I’m now quite skeptical that my urge to correct reflects an actual opportunity to win by improving someone’s thinking,
Shouldn’t you be applying this logic to your own motivations to be a rationalist as well? “Oh, so you’ve found this blog on the internet and now you know the real truth? Now you can think better than other people?” You can see how it can look from the outside. What would the implication for yourself be?
I’ll make a quick exception to cut off your anxiety.
Don’t feel bad, I need a break from LW; your comment and lent just gave me a good excuse. I’m still writing though. I’ll be back in april with a good stack of posts.
We should measure our winning, somehow, and see whether reading LW increases it.
Sure, this answer just brings a new set of questions. Such as: what exactly should we measure? If we use something as an approximation, what if it becomes a lost purpose? If we change our method of measuring later, what if we are just rationalizing conveniently? (We can create an illusion of infinite growth just by measuring two complementary values X and Y, always focusing on the one which grows at the given moment.)
I would say that a person reading LW for longer time should be able to list specific improvements in their life. Improvements visible from outside; that is, what they do differently, not how they think or speak differently. That is the difference from the outside. If there is no such improvement, that would suggest it is time to stop reading; or at least stop reading the general discussion, and focus on stuff like Group Rationality Diary.
(My personal excuse is that reading LW reduces the time spent reading other websites. Debates on other websites suddenly feel silly. And the improvement is that reading other websites often made me angry, but reading LW does not mess with my emotions. -- I wish I could say something better, but even this is better than nothing. Of course it does not explain why reading LW would be better than abstaining from internet. Except that abstaining from internet seems unlikely; if I stopped reading LW, I would probably return to the websites I used to read previously.)
We could measure the change in several objective metrics, such as:
Annual income (higher is better)
Time spent at work to achieve the same or greater level of income (lower is better, though of course this does not apply if one’s work is also one’s hobby)
Weight to Height ratio (closer to doctor-recommended values is better)
Number of non-preventative doctor visits per year (lower is better)
Number of scientific articles accepted for publication in major peer-reviewed journals (higher is better)
Number of satisfactory romantic relationships (higher is arguably better, unless one is not interested in romance at all)
Hours spent browsing the Web per week, excluding time spent on research, reading documentation, etc. (lower is better)
Shouldn’t you be applying this logic to your own motivations to be a rationalist as well? “Oh, so you’ve found this blog on the internet and now you know the real truth? Now you can think better than other people?” You can see how it can look from the outside. What would the implication for yourself be?
This comment is thoroughly discouraging to me as it pokes at some open wounds that I’m working on.
Therefor I’m quitting LW for lent.
Kick my ass if I’m back before April fools day.
(except for meetup posts).
Well, shit. Now I feel bad, I liked your recent posts.
I’ll make a quick exception to cut off your anxiety.
Don’t feel bad, I need a break from LW; your comment and lent just gave me a good excuse. I’m still writing though. I’ll be back in april with a good stack of posts.
We should measure our winning, somehow, and see whether reading LW increases it.
Sure, this answer just brings a new set of questions. Such as: what exactly should we measure? If we use something as an approximation, what if it becomes a lost purpose? If we change our method of measuring later, what if we are just rationalizing conveniently? (We can create an illusion of infinite growth just by measuring two complementary values X and Y, always focusing on the one which grows at the given moment.)
I would say that a person reading LW for longer time should be able to list specific improvements in their life. Improvements visible from outside; that is, what they do differently, not how they think or speak differently. That is the difference from the outside. If there is no such improvement, that would suggest it is time to stop reading; or at least stop reading the general discussion, and focus on stuff like Group Rationality Diary.
(My personal excuse is that reading LW reduces the time spent reading other websites. Debates on other websites suddenly feel silly. And the improvement is that reading other websites often made me angry, but reading LW does not mess with my emotions. -- I wish I could say something better, but even this is better than nothing. Of course it does not explain why reading LW would be better than abstaining from internet. Except that abstaining from internet seems unlikely; if I stopped reading LW, I would probably return to the websites I used to read previously.)
We could measure the change in several objective metrics, such as:
Annual income (higher is better)
Time spent at work to achieve the same or greater level of income (lower is better, though of course this does not apply if one’s work is also one’s hobby)
Weight to Height ratio (closer to doctor-recommended values is better)
Number of non-preventative doctor visits per year (lower is better)
Number of scientific articles accepted for publication in major peer-reviewed journals (higher is better)
Number of satisfactory romantic relationships (higher is arguably better, unless one is not interested in romance at all)
Hours spent browsing the Web per week, excluding time spent on research, reading documentation, etc. (lower is better)
The list is not exhaustive, obviously.