Group rationality diary, 9/3/12

I faced an ugh field. So far the results are satisfactory. I haven't been eaten by a grue.

This ugh field is interaction with male authority figures, specifically when the subject of this interaction is some technical field, in which competence is viewed as a manly trait. I often lack such competence, and feel very awkward (dare I say "unmanly"?) when dealing with men who have it.

Two most recent examples of facing this ugh field:

I've had my bicycle serviced. This included going to a local bike shop and a frank conversation with the serviceman about the technical condition of my bicycle and possible ways to improve it. $100 in spare parts later I'm quite satisfied with the improved quality of my ride. One minus: I got a 12T-32T cassette in place of the old 12T-28T. I have no use for this granny gear. Next time I'll be more specific about it.

I've also started taking car driving lessons. In my country an official state-recognized driving license course includes 30 hours of driving practice 1-on-1 with a driving instructor, whose job includes pointing out all the rookie mistakes you make on the road, and possibly hoping that you don't kill both of you in some stupid way. So far I can manage this new and stressful situation, and I'm slowly building my driving skills.

The second example also includes discarding a cached identity of a biker who scorns cars, which I didn't feel that strongly about in the first place.

I started tracking a couple of things systematically.

The 1st is at work. I noticed that some of the medical staff at my hospital aren't using our software correctly, and as a result are leaving the door open for some major drug-related problems. I asked for access to patient data from our database, but I was declined. Since I didn't have access that way, I just started collecting instances of entry error manually. After I collected a good sample, I presented it to my boss, who promptly got me the data I requested. Now I have a new problem of sorting through thousands of errors accumulated throughout several years of hospital operation.

The 2nd is at home. I started recording my SRS reps (how many flashcards I study each day) and my % correct. Today was an "above average" day as far as % correct goes. I'm hoping to try some interventions to see if they will have any effect on my error rate and/or long-term memory, but the 1st step is to get a good baseline.

Optimized some part of a common routine or cached behavior

Fall semester of university started last week. I reviewed my syllabi and was becoming overwhelmed with the amount of assigned work.

To get a better grasp on exactly how much there was, I spent a few hours combining information from all of the syllabi into one comprehensive schedule. I can now see at a glance exactly when assignments are due, as well as when quizzes/tests are.

I've started to slowly but surely chip away at the work, and I've realized there it isn't as bad as I originally thought. It still won't be easy, but now I don't have any anxiety about not being able to get my work done.

I've started using Anki, mostly out of curiosity. It works, and I am pleased. I'm not sure what I should have predicted about this, or what simple test of efficacy there is. So far I'm just using the "Cognitive biases and related terms" and "List of cognitive biases and other fallacies" decks. I've thought about making a deck of my own, but have not acted on this.

Does anyone have other decks to suggest, that might be of general Less-Wrong related interest?

I've started organizing a HP:MoR book club. I've sent out an email, waiting on replies to gauge interest.

I've decided to use the group rationality diaries to motivate myself to take action on rationality-related things.

Trying out precommitment as a way to get optional stuff done. I promised bogdanb to draw and post a Penrose diagram of two colliding black holes, since neither of us could find it online. This has proven to be less trivial than I expected, but I am making progress.

Engaged in a spirited debate with another individual about the consequences of our mortality.

The other individual pointed out that if we exist in a universe where death is completely permanent, with no afterlife or any ability to continue living after biological death, then rationally we should spend every waking moment working on a way to stave off this undesirable outcome. Merely trying to live to the next day isn't sufficient - around 100 billion humans have tried this strategy, and are all dead now.

The other individual thought that perhaps every waking moment should go to developing molecular nanotechnology in the basement or some other unlikely to succeed endeavor. I pointed out that to even touch the level of individual atoms requires on the order of a million dollars of equipment, and that developing productive nanosystems is an effort that would take the resources of an entire nation state or more. By analogy : plenty of individuals desire strongly to build nuclear weapons in their basement, but no group has succeeded without nation state level support. Self replicating nanosystems are more complicated than nuclear weapons, and might in fact require a larger investment in resources (time, equipment, etc) than was spent developing nuclear weapons.

This individual was unhappy with the cryonics mindset - basically, try to scrap together enough resources to preserve your remains post mortem so that there is a non zero chance of future survival. Pray that in the remaining decades of life an individual has (in my case, approximately 60 years), the preservation mechanisms will be better researched so the chance of ultimate survival is better. He thought that the only chance of avoiding death that has any plausible chance of success is to remain conscious and active the entire time.

Result towards self actualization : negative. Even considering how dim the olds of ultimate survival are is extremely depressing. I know the reality is that more than 100 billion individuals are dead, and no matter what choices I make, I may end up among that group. This is quite frightening, because the prospect of death makes pointless any event that happens in my life. It technically would not matter if I became a billionaire and explored the world and enjoyed a thousand beautiful women or was falsely convicted of a crime I did not commit and incarcerated for the next 60 years. Either life history becomes meaningless upon the moment of death.

I've noticed that I have difficulty making daily anki use a habit, not because I have to study the cards, which I have very little resistance to, but because I have to create the cards. This effort has been the obstacle for me. To combat this, I'm going to focus on forming the habit of creating the cards, instead of just working on studying them. I'm creating a beeminder goal to help with this. Hopefully in a couple of weeks I'll have some updates on how well this worked.

I changed my habit of walking self-quantification by replacing my paper and pen method and inputting the data. Now I have a spreadsheet that contains how many steps I made in aggregate for the day as well the weight and the time I put the weight in. Then I put the spreadsheet under a git repository so that I won't lose it when the computer crash and the damage is irreversible. I plan to eventually work on manipulating the data to generate graphs and tables, but I have not yet execute this plan.

Fall semester has started for me as well. I've got a number of different projects I'm working on all in parallel, and am concerned about falling too far behind on any of them. I'm currently using a two-pronged strategy to try and keep my head above water on all of them: first, routinely discussing the next step and my progress so far in my diary (which I'm doing about twice a week now, but the frequency may increase), and second, trying to devote at least one block of time to it each week. (For example, I have a lot of papers to read through, and so I plan on doing that from ~9-5 on Wednesdays at least, and probably on other days as well.)

I'm not sure how effective the second will be- my emotional expectation is that regulating time inputs is not as effective as regulating mood inputs (i.e. I should work on project X when I want to work on project X, and not work on it when I don't want to work on it). My rational expectation is that regulating time inputs will be effective (and/or is the best way to regulate mood inputs).

(Other suggestions for ways to ensure progress / excite interest in a particular project are welcome.)

I've been snagging a bit on RTM, and I'm doing a bit better now that I'm adopting my strategy for catching up on the NYT when I come back from vacation: finish today's paper first! No matter how much I want to read the magazine section, my primary goal is finishing today's sections first, and then I can start knocking out the bits I missed.

So, for RTM, I'm focusing on getting today's tasks done and counting that as a victory. If I get the chance to knock out an overdue task, awesome, but, unless it's (a) really urgent or (b) suddenly really easy, today's stuff comes first. This helps me have a streak to maintain, instead of letting one lagging task that I'm still not getting to make the whole day feel like a loss (which tends to trigger "What the hell" neglect of other tasks).

Plus, when I neglect a task for non-black swan reasons (i.e. breaking my toe) that's usually a sign I didn't break it up into subtasks very well, or need a better reward. So I need to reformulate before I just stick it back in the lineup.