We are extremely persuadable in a way that is not needed for making friends, getting jobs, and buying groceries and in a way that a rock isn’t. People who can’t have their mind changed for shit have many difficulties, but not with those three tasks.
> During James’s recruitment, he received a demo from a guest lecturer who specialized in bodywork, a form of alternative medicine. That demo, James says, was “completely shocking.” The lecturer “had me lay down and just put his hands very lightly on me. And I had a massive qualitative change in experience… I felt as if I had been asleep for a month, and just woken up fresh. And I had no caffeine tolerance anymore.” This was both notable and surprising, because James was previously reliant on caffeine. Normally, he needed two or three cups per day, but: “That biochemistry had just gotten reset, apparently. I tried to drink a little bit of caffeine and I was jittery.”
The skill that the rock has is to experience this and then not update at all because it says Nuh Uh, and things go bad in spicy ways when a community lacks that skill
Also, where the rock is very legibly unpersuadable (in analogy to how the rock painted “don’t swerve” is good at chicken) we are very legibly persuadable, which predators seem to notice.
For the record, the rock is bad at lots of other important things outside the scope of doing boring, societally endorsed life tasks. A painted stone is not a general purpose genius. It’s just worth noticing when we underperform it, since that’s always a hint that something about our strategy is suboptimal.
It’s just worth noticing when we underperform it, since that’s always a hint that something about our strategy is suboptimal.
The “never talk to anyone” rock avoids all the actions you listed above. The “Move to France and live there forever” rock does surprisingly well, as does the “Never trust a gay man” rock. If you are going to cherry-pick individual decisions then every person on Earth is constantly underperforming an infinite number of rocks with things painted on them and it is not helpful to point out a random rock that someone underperformed.
I think the rock is worth looking at because my estimate is that the average man on the street is closer to the nuh-uh rock than to rationalist norms of persuadability- that not being the rock is the weird thing we’re doing. However, I’m open to arguments that most people are more persuadable than I am giving them credit for, or that rationalists are less. (badum-tss)
Notably, the shut in and move to france rocks are rare in the wild. (the homophobic rock less so, but that looks like coincidence)
I think the rock is worth looking at because my estimate is that the average man on the street is closer to the nuh-uh rock than to rationalist norms of persuadability
If a rock with arbitrary text on it is validated by its resemblance to the man on the street, then isn’t it more informative to point directly at the man on the street rather than invoking weird rocks?
I am going to look more closely at the rock with “Don’t read the comments section” written on it, since I am currently underperforming it.
We are extremely persuadable in a way that is not needed for making friends, getting jobs, and buying groceries and in a way that a rock isn’t. People who can’t have their mind changed for shit have many difficulties, but not with those three tasks.
From the recent Leverage research post:
https://lydialaurenson.substack.com/p/the-inside-story-of-leverage-research
> During James’s recruitment, he received a demo from a guest lecturer who specialized in bodywork, a form of alternative medicine. That demo, James says, was “completely shocking.” The lecturer “had me lay down and just put his hands very lightly on me. And I had a massive qualitative change in experience… I felt as if I had been asleep for a month, and just woken up fresh. And I had no caffeine tolerance anymore.” This was both notable and surprising, because James was previously reliant on caffeine. Normally, he needed two or three cups per day, but: “That biochemistry had just gotten reset, apparently. I tried to drink a little bit of caffeine and I was jittery.”
The skill that the rock has is to experience this and then not update at all because it says Nuh Uh, and things go bad in spicy ways when a community lacks that skill
Also, where the rock is very legibly unpersuadable (in analogy to how the rock painted “don’t swerve” is good at chicken) we are very legibly persuadable, which predators seem to notice.
For the record, the rock is bad at lots of other important things outside the scope of doing boring, societally endorsed life tasks. A painted stone is not a general purpose genius. It’s just worth noticing when we underperform it, since that’s always a hint that something about our strategy is suboptimal.
The “never talk to anyone” rock avoids all the actions you listed above. The “Move to France and live there forever” rock does surprisingly well, as does the “Never trust a gay man” rock. If you are going to cherry-pick individual decisions then every person on Earth is constantly underperforming an infinite number of rocks with things painted on them and it is not helpful to point out a random rock that someone underperformed.
I think the rock is worth looking at because my estimate is that the average man on the street is closer to the nuh-uh rock than to rationalist norms of persuadability- that not being the rock is the weird thing we’re doing. However, I’m open to arguments that most people are more persuadable than I am giving them credit for, or that rationalists are less. (badum-tss)
Notably, the shut in and move to france rocks are rare in the wild. (the homophobic rock less so, but that looks like coincidence)
If a rock with arbitrary text on it is validated by its resemblance to the man on the street, then isn’t it more informative to point directly at the man on the street rather than invoking weird rocks?
I am going to look more closely at the rock with “Don’t read the comments section” written on it, since I am currently underperforming it.