Pick a general task—i.e. don’t invest too much in the background waffle or constrain the options too much....
Besides, games are fun and people learn better when they’re having fun than when they’re bored senseless.
Point out at the end how you can tie the same heuristics you’re teaching to win in the games can be applied to make money, or to achieve some other concrete goal that people are likely to want. Which should be a fairly easy step, if you actually have something to sell.
What would I pay for it? At the moment, nothing. I’ve seen no evidence you’re better at winning than me. Ideally you should have something you can show being used for a task, even if I can’t see precisely how it works, before you try and sell it to me. Otherwise I’ll be very suspicious that you’re just trying to sell a fashionable style of thought that gives people The Right Answer.