weft

Karma: 921

weft Apr 16, 2021, 7:43 PM
3 points
on: The Scout Mindset—read-along
Pre-Reading Thoughts

The Scout Mindset—read-along

weftApr 16, 2021, 7:43 PM

42 points

44 comments1 min readLW link

weft Mar 13, 2021, 8:28 AM
28 points
0
on: Trapped Priors As A Basic Problem Of Rationality
Amusingly, the example of humans that are scared of dogs most reminded me of my rescue dog who was scared of humans! Common internet advice is to use food to lure the dog closer to humans. That way they can associate new humans with tasty treats.
While this might work fine for dogs that are just mildly suspicious of strangers, it is actually bad for fearful dogs and reinforces the fear/stress response in the way Scott describes. Not knowing this, we tried the typical route and were surprised when our dog got even more reactive towards people. If she saw us talking to people, this was a sign that WE MIGHT MAKE HER GO TO THE PERSON (even though we never forced her, but luring her with treats was enough), so now just seeing us talking to people was enough to raise her stress levels and get a reaction.

I got a very good trainer, and she used the example of how if your boss hands you a paycheck while holding a gun to your head, the goodness of the paycheck doesn’t overcome the gun to your head.

Instead of trying to get her to go near strangers, we told all strangers to completely ignore her. We taught her to run away from strangers, and tossed treats away from the strangers. If a stranger is nearby or even talking to me, they won’t do anything scary like “look at her” (her previous life taught her that Attention From Humans is Dangerous), but instead she gets treats for running away.

Now she is still a little shy around strangers, and might bark once while running away if someone freaks her out a bit, but she volunteers to go up to people of her own will, and NOW we let strangers give her treats if she is willingly going up to them and sniffing around their hands without any prompting from any of us (and I continue to give her treats if she runs away as well)

weft Mar 13, 2021, 6:20 AM
5 points
in reply to: Vaniver’s comment on: [Lecture Club] Awakening from the Meaning Crisis
Consider doing some epistemic spot checks
The issue here is that the easy, straightforward facts are all legit to the best of my knowledge (e.g. the basic history of the Bronze Age collapse and such), but the points that his thesis is more strongly built upon are not just straightforward fact checks (e.g. Pretending to be a deer helps you hunt deer, and tribes with shamans outperformed tribes without, etc)

It’s like you list a bunch of real facts and real knowledge in order to make your point sound legit, and then put a bunch of wild speculation on top of it. (I’m not saying that’s what he’s doing, but that it’s a really easy thing to do, and really hard to tell apart).

weft Mar 13, 2021, 6:14 AM
1 point
in reply to: Yoav Ravid’s comment on: [Lecture Club] Awakening from the Meaning Crisis
His solution is to create an “ecosystem of practices” (such as meditation, journaling, circling and such) that are practiced communally. Sometimes he also calls it “The religion that isn’t a religion”

Two episodes / two hours in and he hasn’t mentioned any of this that I recall. I feel like the introductory session should at least vaguely mention where he’s going to be steering BEFORE you’ve invested many hours.

weft Mar 12, 2021, 9:04 PM
1 point
in reply to: Vaniver’s comment on: [Lecture Club] Awakening from the Meaning Crisis
I’ve just watched two episodes now, and while it’s interesting, it’s also… throwing up a lot of epistemic red flags for me.

He goes off on all these interesting tangents, but it feels more like “just so stories”. Like he can throw all this information at me to get me to nod along and follow where he’s going, without ever actually proving anything, and because there’s all these tangents I feel like he can slip stuff in without me noticing.

I’ve been listening to him for two hours now, and I still don’t quite get what his thesis is, except “There’s a meaning crisis.” I feel like he’s trying to push me towards a solution without being upfront from the beginning about what that solution is.… “Traditionalism”, maybe?

Or like maybe he’s saying something simple in a very complex and long-winded way in order to feel deep? But maybe that is the required method of saying it to get it deeper into your brain.

weft Mar 12, 2021, 6:15 AM
3 points
in reply to: weft’s comment on: [Lecture Club] Awakening from the Meaning Crisis
His digression about shamans really getting into the mindset of a deer in order to better track them reminds me of a skill “Pretending to Be” that I think is useful for many skills.

weft Mar 12, 2021, 5:44 AM
1 point
in reply to: Vaniver’s comment on: [Lecture Club] Awakening from the Meaning Crisis
I had previously watched an episode or two of this, and felt pretty meh about it. It felt like he overpromised and underdelivered, and talked a lot without getting to an actual point. I’m trying it again solely on the strength of your recommendation / it seems like you think there’s a solid payoff if you stick with it.

weft Feb 14, 2021, 6:17 AM
18 points
0
in reply to: Ben Pace’s comment on: Your Cheerful Price
But building flat-pack furniture is ADULT LEGOS!

weft Feb 14, 2021, 6:15 AM
11 points
0
in reply to: Vladimir_Nesov’s comment on: Your Cheerful Price
Yes, you are correct that the Cheerful Price could be less than my normal wage. But this is not usually the case for me. People aren’t usually asking my Cheerful Price to eat some ice cream, or something similarly pleasant. And unfortunately we don’t live in a world where my regular wages are above my Cheerful Price.

weft Feb 13, 2021, 8:02 PM
6 points
in reply to: ChristianKl’s comment on: Your Cheerful Price
I expect most people on LW to be okay being asked their Cheerful Price to have sex with someone. But e.g. even contemplating “Cheerful Price to kill my dog” throws an error and causes large psychic damage.

(Otoh, I fell asleep pondering my Cheerful Price for various random things, and I think it’s about $100k for my dog to stay with my ex instead of me)

(Edited: replaced torture thought experiment)

weft Feb 13, 2021, 8:56 AM
45 points
0
on: Your Cheerful Price
It’s sometimes hard for me to figure out exactly where my “cheerful price” is. So when I’m “negotiating” with people I trust, I often list a couple of prices, that are some set of:
- I definitely would not do it at this price (without it being a favor/ social exchange)
- The lowest price I think I would do it at.
- My Satisfied Price: I am happy to do the thing for you! This is what I normally get paid for similar jobs
- My Cheerful Price: I am excited to do the thing for you! This is more than my average, and I am actively happy about the opportunity!
- My Ecstatic Price: My Cheerful Price is definitely lower than this. I would be ecstatic if you paid me $100 / hr to do laundry. This is an amazing deal for me.
This can help because finding the ONE SPECIFIC NUMBER that is your Cheerful Price feels daunting. But feeling out a range helps you narrow it down.

For example: “You want my blegg?? Well I definitely wouldn’t give it to you for $10. But if you offered me for $500 I’d think it was my lucky day and you were crazy. Normally I give people bleggs for about $100. I’ve never gotten more than $200 for a blegg, and I was really happy about that, so.… $200?”

And honestly I feel more comfortable giving someone that whole set of information than just throwing out $200.

weft Feb 3, 2021, 9:11 PM
2 points
on: Does anyone else sometimes “run out of gas” when trying to think?
Yes. Trying to Think Hard about something logical just makes my mind feel like a brick wall slams down. Things that work:

-Sticking with things that are easy enough I don’t actually have to use Real Brain Power. If I’m learning complex things, the underlying level of abstraction has to be absolutely second nature before I put anything on top of it.

-Pretending To Think, which works good enough if you just want to trick people into believing that you are working hard at thinking

-Tricking my mind into not recognizing it is Thinking by use of humor, play, narrative

Like Ustice I have ADHD, and have a frequent feeling of low-level boredom that I get around by usually having two tracks running in my brain, e.g. watching TV while working / answering emails.

weft Jan 12, 2021, 10:48 PM
20 points
on: Group house norms really do seem toxic to many people.
I lived in DT and it was awful. OTOH I lived in quite a few other Rationalist houses (in both the bay and nyc) and they were all positive experiences.

I think making sure you filter for similar cleanliness levels, adultiness levels, lifestyle, etc is extremely important.

To me, living with random people you just vaguely like is still pretty good if they are a good lifestyle, etc match.

But it only takes ONE person to completely ruin a group house.

weft Nov 11, 2020, 12:43 AM
2 points
in reply to: habryka’s comment on: Location Discussion Takeaways
I’m too old to really mesh with university culture, and don’t code which makes programmer/startup culture not a good fit either.

(I would also argue that woke culture is taking over coastal programmer culture too, anyways)

weft Nov 10, 2020, 9:57 PM
5 points
on: Location Discussion Takeaways
You mention that moving to a rural area would be an “all-in” dynamic, but Berkeley feels more that way to me than most places.

It’s so far-left / woke here that I feel my only option is to hang out with rationalists. It doesn’t really feel like I have social options outside of the rationality community that aren’t a version of “hold your tongue and fake agree with everything that’s said.”

I’ve lived in a lot of places, and there DO exist places with much weaker / nonexistent cancel culture. Blue cities in red states are usually this way.

weft Nov 2, 2020, 8:01 PM
23 points
0
on: Is Success the Enemy of Freedom? (Full)
If I were to come up with a Clever Title for some of this, I might call it The Trap of the Local Maxima.

I did childcare and disability care in college, because it was a better option than being a cashier or something. Then I graduated and it was a recession, but I could use my childcare experience to get nanny jobs. And so on, and so on.

Now I have about 15 years of childcare experience. It is REALLY EASY for me to get GOOD PAYING nanny jobs. I can literally go on to a website, send out 5-10 applications to what I think are the best jobs there, and be working within a week.

Every now and then I try to do something else, but it is harder to find other types of jobs given my resume, and when I do the job is usually harder than nannying, and pays less. (I was recently an Office Manager, which had expectations I couldn’t live up to, and paid less than nannying. Now I do some Virtual Assistant work that is mostly writing / social media which is nice and easy, and a similar amount of pay per hour, but not as many hours per day)

I don’t even LIKE being a nanny. I never CHOSE it as a career. I don’t PARTICULARLY like children (not in the way most people who choose childcare do). Kids are easy, but my people-skills are mediocre when dealing with e.g. parents or other nannies.

I tell myself someday I will semi-retire and be a dog walker.

weft Oct 10, 2020, 1:07 AM
13 points
in reply to: Gordon Seidoh Worley’s comment on: The rationalist community’s location problem
COVID has taught me that I don’t need a big physical community, but it’s ALSO taught me that I am 100% uninterested in virtual replacements. I still e.g. post on facebook, but have not enjoyed virtual hangouts and the like.

If I could have a community of 7-200 people that were on the same street / property / very close, I think that would be my ideal. Being close to other similar groupings would be nice but not necessary. I think a community of about 20 is much stronger than a community of about 100 (the larger number necesitates weaker ties). A major issue is finding 7-20 people who would be a good fit and are willing to do it

weft Oct 9, 2020, 11:39 PM
1 point
in reply to: ChristianKl’s comment on: The rationalist community’s location problem
Yeah, Prague is a definite draw.

Amusingly, getting a dog is going to be a major issue to a potential move for us, since I’m pretty strongly against travelling with her in cargo which isn’t very safe. There isn’t a good way to get a dog to Europe. (There’s a single international cruise line that takes dogs, but nixes anything pitbull adjacent since they only dock in England which has strong anti-pitbull laws)

You can charter a private plane or yacht cabin, but it’s insanely expensive and I can’t find anywhere where e.g. 12 people who all want to fly their dogs to Europe but don’t care about the exact schedule charter a private plane together (at which point it’s pretty affordable, and would definitely be worth it)

weft Oct 9, 2020, 11:00 PM
5 points
in reply to: lincolnquirk’s comment on: The rationalist community’s location problem
I think I would be more happy in a gated / monastery community than in one with easy access to a big city. I love museums and historic architecture and whatnot, but on a day-to-day level I’d rather hedgehog than fox at this point in my life. I’d prefer a lifestyle that was designed to encourage frequent interaction with a small set of people, rather than a lifestyle that was designed to encourage frequent new experiences.

I enjoy the “small town” feeling of walking down a street and knowing a bunch of the people you pass. Combining this with rationalist values (as opposed to the religious or conservative values frequent in many small towns) seems ideal.

weft

The Scout Mind­set—read-along

The Scout Mindset—read-along