I find myself having to fight this rule for a lot of things, and one of them is beliefs. If all of my opinions are Eliezer-ish, I feel like I’m “putting all my eggs in one basket”, and I need to “diversify”
You use book recommendations as a reductio, but I remember reading about half the books on your recommended reading list, thinking “Does reading everything off of one guy’s reading list make me a follower?”
I think of all the people who have ever recommended books to me, Eliezer has the most recommendations which I’ve actually followed. In most of my circle socials, I’m the “smart one”, but I’m nowhere near as smart as Eliezer (or most other people on LessWrong, it seems). So I do admire EY a lot. I want to be as smart as he is, and so I try reading all the books he has read.
And it kills me, because I also remember his post about novice editors copying the surface behavior of master editors, without integrating the deep insight, and I know that by reading the same science fiction novels EY has read, I’m committing exactly the same sin. But I don’t know what else I can do to try to improve myself.
See also Robin Hanson’s post on Echo Chamber Confidence.
I think of all the people who have ever recommended books to me, Eliezer has the most recommendations which I’ve actually followed. In most of my circle socials, I’m the “smart one”, but I’m nowhere near as smart as Eliezer (or most other people on LessWrong, it seems). So I do admire EY a lot. I want to be as smart as he is, and so I try reading all the books he has read.
And it kills me, because I also remember his post about novice editors copying the surface behavior of master editors, without integrating the deep insight, and I know that by reading the same science fiction novels EY has read, I’m committing exactly the same sin. But I don’t know what else I can do to try to improve myself.