Handle: arthurlewis
Location: New York, NY
Age: 28
Education: BA in Music.
Occupation: Musician / Teacher / Mac Support Guy
Blog/Music: http://arthurthefourth.com
My career as a rationalist began when I started doing tech support, and realized the divide between successful troubleshooting and what most customers tried to do. I think the key to “winning” is to challenge your assumptions about how to win, and what winning is. I think that makes me an instrumental rationalist, but I’m not quite sure I understand the term. I’m here because OB and LW are among the closest things I’ve ever seen to an honest attempt to discover truth, whatever that may turn out to mean. And because I really like the phrase “Shut up and calculate!”
Note to new commenters: The “Help” link below the comment box will give you formatting tips.
I’m with you, Saturn. Doing it well isn’t easy at first, but I’ve found I’ve gotten quite good at it by mostly asking questions and keeping my mouth shut. I tend to act as an option-provider and a debugger. I let them do most of the actual determination of actions, and use my own power to help them realize the primary goals they’re optimizing for, realize unconsidered courses of action that may lead to those goals, and challenge existing assumptions. I disagree about the status motivation though—when I’ve actually helped someone optimize, I feel like a real badass.