What evidence can I show to a non-Rationalist that our particular movement (i.e. our particular techniques for overcoming biases, studying decision theory, applying Bayesianism, learning CBT techniques, etc.) is valuable for making their lives significantly better?
Notice the typical mind fallacy/generalizing from one example: you assume that if your life got significantly better from learning the Gospel of Bayes, then so would everyone’s. That is emphatically not so: there are many many happy religious people who feel happiness from living their life according to their understanding of their God’s laws.
Maybe consider starting by identifying a subset of currently not very happy people who might benefit from learning about LW/CFAR-style rationality and focus on those.
Personally, I have enjoyed reading and learning what Eliezer wrote between 2009 and 2015 or so (fiction and non-fiction), and what Scott A has been writing, and an occasional other post, but I would be hard pressed to say that any of that made my life significantly better. If anything, learning to understand people’s feelings, including my own, has had a far larger impact on my life.
Notice the typical mind fallacy/generalizing from one example: you assume that if your life got significantly better from learning the Gospel of Bayes, then so would everyone’s. That is emphatically not so: there are many many happy religious people who feel happiness from living their life according to their understanding of their God’s laws.
Maybe consider starting by identifying a subset of currently not very happy people who might benefit from learning about LW/CFAR-style rationality and focus on those.
Personally, I have enjoyed reading and learning what Eliezer wrote between 2009 and 2015 or so (fiction and non-fiction), and what Scott A has been writing, and an occasional other post, but I would be hard pressed to say that any of that made my life significantly better. If anything, learning to understand people’s feelings, including my own, has had a far larger impact on my life.