Yvain's most important articles

I thought the biodeterminists guide was one of the most useful things I've ever read. I'd love it if Yvain would write the same for longevity, general fitness, IQ, etc.

Replies from: Fluttershy, tog, casebash

↑ comment by Fluttershy · 2015-08-16T20:36:32.109Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

I'd love there to be more work done on longevity, general fitness, and other practical applied rationality topics as well. The opportunity cost of having so many well written articles on social justice and the social sciences floating around is that LW users may spend more time thinking about those topics, to the partial exclusion of spending time thinking about applied rationality.

On longevity: see here.

Replies from: None

↑ comment by [deleted] · 2015-08-16T20:46:17.915Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Romeo Stevens has a guide on general fitness here called "optimal exercise" I believe.

Replies from: 9eB1

↑ comment by 9eB1 · 2015-08-16T22:42:33.213Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

That article is here

↑ comment by tog · 2015-08-18T05:12:20.554Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

I asked for a good general guide to IQ (and in particular its objectivity and importance) on the LW FB group a while back. I got a bunch of answers, including these standouts:

http://www.psych.utoronto.ca/users/reingold/courses/intelligence/cache/1198gottfred.html

http://www.newscientist.com/data/doc/article/dn19554/instant_expert_13_-_intelligence.pdf

But there's still plenty of room for improvement on those so I'd be curious to hear others' suggestions.

Replies from: Pablo_Stafforini, tog

↑ comment by Pablo (Pablo_Stafforini) · 2015-08-18T18:43:43.515Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

On IQ, I strongly recommend Ian Deary's Intelligence: A Short Introduction (link to shared file in my Google Drive).

↑ comment by tog · 2015-08-18T05:12:47.964Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

And a friend requests an article comparing IQ and conscientiousness as a predictor for different things.

↑ comment by casebash · 2015-08-16T23:09:10.656Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Added. That article is pretty comprehensive so deserves a place in the list.

comment by MarsColony_in10years · 2015-08-18T16:39:12.984Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

This got linked to on facebook, and Rob Bensinger made the following comment:

I included most of these in my list, but I wouldn't include The Virtue of Silence, Biodeterminist's Guide to Parenting, Burdens, Nobody is Perfect, Toxoplasma OF Rage, Chronicles of Wasted Time, The Categories Were Made for Man, Radicalizing the Romanceless, Living by the Sword, Meditations 1-3, Untitled, Social Justice and Words Words Words, Fetal Attraction, I Do Not Understand Rape Culture, Unspoken Ground Assumptions, Should You Reverse Any Advice You Hear?, Joint Over- and Under-Diagnosis, What Human Universal Experiences Are You Missing Without Realizing It?, Phatic and Anti-Inductive, Beware Isolated Demands for Rigor, Giving and Accepting Apologies, The Courtier's Reply and the Myers Shuffle, My Id on Defensiveness, The Zombie Preacher of Somerset, Rational Home-Buying, Apologia pro Vita Sua, Money Money Everywhere, Fish (Now By Prescription), An Iron Curtain Has Descended Upon Psychopharmacology, Schizophrenia and Geomagnetic Storms, And I Show You How Deep the Rabbit Hole Goes, Five Years and One Week of LessWrong, Highlights From My Notes From Another Psychiatry Conference. And I included many that were left out. A few of these I think are unusually bad posts, but most just don't seem essential for people getting started on his writing (or their points are made better elsewhere), though there are lots of fun/interesting bits in them for the completionists.

Might consider Parable of the Talents and Epistemic Learned Helplessness. I haven't read Why I Defend Scoundrels, Mitt Romney, Non-Conformism, Offense versus Harm Minimization, or Towards a Theory of Drama, Straw Individual, Revenge as a Charitable Act, Hope! Change!, Approving Reinforces Low-Effort Behaviors, What's in a Name, Why Support the Underdog?, That Other Kind of Status, A Parable on Obsolete Ideologies, Bogus Pipeline, I Appreciate the Situation.

Stingray suggested that a condensed list would be useful, and judging by the 6 upvotes several other people agree. In order to do this, I've taken the intersection of the two lists (by removing the items that didn't make Rob Bensinger's list from the OP list). I'd expect what's left to be higher value pieces. (although a few removed items definitely sound interesting.)

Important

Meditations on Moloch: An explanation of co-ordination problems within our society

Weak Men are Superweapons (supplement - feminists will like this one less)

You Kant Dismiss Universalizability - Kant is about not proposing rules that would be self-defeating

The Spirit of the First Amendment

Red Plenty - Why communism failed

All in all, another brick in the motte - Motte-and-bailey doctrine

Intellectual Hipsters and Meta-Contrarianism

Reactionary Philosophy in an Enormous, Planet-sized Nutshell

Anti-reactionary FAQ

Right is the new Left

Archipelago and Atomic Communitarianism - different countries based on different principles

Parable of the talents - nature vs. nurture

Why I defend scoundrels

Non-conformism

Towards a theory of drama, Further towards a theory of drama

All debates are bravery debates

I can tolerate anything except the outgroup - what tolerance really mean

Who by very slow decay - Euthanasia

Non-libertarian FAQ

Consequentialism FAQ

Efficient Charity: Do Unto Others

Eight Short Studies on Excuses

Generalising from one example

Game theory as a dark art

What is signaling really?

Social Justice General

Offense versus harm minimisation

Fearful Symmetry - Politicization, Micro-aggressions, Hyperviligance

In favor of niceness, community and civilisation - Importance of the social contract

Social justice for the highly-demanding of rigour

Meditation 5 - True love and creepiness

Meditation 8 on Superweapons and Bingo

Triggers

I believe the correct term is "straw individual"

Five case studies on politicization

Social Justice Careful

Why I defend scoundrels part 2

A Response to Apophemi on Triggers - Should the rationality community be a safe space?

Meditation on Applause Lights

Arguments about Male Violence Prove too Much

Mitt Romney

Useful concepts

Introduction to Game Theory - main ones:

Nash Equilibria and Schelling Points
Bargaining and auctions
Prisoner's dilemma includes discussion of limited crimes

Revenge as a charitable act

Hope! Change! - how much change can we expect from our politicians

A Thrive-survive Theory of the Political Spectrum

Read History of Philosophy Backwards

Against bravery debates

Searching for One-Sided Tradeoffs

Proving too much

Non-central fallacy

Schelling fences on slippery slopes

Purchase fuzzies and utilitons separately

Diseased thinking: dissolving questions about disease

Confidence levels inside and outside an argument

Least convenient possible world

Epistemic learned helplessness

Approving reinforces low-effort behaviors - wanting/liking/approving

What's in a name

How not to lose an argument

Beware trivial inconveniences

When truth isn't enough

Why support the underdog?

Applied picoeconomics

A signaling theory of class x politics interaction

That other kind of status

A parable on obsolete ideologies

Talking snakes: A cautionary tale

Beware the man of one study

Interesting

Bogus Pipeline, Bona Fide Piepline

"I appreciate the situation"

A Babylon 5 Story

Social Psychology is a Flamethrower

The Control Group is out of Control - parapsychology

The apologist and the revolutionary - Anosognosia and neuro-science

Replies from: casebash

↑ comment by casebash · 2015-08-19T00:09:11.234Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

One thing that I'd like to know before considering Rob Bensinger's suggestions is how strongly feminist he is (this doesn't count as an ad hominem, as that only applies when someone has given reasons and you ignore them in favour of who they are, not when they've stated an opinion with no reasons). Because a lot of those articles are rather highly critical of feminism and it wouldn't make much sense, for example, to ask a Christian whether you should read certain articles about atheism.

That said, maybe he just feels that these articles would turn people off - in which case - I probably should have done a better job of labelling than with my current system.

(For reasons of disclosure, my views on feminism are pretty close to Scott. I can appreciate that feminism has done lots of good in the past and that they make some good points, but I also don't like what the movement has become).

I'm much more interested in the articles that he would have included, then the ones that he excluded because I'm taking a completionist approach - the idea is that if you read through the list, you shouldn't miss anything important.

The other thing I did when compiling this list, which I wish I hadn't, was to include articles for a single strong section, without actually noting that this was the case. In particular, the useful concepts section contains many articles where I only want you to get a single concept out of the article. If someone already knows the concept, I guess you could skip them.

Actually, I definitely want to produce a revised version of the list that does a better job of breaking into sections based on why the articles were included so that people can decide for themselves which articles they want to read or not. It'll probably take me several months to get round to it, but I think that it could be valuable.

Replies from: RobbBB

↑ comment by Rob Bensinger (RobbBB) · 2015-08-25T03:57:51.833Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

My list has a lot of added posts; I'll try to get a draft to link to in the next few weeks. I'd say there are different sets of introductory articles I'd recommend to people who I know to be feminists and people who I know to be anti-feminists, and the list I'm currently working on is one I'd feel comfortable giving to either group.

That means posts that take for granted at the outset that the reader thinks feminism is obviously terrible (e.g., Radicalizing the Romanceless, which quips that people who talk about Nice Guys are "blurring the already rather thin line between 'feminism' and 'literally Voldemort'") are less-likely-than-baseline to make my list, whereas ones that make a persuasive and sympathetic case against common ideas in feminism (e.g., Weak Men Are Superweapons) are more-likely-than-baseline to make my list.

Replies from: casebash, hg00

↑ comment by casebash · 2015-08-25T10:22:10.133Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Looking forward to seeing the list when it is done.

Replies from: RobbBB, RobbBB

↑ comment by Rob Bensinger (RobbBB) · 2015-09-15T21:25:48.077Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

And here's my list!

↑ comment by Rob Bensinger (RobbBB) · 2015-08-25T10:36:37.029Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

I'll let you know! I'll also want feedback on what you and others think I should add/remove, since I don't expect the list to be perfect even at achieving my own Scott-promoting goals.

↑ comment by hg00 · 2015-09-19T22:46:18.174Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Off topic, but... since you are allegedly a strong feminist, maybe you can recommend specific feminist writing that you think is good reading as a counterpoint to SSC's stuff? I've read a fair amount of feminist writing but I haven't managed to find much that is as well-argued/thoughtful/reasonable as the SSC stuff. Ideally it would be feminist writing that attempts to respond to SSC directly.

Replies from: RobbBB

↑ comment by Rob Bensinger (RobbBB) · 2015-09-20T20:08:23.527Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

"As well-argued/thoughtful/reasonable as the SSC stuff" is a pretty hard target to hit on most topics. Could you be more specific than "feminist writing", e.g., talk about a certain claim SSC makes that you'd like to see assessed by others?

Popehat's Shirts and Shirtiness strikes me as an especially high-quality post that's SSC-ish while coming out in favor of some ideas you see in feminism. Agenty Duck's Hasty Genderalizations gives a broader argument for worrying about gender bias. Ben Kuhn's On Inclusivity in Less Wrong is an example of a good feminism-relevant response to a specific SSC argument (though I don't necessarily agree 100% with Ben's arguments, and some of them may be dated at this point).

I'm not sure which of these is closest to what you're looking for. I find blogs like Thing of Things, Gruntled and Hinged, and The Unit of Caring useful both for clearly articulating ideas in the feminist memespace and for providing independent confirmation for some SSC views.

comment by Stingray · 2015-08-16T09:22:42.090Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

What criteria have you used to decide which posts are the most important?

Replies from: casebash

↑ comment by casebash · 2015-08-16T09:41:28.980Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Well, it's very subjective. I tried to optimise heavily for originality, ideas that I've seen on Slatestarcodex, but haven't seen anywhere else. On the other hand, I've also included comprehensive rebuttals like Why I hate your freedom, Consequentialism FAQ and Who by very slow decay. Here it isn't so much the ideas that are unique, but how comprehensively he tackles these issues and with how much charity.

The reason why the list is so long is that I've tried to be inclusive. My aim is to try ensure that it includes all the "must read" articles, even if this results in the list being very long.

Replies from: Stingray

↑ comment by Stingray · 2015-08-16T10:20:08.253Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

I think that if someone who is completely unfamiliar with Yvain's writings saw your post, she/he would likely be scared of a wall of links. If you want your list to be useful, you should provide a recommended reading order for new readers. I've upvoted you, but at the moment the list is ordered randomly.

Replies from: casebash

↑ comment by casebash · 2015-08-16T11:47:22.868Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

That's an interesting idea. However, the most likely outcome is that I'll be distracted by other projects and never get round to this. Compiling that list already took way too much of my time.

Replies from: MarsColony_in10years

↑ comment by MarsColony_in10years · 2015-08-17T14:50:52.992Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

I'm only one data point, but I am fairly similar to the hypothetical "someone" that Stingray described, and I do intend to actually read most of these. This should slightly shift your estimate toward fewer people being scared off by the wall of links.

On the other hand, if you went through and bolded the important articles, I'd probably read just them. So, I'd still be getting a little value out of your prioritization work, but much less value than any hypothetical people scared off by the wall of links.

EDIT: Rob Bensinger made a useful comment on the LW facebook page about what he'd take off and add to this list. I've taken the intersection of the two to make a more selective list of what you both recommend. I'll probably just read through those, with the exception of a few interesting-sounding items.

comment by Ben Pace (Benito) · 2015-08-16T08:52:22.970Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

"Virtue of Silence" link is wrong.

Replies from: Viliam, casebash

↑ comment by Viliam · 2015-08-16T16:45:29.290Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

"Virtue of Silence" link is wrong.

That's the point! /s

↑ comment by casebash · 2015-08-16T09:04:04.296Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Thanks. Fixed

comment by Netwall · 2015-09-04T14:42:05.225Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Hey, the Purchase Fuzzies and Utilons Separately post seems to actually be written by Yudkowski. Is it possible that you meant to link to the related Doing your good deed for the day?

Thanks for the list, though. As a new reader it's been interesting going through these posts.

comment by tog · 2015-08-18T05:10:01.297Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

I've been looking for this all my life without even knowing it. (Well, at least for half a year.)

comment by IsTheLittleLion · 2015-08-25T16:36:07.327Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

"Eight Short Studies on Excuses" link is wrong.

Replies from: casebash

↑ comment by casebash · 2015-08-26T23:32:48.407Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Fixed

comment by Yudkowsky_is_awesome · 2015-08-24T19:19:46.549Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

I really liked the consequentialist FAQ!

comment by Ben Pace (Benito) · 2015-08-16T08:51:21.120Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

"Right is the new Left" link is wrong.

Yvain's most important articles

Contents

30 comments