Sequence Posts Exercises
Based on this thread from this month’s (April 2011) Open Thread, we have started work on exercises to go along with the posts and help readers internalize the material better. The idea is to have exercises covering all of the sequences eventually (though there doesn’t have to be a 1:1 correspondence between exercises and single posts)
help is very much appreciated. If you want to take up writing exercises for a post, please claim it on our wiki page.
A few drafts have started to circulate, and soon we will have our first exercises posted.
- New Less Wrong Feature: Rerunning The Sequences by (11 Apr 2011 17:01 UTC; 49 points)
- Interest in video-conference discussion about sequences and/or virtual meetups? by (6 Apr 2011 22:13 UTC; 18 points)
- [SEQ RERUN] Third Alternatives for Afterlife-ism by (9 Jun 2011 15:31 UTC; 12 points)
- [SEQ RERUN] Beware the Unsurprised by (7 Jun 2011 12:35 UTC; 11 points)
- [SEQ RERUN] Universal Law by (5 Jun 2011 13:23 UTC; 10 points)
- [SEQ RERUN] Think Like Reality by (6 Jun 2011 13:28 UTC; 10 points)
- [SEQ RERUN] Feeling Rational by (3 Jun 2011 13:28 UTC; 10 points)
- [SEQ RERUN] Debiasing as Non-Self-Destruction by (25 May 2011 14:14 UTC; 10 points)
- [SEQ RERUN] Knowing About Biases Can Hurt People by (24 May 2011 12:54 UTC; 10 points)
- [SEQ RERUN] The Majority Is Always Wrong by (23 May 2011 13:53 UTC; 10 points)
- [SEQ RERUN] Universal Fire by (4 Jun 2011 15:10 UTC; 9 points)
- [SEQ RERUN] Inductive Bias by (26 May 2011 13:20 UTC; 9 points)
- [SEQ RERUN] Your Rationality is My Business by (1 Jun 2011 14:04 UTC; 9 points)
- [SEQ RERUN] The Error of Crowds by (22 May 2011 14:21 UTC; 9 points)
- [SEQ RERUN] The Third Alternative by (8 Jun 2011 14:19 UTC; 9 points)
- [SEQ RERUN] Marginally Zero-Sum Efforts by (28 May 2011 16:07 UTC; 8 points)
- [SEQ RERUN] Futuristic Predictions as Consumable Goods by (27 May 2011 15:57 UTC; 7 points)
- [SEQ RERUN] Useful Statistical Biases by (21 May 2011 14:14 UTC; 7 points)
- [SEQ RERUN] Consolidated Nature of Morality Thread by (2 Jun 2011 11:39 UTC; 6 points)
- [SEQ RERUN] New Improved Lottery by (31 May 2011 13:09 UTC; 6 points)
- [SEQ RERUN] Lotteries: A Waste of Hope by (30 May 2011 15:13 UTC; 5 points)
- 's comment on [SEQ RERUN] The Martial Art of Rationality by (20 Apr 2011 6:32 UTC; 2 points)
One thing that I have trouble with is remembering that an idea applies.
If you’ve ever learned a bunch of integration techniques (or methods of solving differential equations) you might remember that the hard part of doing an integral analytically isn’t understanding the technique, its realizing which technique to use.
It’s one thing to know to watch out for the fundamental attribution error if you know that you’re looking for someone committing the fundamental attribution error, but its entirely different to realize when you should be applying it in your every day life.
I almost suggested a way to fix that, but then I remembered to hold off on proposing solutions.
Any other advice/thoughts?
Could you identify environmental cues (a word in conversation, a feeling, some other features of a given situation) that you think identify the moment when a technique should be used?
If you could, there might be a way to associate the cue to the technique (a sort of “trigger”).
How could this association be internalized? SRS cards, decision trees, an if-then table… I think anything, so long as it were reviewed regularly.
This post also applies.
It’s not part of the Sequences per se, but does anyone have exercises for Causality by Judea Pearl? It doesn’t have any in the text, and searching didn’t turn up any either.
Pearl’s blog http://www.mii.ucla.edu/causality/ may be a good place to ask for this sort of thing.
Okay, I got the comments on my first draft, but the gmail reply structure is confusing so I don’t know who to thank for them. I’m expanding the exercise to cover the first 3 posts in “A Human’s Guide to Words”.
Lol that was me.
Thanks. Did you or somebody else get my second draft?
I think I got a copy—was the filename “Belief in Belief 2.txt”?
No that’s from me.
Ah, of course. :/
Mine is “Exercise for Words as Hidden Inferences”. I think you have it now.
No, I got an email saying you were sending it, but it wasn’t attached.
Oops. And now I can’t access it from where I am. I’ll send it as soon as I get it back.
I’m working with someone else towards implementing a re-run of the sequences as discussed here. If we end up doing that, do you think the exercises can be synchronised?
A few people have committed to posting various exercises by April 17. Once we have a nice-sized buffer of exercises done in advance, I expect that when you start re-running you can link to the exercises whenever they exist. That will provide some exposure to the exercises, and give the other developers and I more motivation.
You can also offer to beta-read sheets of exercises for the authors who volunteered.