TL;DR: Choir agrees preacher’s sermon was very interesting.
So yes, I read this book with no small amount of motivation to enjoy it as I like Julia’s other stuff and am often terrified by the misery that irrationality causes. This is likely not a very impartial comment.
If we assume the goal was to achieve maximum possible swing in total human rationality*, I think it was correct to write the book with a less academic tone than some would have liked. If there had been a load more Bayes’ Theorem in it, people like me would have enjoyed it slightly more, but many others would have stopped reading.
Getting fresh blood to appreciate the benefits of rationality is huge. Once they’re in, they can explore more academic/technical resources if they want.
And even if you are very familiar with the subject matter, you may still need a hand in stopping your soldier mindset barging around with his ridiculous ideas. I have a Zoom call with friends in a bit, and despite just having read The Scout Mindset and being in the middle of writing this sentence, I’ll probably still get too attached to my beliefs once we start talking politics. There’s plenty of low-hanging fruit out there when it comes to walking the talk.
*Whatever the actual goal was, I don’t think this is a terrible proxy.
Last night I spent a couple of hours obsessively hammering away at Excel to be the first to solve this before noticing firstly that it’s three years old, and secondly that I was nowhere near solving it.
Found it a hugely entertaining concept though, and it was truly time well spent. Before checking the thread’s replies, I ended up going for Str+2, Dex+1, Con+2, Cha +5 for a 75% chance.
The most interesting part came today, when I estimated my own stats and wondered how I’d spend the 10 points on myself.
I feel in 2024 the value lies in Int>Wis>Con>Cha>Dex>Str. In the past and future this looks way different, though.