I don’t feel strongly about what the specific solutions are. I think it’s easier to diagnose a problem than to propose a fix.
In particular, I worry about biases in proposing solutions that favor my background and things I’m good at.
I think the way modern physics is taught probably gives people a overly clean/neat understanding of how most of the world works, and how to figure out problems in the world, but this might be ameliorated by studying the history of physics and how people come to certain conclusions. Though again, this could easily be because I didn’t invest in the points to learn physics that much myself, so there might be major holes in what I don’t know and my own epistemics.
I think looking at relevant statistics (including Our World In Data) is often good, though it depends on the specific questions you’re interested in investigating. I think questions you should often ask yourself for any interesting discovery or theory you want to propose is something like “how can I cheaply gather more data?” and “Is the data already out there?” Some questions you might be interested in are OWID-shaped, and most probably will not be.
I found forecasting edifying for my own education and improving my own epistemics, but I don’t know what percentage of LessWrongers currently forecast, and I don’t have a good sense of whether it’s limiting LessWrongers. Forecasting/reading textbooks/reading papers/reading high-quality blogposts all seem like plausible contenders for good uses of time.
I think the way modern physics is taught probably gives people a overly clean/neat understanding of how most of the world works, and how to figure out problems in the world, but this might be ameliorated by studying the history of physics and how people come to certain conclusions.
I don’t feel strongly about what the specific solutions are. I think it’s easier to diagnose a problem than to propose a fix.
In particular, I worry about biases in proposing solutions that favor my background and things I’m good at.
I think the way modern physics is taught probably gives people a overly clean/neat understanding of how most of the world works, and how to figure out problems in the world, but this might be ameliorated by studying the history of physics and how people come to certain conclusions. Though again, this could easily be because I didn’t invest in the points to learn physics that much myself, so there might be major holes in what I don’t know and my own epistemics.
I think looking at relevant statistics (including Our World In Data) is often good, though it depends on the specific questions you’re interested in investigating. I think questions you should often ask yourself for any interesting discovery or theory you want to propose is something like “how can I cheaply gather more data?” and “Is the data already out there?” Some questions you might be interested in are OWID-shaped, and most probably will not be.
I found forecasting edifying for my own education and improving my own epistemics, but I don’t know what percentage of LessWrongers currently forecast, and I don’t have a good sense of whether it’s limiting LessWrongers. Forecasting/reading textbooks/reading papers/reading high-quality blogposts all seem like plausible contenders for good uses of time.
Yeah and I think if done well it’s well-received here, e.g. AdamShimi’s My Number 1 Epistemology Book Recommendation: Inventing Temperature or Ben Pace’s 12 interesting things I learned studying the discovery of nature’s laws. (It’s hard to do well though it seems, I’m certainly dissatisfied with my own writeup attempts.)
I would use a forum that awarded more upvotes to people with better score on manifold.