Eliezer said he was writing Methods because he was having trouble writing his Rationality book.
Now, I find this confusing. If you’re having trouble writing, the last thing you need is another book, competing for your attention. Perhaps if the second book had been more scholarly, he could have procrastinated from it by writing the rationality book, but this isn’t the case here.
Equally, if it’s rapid and constant feedback he needs, I’m sure we could find some, somewhere on the internet. -We’ll all buy the book anyway, and a plausible pre-commitment should be easy with the aid of UDT/TDT.
So the only possible conclusion: Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationalityis the rationality book!
Consider:
It introduces most of the major themes of LW-style rationality.
it has a wide potential audience.
it demonstrates how to use the Methods in an inconvenient world, where both the mechanics of the universe and the moral responsibility your knowledge gives are confusing and counter-intuitive.
it makes the reader identify with rational characters.
Positive Proof. With the aid of magic, probably even p=1 now.
I look forward to the sequel; Eliezer Yudkowsky and the Unfriendly AI.
If you’re having trouble writing, the last thing you need is another book, competing for your attention.
This is not generally true. This is true iff the reason you are having trouble writing is because there are too many other demands on your time. If you can sit down to write, with nothing else to do for the next six hours, and plunk out a pathetic WPM because you’re blocked or distractable or frustrated or depressed—then this isn’t the case. In such a case many writers find that the way to get over the block is to write something else—something they can write copiously, enjoyably, without running into the same problems. Such as Harry Potter fanfiction.
“Enjoy” isn’t necessarily the relevant metric from which to predict productivity. I enjoy drawing my webcomic, and it only takes me a couple hours to do each one, but I haven’t the patience to do more than one page a week—not because I don’t enjoy it, but because my brain resists too much of the same thing spaced together too closely. Conversely, I don’t think I could be said to “enjoy” some of the pointless Flash games that have eaten entire days of my life singlehandedly, but I went on playing them anyway.
“Enjoy” isn’t necessarily the relevant metric from which to predict productivity.
And this superficially unintuitive observation has been studied right down to the level of neurotransmitters in the brain. Crudely speaking it is the difference between the opiod dopaminergic systems. (Flash games and amphetamines both come down in the ‘dopamine’ category.)
Similar to the recent result that Wireheading in rats causes frenzied desire, rather than actual bliss? (source: a lecture David Pearce gave this May).
Surely ‘Methods is the Rationality book’ is the conclusion, and “If you’re having trouble writing, the last thing you need is another book, competing for your attention” is the evidence?
I refer to the quotes and context. Alicorn made a claim ‘this is not generally true’ with a specific quote included. You directly contradicted that. You are wrong and Alicorn is right.
I am largely indifferent to the role your claim makes for your ‘MoR is the book idea’. It is just wrong.
Sorry, despite this joke having been somewhat derailed, I don’t understand what you mean.
I gave the line about not wanting distractions as evidence for MoR being the book; Alicorn pointed out this was silly. I’m not sure where you think I contradicted her (unless you mean by saying, “But my theory is interesting; how can the supporting evidence not be true?!”, I didn’t reply to her, except to ask a question, let alone respond), or why we’re pursuing this conversation.
One obvious fact is that Harry Potter fanfiction simply won’t attract much attention, and presumably Eliezer would want his book to be as widely read as possible among those who would profit from it.
Now, I find this confusing. If you’re having trouble writing, the last thing you need is another book, competing for your attention.
When Feynman came back from work on the Manhattan project, he felt fatigued and found he had no interest in physics or math anymore. He could hardly work. Then he noticed some interesting lights in the cafeteria and started trying to describe their shape mathematically. After spending a couple of days on it, he was excitedly telling his friends about the interesting work he’d been doing; they were confused as to why he was doing anything quite so useless. He insisted that was the point; he was doing something fun and it got him back into working on interesting physics problems again.
I believe he also started off uncertain of the legality of the fanfic, and praised Rowling when he found that she is ok with any derivative works so long as they don’t make money.
Of course, if that really is the entire copyright restriction, he could release the fanfic as a “free e-book”.
Other people have criticized your proposal that you shouldn’t write B to help you write A. I definitely agree with what Alicorn said. You based that on an assumption of why he’s had any difficulty writing A.
Most of the writing I’ve done is in the form of forum and blog comments. It’s always easier to write a second comment after writing a first, for me anyhow. I often respond to something small before coming back to writing a larger post or comment. That’s not necessarily Eliezer’s reasoning, but there can be reasons to write B to write A.
Another point—MoR introduces a lot of concepts which the blog covers more thoroughly. I would expect the book to cover many concepts more thoroughly than the fanfiction does. One thing a person might aim to accomplish with a book whose content is also on a blog is to make the content more compact and organized. I don’t think that’s the main purpose of MoR! I agree that it makes some ideas more accessible.
But how confident are you that those are all of Eliezer’s objectives with his book? Do you know who his target audiences are?
The ff.net audience is a very select audience. Most don’t see themselves as better than most non-ff.net people, as far as I know, but I do think that most people who have heard of the concept of fanfiction think of it by default as something below them. This may be an exceptional fanfic, but lots of people will never read it, because it’s a fanfic. And many people have never heard the term “fanfic”!
A published book though, that will reach people who make bookstore status purchases. People who have reason to signal that they are rational. They will buy a book with a title they can quote without getting dangerous looks from their employers, business partners, etc. A popular nonfiction book is also the sort of thing that “serious business” people will recommend or share with each other.
Another potential benefit for the book of writing the HP fanfic is that it embiggens LessWrong—there are more people who have heard of LW and will say so online, who also aren’t regular posters. This could in turn lead to even more occasional readers of LW. One place open fanfic readers and book-title-status-signal readers will share information is in Amazon reviews. More people who occasionally check LW could increase the number of reviews and comments the book gets, which will make it more visible to those who will only read a well-reviewed book. I don’t know if this could be a serious effect or not.
(Also, a published nonfiction novel is a bigger status achievement for the author.)
My main point though is that published books and fanfiction have different audiences. A nonfiction book would reach, well, people like Harry’s, Hermoine’s and Draco’s parents. You can’t ignore those people. Eliezer is likely thinking about how to spread ideas at different levels of status hierarchies. Lots of young people who read Harry Potter will read MoR, which has young characters set out to change the world, run by a less rational set of older high-status people. Wouldn’t it be nice though if, in the real world, the high-status people were also more rational? Just writing a fanfiction would be too modest a goal.
Now, I find this confusing. If you’re having trouble writing, the last thing you need is another book, competing for your attention.
Your confusion is due to problems in your map of human behavioural patterns, not due to an incongruous explanation of the motivations for MoR. The discussions surrounding MoR give a powerful status reward, associating writing with social success. That is one of the most powerful forms of behavioural reinforcement, and something I have exploited myself at times.
Eliezer said he was writing Methods because he was having trouble writing his Rationality book.
Now, I find this confusing. If you’re having trouble writing, the last thing you need is another book, competing for your attention. Perhaps if the second book had been more scholarly, he could have procrastinated from it by writing the rationality book, but this isn’t the case here.
Equally, if it’s rapid and constant feedback he needs, I’m sure we could find some, somewhere on the internet. -We’ll all buy the book anyway, and a plausible pre-commitment should be easy with the aid of UDT/TDT.
So the only possible conclusion: Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality is the rationality book!
Consider:
It introduces most of the major themes of LW-style rationality.
it has a wide potential audience.
it demonstrates how to use the Methods in an inconvenient world, where both the mechanics of the universe and the moral responsibility your knowledge gives are confusing and counter-intuitive.
it makes the reader identify with rational characters.
Positive Proof. With the aid of magic, probably even p=1 now.
I look forward to the sequel; Eliezer Yudkowsky and the Unfriendly AI.
This is not generally true. This is true iff the reason you are having trouble writing is because there are too many other demands on your time. If you can sit down to write, with nothing else to do for the next six hours, and plunk out a pathetic WPM because you’re blocked or distractable or frustrated or depressed—then this isn’t the case. In such a case many writers find that the way to get over the block is to write something else—something they can write copiously, enjoyably, without running into the same problems. Such as Harry Potter fanfiction.
But my theory is interesting; how can the supporting evidence not be true?!
On a more serious note, did Eliezer enjoy writing the Sequences?
“Enjoy” isn’t necessarily the relevant metric from which to predict productivity. I enjoy drawing my webcomic, and it only takes me a couple hours to do each one, but I haven’t the patience to do more than one page a week—not because I don’t enjoy it, but because my brain resists too much of the same thing spaced together too closely. Conversely, I don’t think I could be said to “enjoy” some of the pointless Flash games that have eaten entire days of my life singlehandedly, but I went on playing them anyway.
And this superficially unintuitive observation has been studied right down to the level of neurotransmitters in the brain. Crudely speaking it is the difference between the opiod dopaminergic systems. (Flash games and amphetamines both come down in the ‘dopamine’ category.)
Similar to the recent result that Wireheading in rats causes frenzied desire, rather than actual bliss? (source: a lecture David Pearce gave this May).
Yes, exactly that kind of thing.
Supporting evidence isn’t what Alicorn contradicted. She contradicted your absolute claim (last thing...)
Surely ‘Methods is the Rationality book’ is the conclusion, and “If you’re having trouble writing, the last thing you need is another book, competing for your attention” is the evidence?
Surely not.
I refer to the quotes and context. Alicorn made a claim ‘this is not generally true’ with a specific quote included. You directly contradicted that. You are wrong and Alicorn is right.
I am largely indifferent to the role your claim makes for your ‘MoR is the book idea’. It is just wrong.
Sorry, despite this joke having been somewhat derailed, I don’t understand what you mean.
I gave the line about not wanting distractions as evidence for MoR being the book; Alicorn pointed out this was silly. I’m not sure where you think I contradicted her (unless you mean by saying, “But my theory is interesting; how can the supporting evidence not be true?!”, I didn’t reply to her, except to ask a question, let alone respond), or why we’re pursuing this conversation.
One obvious fact is that Harry Potter fanfiction simply won’t attract much attention, and presumably Eliezer would want his book to be as widely read as possible among those who would profit from it.
When Feynman came back from work on the Manhattan project, he felt fatigued and found he had no interest in physics or math anymore. He could hardly work. Then he noticed some interesting lights in the cafeteria and started trying to describe their shape mathematically. After spending a couple of days on it, he was excitedly telling his friends about the interesting work he’d been doing; they were confused as to why he was doing anything quite so useless. He insisted that was the point; he was doing something fun and it got him back into working on interesting physics problems again.
I believe he also started off uncertain of the legality of the fanfic, and praised Rowling when he found that she is ok with any derivative works so long as they don’t make money.
Of course, if that really is the entire copyright restriction, he could release the fanfic as a “free e-book”.
Other people have criticized your proposal that you shouldn’t write B to help you write A. I definitely agree with what Alicorn said. You based that on an assumption of why he’s had any difficulty writing A.
Most of the writing I’ve done is in the form of forum and blog comments. It’s always easier to write a second comment after writing a first, for me anyhow. I often respond to something small before coming back to writing a larger post or comment. That’s not necessarily Eliezer’s reasoning, but there can be reasons to write B to write A.
Another point—MoR introduces a lot of concepts which the blog covers more thoroughly. I would expect the book to cover many concepts more thoroughly than the fanfiction does. One thing a person might aim to accomplish with a book whose content is also on a blog is to make the content more compact and organized. I don’t think that’s the main purpose of MoR! I agree that it makes some ideas more accessible.
But how confident are you that those are all of Eliezer’s objectives with his book? Do you know who his target audiences are?
The ff.net audience is a very select audience. Most don’t see themselves as better than most non-ff.net people, as far as I know, but I do think that most people who have heard of the concept of fanfiction think of it by default as something below them. This may be an exceptional fanfic, but lots of people will never read it, because it’s a fanfic. And many people have never heard the term “fanfic”!
A published book though, that will reach people who make bookstore status purchases. People who have reason to signal that they are rational. They will buy a book with a title they can quote without getting dangerous looks from their employers, business partners, etc. A popular nonfiction book is also the sort of thing that “serious business” people will recommend or share with each other.
Another potential benefit for the book of writing the HP fanfic is that it embiggens LessWrong—there are more people who have heard of LW and will say so online, who also aren’t regular posters. This could in turn lead to even more occasional readers of LW. One place open fanfic readers and book-title-status-signal readers will share information is in Amazon reviews. More people who occasionally check LW could increase the number of reviews and comments the book gets, which will make it more visible to those who will only read a well-reviewed book. I don’t know if this could be a serious effect or not.
(Also, a published nonfiction novel is a bigger status achievement for the author.)
My main point though is that published books and fanfiction have different audiences. A nonfiction book would reach, well, people like Harry’s, Hermoine’s and Draco’s parents. You can’t ignore those people. Eliezer is likely thinking about how to spread ideas at different levels of status hierarchies. Lots of young people who read Harry Potter will read MoR, which has young characters set out to change the world, run by a less rational set of older high-status people. Wouldn’t it be nice though if, in the real world, the high-status people were also more rational? Just writing a fanfiction would be too modest a goal.
Your confusion is due to problems in your map of human behavioural patterns, not due to an incongruous explanation of the motivations for MoR. The discussions surrounding MoR give a powerful status reward, associating writing with social success. That is one of the most powerful forms of behavioural reinforcement, and something I have exploited myself at times.