Introductory Short Videos

Most people new to the Less Wrong community start out by reading the Sequences. There are also lists out there of highly recommended text books, pop sci books, and articles.

However these avenues can take a LOT of time, and not everyone learns best by reading. I am interested in putting together a list of introductory videos that cover the same type of materials discussed on Less Wrong, and could be viewed within a single night.

One purpose of this is for meetup groups that get a large influx of new people all at once. It might take a while to get everybody up to speed by sending them off to all go read Sequence posts on their own, especially if they are generally busy in their daily life. However, it is much easier to turn one of your meetups into a Video Night. The goal is that at the end of the Video Night, everybody is aware of the type of mindset that we want people at meetups to have.

The list can also be used by people who are brand new to rationality, and want to get the basic information in video form.

I’ll get it started by listing 6 videos that are of the sort that I mean for this list to be. Please leave some recommendations! (Also, if there is already a list of good intro videos, let me know. I am currently unaware of any.)

Note: Although AI/ x-risk videos are NOT what I am looking for, I know people will want to recommend them, so I’m creating a parent comment to place them under. If we get enough of those, we can create a separate list of good Intro to X-Risk and/or AI vids.

Julia Galef- Straw Vulcan, Skepticon 4
-A good first video that dispels some widely-believed myths about “rationality”.

Spencer Greenberg- Self Skepticism, Skepticon 4
-Reasoning as to how and why you might be wrong, and what to do about that fact

Julia Galef- Rationality and the Future, Singularity Summit 2012
-Overview of the culture we are trying to develop

Dan Ariely- TED talks (all three)
- Engaging anecdotes and information about specific cognitive biases, and how they affect people