RainbowSpacedancer

Karma: 249

RainbowSpacedancer Feb 24, 2016, 6:44 AM
2 points
0
in reply to: Artaxerxes’s comment on: Open Thread Feb 22 - Feb 28, 2016
Revisiting past conversations I think this is exactly what has been happening. When I mention rationality, reason, logic it becomes a logic v. emotion discussion. I’ll taboo in future, thanks!

RainbowSpacedancer Feb 22, 2016, 3:43 AM
6 points
0
on: Open Thread Feb 22 - Feb 28, 2016
I have large PR problems when talking about rationality with others unfamiliar with it, with the Straw Vulcan being the most common trap conversation will fall into.

Are there any guides out there in the vein of the EA Pitch Wiki that could help someone avoid these traps and portray rationality in a more positive light? If not, would it be worth creating one?

So far I’ve found, how rationality can make your life more awesome, rationality for curiosity sake, rationality as winning, PR problems and the contrary rationality isn’t all that great.

RainbowSpacedancer Feb 16, 2016, 11:11 AM
1 point
0
in reply to: Duncan Sabien (Inactive)’s comment on: Unofficial Canon on Applied Rationality
Problems one and two (hard and imperfect) would suggest that people will get less value out of ScottL’s post than a workshop. OK, fine. Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Scale ScottL’s post up through easy online access and the many, many people getting a smaller somewhat unreliable benefit turns into something very significant. But problem 3,

Having seen crappy, distorted versions of the CFAR curriculum (or having attempted to absorb it from text, and failed), a typical human would then be much, much less receptive to other, better explanations in the future.

We don’t want to poison the well, we don’t want to break the very thing we’re trying to protect, and as a member of a group with something that at least resembles expertise (if you don’t want to credit us as actual experts), I think that requires a lot more work on our end, first.

That’s reason enough to not release your own material. But specifically, do you think ScottL’s compilation above or sharing the guide I’ve written (if I was to post it here for anyone to use) has the same effect? Do you think our compilations will have a net negative effect on rationality?

Thus far, CFAR hasn’t had the cycles to spend time creating the (let’s say) 80-20 version of their content.

For my own part, I think this belongs in our near future.

Do you have an estimate on this? I won’t hold you to it, I’d just like to know what kind of time frame ‘near’ is.

RainbowSpacedancer Feb 16, 2016, 1:03 AM
6 points
0
in reply to: Crux’s comment on: Unofficial Canon on Applied Rationality

Rather than deferring to the judgment of the Smart Altruists and assuming that within their secret backroom discussions they’ve determined with logic, rigor, and a plethora of academic citations that it’s crucial to the mission of raising the sanity waterline to not release a comprehensive exposition of their body of rationality techniques, perhaps we need only consider your second point except in less reverential light.

Given the ease with which CFAR could publish all their material online it seems worth considering why they haven’t done so. If spreading rationality wide is indeed their goal, then why haven’t they picked this low hanging fruit yet? I’d rather not have to make any assumptions so if someone from CFAR is reading this perhaps they can answer that.

So much for the Internet-era model of “free information to be disseminated to all”. Without a deferential attitude toward the Great Rationalists of CFAR, Occam’s Razor suggests that perhaps they’re simply trying to keep the money flowing. Would it upset you if thousands of people without the resources or time to make it to a CFAR workshop had access to a self-study version of the CFAR curriculum?

Of course that would not upset me. If the CFAR curriculum remained forever available only to the few who attended their workshops that would be sad indeed. But CFAR Labs is currently working on new rationality sequences, and I don’t think the curriculum will be as inaccessible for much longer.

I want the world to be a more rational place. I want as many people as possible to have the opportunity to become more rational in the most effective way available. More than any other individual or group it seems to me that CFAR is best positioned to achieve that goal. Even if the reason is money—if that money goes towards increasing the speed at which effective rationality techniques are developed and spread worldwide then all the better.

RainbowSpacedancer Feb 15, 2016, 5:30 PM
8 points
0
on: Unofficial Canon on Applied Rationality
I had a very similar thought to this post. So similar in fact that I went ahead and wrote a kind of user guide for each CFAR’s techniques (though it has changed a great deal even in the last 4 months since I finished writing). I also have never been to a CFAR workshop and drew on many of the same online sources that you have. It took about a month to compile of working in my spare time. My motivation for doing so was the cost of attending a workshop (financially and time costs) were simply too high for someone in my position overseas.

I’ve printed it and only use it personally. I’ve never shared it other than with one close friend. I’m concerned about you posting this now, for the same reasons that stopped me from sharing my compilation even though I could see a great deal of benefit in it.

My thoughts for not sharing it are,
1. CFAR has all of this material readily available likely in a much more comprehensive and accurate format. CFAR are altruists. Smart altruists. The lack of anything like this canon suggests that they don’t think having this publicly available is a good idea. Not yet anyway. Even the workbook handed out at the workshops isn’t available.
2. I highly value CFAR as an organisation. I want them to be highly funded and want as many people to attend their workshops as possible. It would upset me to learn that someone had read my compilation and not attended a workshop thinking they had gotten most of the value they could.

RainbowSpacedancer Feb 12, 2016, 5:42 AM
−2 points
0
in reply to: goose000’s comment on: Religious and Rational?

Faith, in the sense in which I am here using the word, is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods.

So Bayes update on intellectual arguments, but not on your emotions when you consider them likely to change in the immediate future? That seems like a good virtue if one desires accurate beliefs.

RainbowSpacedancer Feb 9, 2016, 5:52 AM
21 points
0
on: Open Thread, Feb 8 - Feb 15, 2016
I recently attended a 10 day intensive Vipassana meditation retreat. Would a write-up of the experience be something LWers are interested in as an article for discussion?

I had minimal to moderate experience in meditation before this but now feel much more comfortable with it. I can see potential rationality relevance through,
```
* Discipline
* Concentration
* Emotion and habit regulation
* Seeing reality as it is
```
If there is interest then I would appreciate it if someone is willing to look over a draft of the article for me as I haven’t written for LW before.

RainbowSpacedancer May 18, 2015, 4:24 AM
2 points
0
on: Less Wrong Podcast Queries

Are they good quality for listening to?

I listen to audio books regularly and they are at the upper end in terms of quality.

Moreover, is the material they cover comprehensible?

Yes. Articles that don’t translate well into audio are not produced e.g. Intuitive Bayes Theorem is unavailable.

have you found the Less Wrong casts to be understandable sufficiently well for a first-time listener?

Yes.

I’d like to know in which order I should provide those articles that are available on Castify.

I don’t know what you mean here but you can contact Castify directly with your questions—http://castify.co/contact/new

RainbowSpacedancer Apr 24, 2015, 6:00 PM
3 points
0
in reply to: RyanCarey’s comment on: The Effective Altruism Handbook
Sumatra PDF 3.0 on Windows 8.1 x64. I believe the problem is the same one this user had with the AI to Zombies ebook.

I’ll be reading the epub personally (which works fine in Sumatra) on my Ipad so it doesn’t bother me, but I thought I would mention it as Sumatra is a relatively popular reader and if this ebook is produced by the same team as the rationality ebook then it seems to be a recurring problem.

RainbowSpacedancer Apr 24, 2015, 2:44 AM
5 points
0
on: The Effective Altruism Handbook
The epub and mobi links both lead to “page not found”.

Also having problems with the links within the PDF. They are blacked out though they still function as links. Same problem with the AI to Zombies ebook I think.

Otherwise very excited to read this!

RainbowSpacedancer Dec 11, 2014, 6:29 AM
4 points
0
on: Kickstarting the audio version of the upcoming book “The Sequences”
For those of us that have already purchased some podcast sequences from Castify,
1. How much of this audiobook will double up (in terms of both content and new voice acting)?
2. Will currently unavailable individual sequences be available for purchase separately at some stage?