I am the first in a family of budding rationalists to jump in to the LessWrong waters. I got my start as a Rationalist when I was born and was influenced very heavily through my childhood by my parents’ endless boxes of hard sci-fi and old school fantasy. Special mention goes to The World of Null-A (and its sequel) in introducing the notions of a worldview being ‘false to facts’, and a technique the main character uses (the “cortical-thalamic pause”) which is very similar to “I notice that I am confused.” I read everything avidly and have a mountain of books on my shelves dealing with neuroscience and cognitive biases.
The fam: I’m first in a family of six kids who have always been confused by the illogic and muddled thinking of our peers. We’ve all grown up strongly under the sway of the aforementioned sci-fi/fantasy collection and like nothing better than to debate topics and point out each other’s fallacies or gaps in logic. We are all slightly obsessed with HPMoR (I being the only one to have read Overcoming Bias / LW before the story’s inception) and I personally find that Harry’s thinking often mirrors my own to an eerie degree of similarity.
Several of us are also very interested in reforming education and are forming a tech company to that end (I’m a programmer / comp jack of all trades, and my almost-twin bro is a graphic designer*). I plan on diving into the sequences more rigorously in the upcoming months, as I’d like to integrate rationalist principles into the basic fiber of the products we produce (self guided, community assisted learning software).
(* While not all actively involved in the company, all six of us – including the girls and the 13 year old – can program.)
Hi,
I am the first in a family of budding rationalists to jump in to the LessWrong waters. I got my start as a Rationalist when I was born and was influenced very heavily through my childhood by my parents’ endless boxes of hard sci-fi and old school fantasy. Special mention goes to The World of Null-A (and its sequel) in introducing the notions of a worldview being ‘false to facts’, and a technique the main character uses (the “cortical-thalamic pause”) which is very similar to “I notice that I am confused.” I read everything avidly and have a mountain of books on my shelves dealing with neuroscience and cognitive biases.
The fam: I’m first in a family of six kids who have always been confused by the illogic and muddled thinking of our peers. We’ve all grown up strongly under the sway of the aforementioned sci-fi/fantasy collection and like nothing better than to debate topics and point out each other’s fallacies or gaps in logic. We are all slightly obsessed with HPMoR (I being the only one to have read Overcoming Bias / LW before the story’s inception) and I personally find that Harry’s thinking often mirrors my own to an eerie degree of similarity.
Several of us are also very interested in reforming education and are forming a tech company to that end (I’m a programmer / comp jack of all trades, and my almost-twin bro is a graphic designer*). I plan on diving into the sequences more rigorously in the upcoming months, as I’d like to integrate rationalist principles into the basic fiber of the products we produce (self guided, community assisted learning software).
(* While not all actively involved in the company, all six of us – including the girls and the 13 year old – can program.)