how are we supposed to get into Joe Sixpack’s head?
A better question is what exactly we are supposed to do inside Joe Sixpack’s head?
Make him less stupid? No one knows how. Give him practical advice so that he fails less epically? There are multiple shelves of self-help books at B&N, programs run by nonprofits and the government, classes at the local community college, etc. etc. Joe Sixpack shows very little interest in any of those I don’t see why the Sequences or some distillation of them would do better.
To be fair, it might have some merit if we were literally talking about the average person, though I’m far from certain; someone buys an awful lot of mass-market self-help books and I don’t think it’s exclusively Bay Aryans. But I was using “Joe Sixpack” there in the sense of “someone who is not a geek”, or even “someone who isn’t part of the specific cluster of techies that LW draws from”, and there should be plenty of smart, motivated, growth-oriented people within that set. If we can’t speak to them, that’s entirely on us.
Nah, just plain-vanilla arrogance :-D I am not quite sure I belong to the American geek culture, anyway.
But I was using “Joe Sixpack” there in the sense of “someone who is not a geek”, or even “someone who isn’t part of the specific cluster of techies that LW draws from”
Ah. I read “Joe Sixpack” as being slightly above “redneck” and slightly below “your average American with 2.2 children”.
So do you mean people like engineers, financial quants, the Make community, bright-eyed humanities graduates? These people are generally not dumb. But I am still having trouble imagining what would you want to do inside their heads.
So do you mean people like engineers, financial quants, the Make community, bright-eyed humanities graduates? These people are generally not dumb. But I am still having trouble imagining what would you want to do inside their heads.
The first group of people I thought of was lawyers, who have both a higher-than-average baseline understanding of applied cognitive science and a strong built-in incentive to get better at it. I wouldn’t stop there, of course; all sorts of people have reasons to improve their thinking and understanding, and even more have incentives to become more instrumentally effective.
As to what we’d do in their heads… same thing as we’re trying to do in ours, of course.
same thing as we’re trying to do in ours, of course.
Um. Speaking for myself, what I’m trying to do in my own head doesn’t really transfer to other heads, and I’m not trying to do anything (serious) inside other people’s heads in general.
A better question is what exactly we are supposed to do inside Joe Sixpack’s head?
Make him less stupid? No one knows how. Give him practical advice so that he fails less epically? There are multiple shelves of self-help books at B&N, programs run by nonprofits and the government, classes at the local community college, etc. etc. Joe Sixpack shows very little interest in any of those I don’t see why the Sequences or some distillation of them would do better.
Nice example of geek exceptionalism there, dude.
To be fair, it might have some merit if we were literally talking about the average person, though I’m far from certain; someone buys an awful lot of mass-market self-help books and I don’t think it’s exclusively Bay Aryans. But I was using “Joe Sixpack” there in the sense of “someone who is not a geek”, or even “someone who isn’t part of the specific cluster of techies that LW draws from”, and there should be plenty of smart, motivated, growth-oriented people within that set. If we can’t speak to them, that’s entirely on us.
Nah, just plain-vanilla arrogance :-D I am not quite sure I belong to the American geek culture, anyway.
Ah. I read “Joe Sixpack” as being slightly above “redneck” and slightly below “your average American with 2.2 children”.
So do you mean people like engineers, financial quants, the Make community, bright-eyed humanities graduates? These people are generally not dumb. But I am still having trouble imagining what would you want to do inside their heads.
The first group of people I thought of was lawyers, who have both a higher-than-average baseline understanding of applied cognitive science and a strong built-in incentive to get better at it. I wouldn’t stop there, of course; all sorts of people have reasons to improve their thinking and understanding, and even more have incentives to become more instrumentally effective.
As to what we’d do in their heads… same thing as we’re trying to do in ours, of course.
Um. Speaking for myself, what I’m trying to do in my own head doesn’t really transfer to other heads, and I’m not trying to do anything (serious) inside other people’s heads in general.