Julia_Galef

Karma: 1,031

Julia_Galef 22 Apr 2021 8:40 UTC
15 points
in reply to: ozziegooen’s comment on: The Scout Mindset—read-along
… By the way, you might’ve misunderstood the point of the Elon Musk examples. The point wasn’t that he’s some exemplar of honesty. It was that he was motivated to try to make his companies succeed despite believing that the most likely outcome was failure. (i.e., he is a counterexample to the common claim “Entrepreneurs have to believe they are going to succeed, or else they won’t be motivated to try”)

Julia_Galef 22 Apr 2021 0:55 UTC
9 points
in reply to: habryka’s comment on: The Scout Mindset—read-along
Thanks! I do also rely to some extent on reasoning… for example, Chapter 3 is my argument for why we should expect to be better off with (on the margin) more scout mindset and less soldier mindset, compared to our default settings. I point out some basic facts about human psychology (e.g., the fact that we over-weight immediate consequences relative to delayed consequences) and explain why it seems to me those facts imply that we would have a tendency to use scout mindset less often than we should, even just for our own self interest.
The nice thing about argumentation (as compared to citing studies) is that it’s pretty transparent—the reader can evaluate my logic for themselves and decide if they buy it.

Julia_Galef 22 Apr 2021 0:19 UTC
53 points
in reply to: ozziegooen’s comment on: The Scout Mindset—read-along
Hey Ozzie! Thanks for reading / reviewing.

I originally hoped to write a more “scholarly” book, but I spent months reading the literature on motivated reasoning and thought it was mostly pretty bad, and anyway not the actual cause of my confidence in the core claims of the book such as “You should be in scout mindset more often.” So instead I focused on the goal of giving lots of examples of scout mindset in different domains, and addressing some of the common objections to scout mindset, in hopes of inspiring people to practice it more often.
I left in a handful of studies that I had greater-than-average confidence in (for various reasons, which I might elaborate on in a blog post – e.g. I felt they had good external validity and no obvious methodological flaws). But I tried not to make it sound like those studies were definitive, nor that they were the main cause of my belief in my claims.

Ultimately I’m pretty happy with my choice. I understand why it might be disappointing for someone expecting a lot of research… but I think it’s an unfortunate reality, given the current state of the social sciences, that books which cite a lot of social science studies tend to give off an impression of rigor that is not deserved.

Julia_Galef 10 Dec 2015 23:56 UTC
18 points
on: Why startup founders have mood swings (and why they may have uses)
This doesn’t really ring true to me (as a model of my personal subjective experience).

The model in this post says despair is “a sign that important evidence has been building up in your buffer, unacknowledged, and that it’s time now to integrate it into your plans.”

But most of the times that I’ve cycled intermittently into despair over some project (or relationship), it’s been because of facts I already knew, consciously, about the project. I’m just becoming re-focused on them. And I wouldn’t be surprised if things like low blood sugar or anxiety spilling over from other areas of my life are major causes of some Fact X seeming far more gloomy on one particular day than it did just the day before.

And similarly, most of the times I cycle back out of despair, it’s not because of some new information I learned or an update I made to my plans. It’s because, e.g., I went to sleep and woke up the next morning and things seemed okay again. Or because my best friend reminded me of optimistic Facts Y and Z which I already knew about, but hadn’t been thinking about.

Julia_Galef 22 Jul 2015 0:39 UTC
10 points
on: Speculative rationality skills and appropriable research or anecdote
Hey, I’m one of the founders of CFAR (and used to teach the Reference Class Hopping session you mentioned).

You seem to be misinformed about what CFAR is claiming about our material. Just to use Reference Class Hopping as an example: It’s not the same as reference class forecasting. It involves doing reference class forecasting (in the first half of the session), then finding ways to put yourself in a different reference class so that your forecast will be more encouraging. We’re very explicit about the difference.

I’ve emailed experts in reference class forecasting, described our “hopping” extension to the basic forecasting technique, and asked: “Is anyone doing research on this?” Their response: “No, but what you’re doing sounds useful.” [If I get permission to quote the source here I will do so.]

This is pretty standard for most of our classes that are based on existing techniques. We cite the literature, then explain how we’re extending it and why.

Julia_Galef 8 Apr 2015 19:47 UTC
10 points
in reply to: alicey’s comment on: 16 types of useful predictions
I usually try to mix it up. A quick count shows 6 male examples and 2 female examples, which was not a deliberate choice, but I guess I can be more intentional about a more even split in future?

Julia_Galef 15 Dec 2014 19:13 UTC
11 points
in reply to: swfrank’s comment on: Harper’s Magazine article on LW/MIRI/CFAR and Ethereum
Thanks for showing up and clarifying, Sam!

I’d be curious to hear more about the ways in which you think CFAR is over-(epistemically) hygienic. Feel free to email me if you prefer, but I bet a lot of people here would also be interested to hear your critique.

Julia_Galef 15 Dec 2014 19:01 UTC
3 points
in reply to: ChristianKl’s comment on: Harper’s Magazine article on LW/MIRI/CFAR and Ethereum
Sure, here’s a CDC overview: http://www.cdc.gov/handwashing/show-me-the-science-hand-sanitizer.html They seem to be imperfect but better than nothing, and since people are surely not going to be washing their hands every time they cough, sneeze, or touch communal surfaces, supplementing normal handwashing practices with hand sanitizer seems like a probably-helpful precaution.

But note that this has turned out to be an accidental tangent since the “overhygienic” criticism was actually meant to refer to epistemic hygiene! (I am potentially also indignant about the newly clarified criticism, but would need more detail from Sam to find out what, exactly, about our epistemic hygiene he objects to.)

Julia_Galef 12 Dec 2014 23:55 UTC
7 points
in reply to: Lumifer’s comment on: Harper’s Magazine article on LW/MIRI/CFAR and Ethereum
Edited to reflect the fact that, no, we certainly don’t insist. We just warn people that it’s common to get sick during the workshop because you’re probably getting less sleep and in close contact with so many other people (many of whom have recently been in airports, etc.). And that it’s good practice to use hand sanitizers regularly, not just for your own sake but for others’.

Julia_Galef 12 Dec 2014 23:07 UTC
27 points
on: Harper’s Magazine article on LW/MIRI/CFAR and Ethereum
Perhaps this is silly of me, but the single word in the article that made me indignantly exclaim “What!?” was when he called CFAR “overhygienic.”

I mean… you can call us nerdy, weird in some ways, obsessed with productivity, with some justification! But how can you take issue with our insistence [Edit: more like strong encouragement!] that people use hand sanitizer at a 4-day retreat with 40 people sharing food and close quarters?

[Edit: The author has clarified above that “overhygienic” was meant to refer to epistemic hygiene, not literal hygiene.]

Julia_Galef 19 Jan 2014 8:18 UTC
120 points
0
on: Tell Culture

“I’m beginning to find this conversation aversive, and I’m not sure why. I propose we hold off until I’ve figured that out.”

I read this suggested line and felt a little worried. I hope rationalist culture doesn’t head in that direction.

There are plenty of times when I agree a policy of frankness can be useful, but one of the risks of such a policy is that it can become an excuse to abdicate responsibility for your effect on other people.

If you tell me that you’re having an aversive reaction to our conversation, but can’t tell me why, it’s going to stress me out, and I’m going to feel compelled to go back over our conversation to see if I can figure out what I did to cause that reaction in you. That’s a non-negligible burden to dump on someone.

If, instead, you found an excuse to leave the conversation gracefully (no need for annoyed body language), you can reflect on the conversation later and decide if there is anything in particular I did to cause your aversive reaction. Maybe so, and you want to bring it up with me later. Or maybe you decide you overreacted to a comment I made, which you now believe you misinterpreted. Or maybe you decide you were just anxious about something unrelated. Overall, chances are good that you can save me a lot of stress and self-consciousness by dealing with your emotions yourself as a first pass, and making them my problem only if (upon reflection) you decide that it would be helpful to do so.

Julia_Galef 9 Jan 2014 19:25 UTC
9 points
in reply to: ArisKatsaris’s comment on: Why CFAR?
Yes, that makes a lot of sense!

Since we don’t have any programmers on staff at the moment, we went with the less-than-ideal solution of a manual thermometer, which we update about once a day—but it certainly would be better to have it happen automatically.

For now, I’ve gone with the kluge-y solution of an “Updated January XXth” note directly above the menu bar. Thanks for the comment.

Julia_Galef 2 Jan 2014 19:01 UTC
20 points
on: Why CFAR?

several mainstream media articles about CFAR on their way, including one forthcoming shortly in the Wall Street Journal

That article’s up now—it was on the cover of the Personal Journal section of the WSJ, on December 31st. Here’s the online version: More Rational Resolutions

Julia_Galef 24 Sep 2013 7:12 UTC
4 points
in reply to: LM7805’s comment on: A map of Bay Area memespace
Great one, thanks!

Julia_Galef 24 Sep 2013 6:58 UTC
7 points
in reply to: roland’s comment on: A map of Bay Area memespace
Agreed. I might add them to a future version of this map.

This time around I held off mainly because I was confounded by how to add them; drugs really do pervade so many of these groups, in different variants: psychadelics are strong among the counterculture and New Age culture, nootropics are more popular among rationalists and biohackers/Quantified Self, and both are popular among transhumanists. (See this H+ article for a discussion of psychadelic transhumanists.)

Julia_Galef 10 Sep 2013 7:47 UTC
12 points
in reply to: Richard_Kennaway’s comment on: Three ways CFAR has changed my view of rationality
Well, I’d say that LW does take account of who we are. They just haven’t had the impetus to do so quite as thoroughly as CFAR has. As a result there are aspects of applied rationality, or “rationality for humans” as I sometimes call it, that CFAR has developed and LW hasn’t.

Julia_Galef 8 Apr 2013 18:23 UTC
21 points
in reply to: shminux’s comment on: New applied rationality workshops (April, May, and July)
If it makes you feel less hesitant, we’ve given refunds twice. One person at a workshop last year who said he’d expected polish and suits, and another who said he enjoyed it but wasn’t sure it was going to help enough with his current life situation to be worth it.

Julia_Galef 8 Apr 2013 15:44 UTC
1 point
in reply to: dspeyer’s comment on: New applied rationality workshops (April, May, and July)
Fixed now, sorry!

Julia_Galef 8 Apr 2013 15:35 UTC
0 points
in reply to: JMiller’s comment on: New applied rationality workshops (April, May, and July)
Fixed! Thanks, I apparently didn’t understand how links worked in this system.

Julia_Galef 9 Nov 2012 0:09 UTC
13 points
in reply to: TheSingularityIsOver’s comment on: Nov 16-18: Rationality for Entrepreneurs
Not sure what kind of evidence you’re looking for here; that’s just a description of our selection criteria for attendees.