Epistemology is the study of how we know the world. It’s both a topic in philosophy and a practical concern for how we come to believe things are true.

Related Sequences: Highly Advanced Epistemology 101 for Beginners, Concepts in formal epistemology, Novum Organum

Projects to help people improve their epistemics and individuals to contact:

• Pastcasting—forecasting past results so you get instant feedback

  • https://​​www.quantifiedintuitions.org/​​pastcasting

• Calibration—see how justified your own confidence is

  • https://​​www.quantifiedintuitions.org/​​calibration

• Historical Base rates—much thinking requires knowing roughly how often things have happened in the past

  • Seems like Our World In Data might do some work here

  • There is at least one other effort

• Increasing summarisation—making it easier to get a basic understanding on EA/​LessWrong topics

  • Nonlinear offer a range of prizes for summaries of such works

    • Nathan Young

Potential projects:

• Displaying estimates

  • The Squiggle team seem focused on the first step of this

    • Ozzie Gooen

  • Nathan Young is interested in it

Note:

• It is hard to build epistemic infrastructure among rationalists, because anyone who is capable of doing it can work on AI safety and most do