Posts

Deconstructing Biases In Media 2018-10-30T22:03:09.960Z
Does This Fallacy Have A Name? 2018-10-03T00:27:02.302Z

Comments

Comment by Apollo13 on Is Clickbait Destroying Our General Intelligence? · 2018-11-17T21:51:25.508Z · LW · GW

I really like this, however the term 'hard selecting' or 'selecting harder' is confusing to me. Do you think you could rephrase it to me, so I could understand it better?

Comment by Apollo13 on Embedded Agents · 2018-10-30T22:22:19.338Z · LW · GW

Thank you for explaining this in a way in which a visual learner like me can understand. Please make more comic style posts in the future!

Comment by Apollo13 on On Doing the Improbable · 2018-10-30T22:16:50.600Z · LW · GW

From my experience with working with groups I've found a few things to work, all of them revolve around incentivizing or promoting positive feedback loops. This includes: bribery/payment (while most people think of this as being with money, since I work with 10-17 year olds it's usually candy or pizza), lowering the bar so that small bits of progress are celebrated greatly, making the actual task less boring (turning on some music, working with friendly people, making it look pretty), humor, taking breaks to promote sanity, having a comfortable working environment etc.

Comment by Apollo13 on writing as the thinker's canvas · 2018-10-30T22:07:28.310Z · LW · GW

I personally find just writing quite a challenge when trying to convey an idea to someone else, not everyone has the same learning style so I try as much as possible to use multiple mediums when explaining. For example: drawing pictures or saying something out loud including sound affects or gesticulating. So, while I agree with your point, I think that additional forms of explaining are equally as invaluable

Comment by Apollo13 on Does This Fallacy Have A Name? · 2018-10-14T18:09:15.030Z · LW · GW

I quite agree with Paperclip Minimizer, you succumbed to the typical mind fallacy even as you talk about the typical mind fallacy, how ironic.

Comment by Apollo13 on Thinkerly: Grammarly for writing good thoughts · 2018-10-14T03:28:00.966Z · LW · GW

Just be careful, because it's better to make an abacus than to make a calculator. What do I mean by that? Well, an abacus helps you get the answer to your question but it also teaches you how to get that answer: take the abacus away, you can still do math, because now you know how. This is not so with a calculator.

So, make something that teaches proper thinking, not blatantly corrects thinking.

Imagine it this way: you've made your Thinkerly and then an evil overlord hacks into it so that 'good thinking' is now defined as being a non critical, manipulatable lump of jelly. Do the people who have previously used Thinkerly start questioning the program and use what Thinkerly has previously taught them to be skeptical of the program? Or, do they not notice at all because they just know to click the button to make everything better, or in this case smarter?

Comment by Apollo13 on Why don’t we treat geniuses like professional athletes? · 2018-10-12T02:44:29.740Z · LW · GW

I would say that we already do, in some respects. For example nap pods at Google or the ever common situation of sucking up to all of the needs of a genius, CEO, or prodigy. However I think the real problem is making these services available to more than just the geniuses at big companies with lots of money. Like the way that a neighborhood gym has a weight room, we need mental treadmills in communities too.

Comment by Apollo13 on Moloch in whom I sit alone · 2018-10-06T23:27:12.851Z · LW · GW

I personally do not find this dynamic confusing at all. Seeing as this is not obvious to other people I'll try to explain how I understand it to work (and because I like the idea of cats and pineapples I'll stick to those):

1. You need to start with cats, and the right cats: Two people who have each other's undivided attention makes for a much better conversation than starting in a group. And obviously these two cats need to have something both of them have common knowledge about in order to have a conversation.

2. Soon you'll start to form a pineapple: The conversation of two cats usually works by each cat adding information the other doesn't know and find interesting. You're sooner or later bound to find some other people walking by at your party who also want to add in on the conversation. The amount of these people determines the "size" of your pineapple aka group.

3. The choice: Now, you could start pushing other people away when they want to turn your pair of cats into a pineapple, and that may be a reasonable thing to do if people in your pineapple are just pretending to know things or aren't interested. However, if this is not the case it is a plus to be in a pineapple.

In general this dynamic from cats to pineapples is what creates things like special interest groups and in general how communities form. The internet is simply making step 2 easier than ever.

Comment by Apollo13 on [deleted post] 2018-10-06T22:45:43.538Z

I've heard of an app called Vent that may help your research

Comment by Apollo13 on Does This Fallacy Have A Name? · 2018-10-06T22:40:17.377Z · LW · GW

The typical mind fallacy sounds like the best fit so far. Thanks to both Unnamed and shminux for mentioning it.

Comment by Apollo13 on The Feedback Problem · 2018-10-03T04:23:15.295Z · LW · GW

I actually find that, when I do a performance that I find is mediocre feedback that says, "That was good." is much worse than feedback that says, "This specific thing was bad" and it's even better if it says, "This specific thing was bad and here's a way to fix it/compensate". Specific critique is more helpful to me than general critique - no matter the positive or negative implications. Things like "Do this more" "Stop doing this" and "Do this instead of that" are, to me the most helpful kinds of feedback. (The question of which comments to execute and how to execute each is my problem to deal with though)

Comment by Apollo13 on Strategies for Personal Growth · 2018-10-03T04:11:45.827Z · LW · GW

Right, I forgot about the biases I attained from choosing to not have social media.

Comment by Apollo13 on Strategies for Personal Growth · 2018-10-03T00:41:39.983Z · LW · GW

Can someone please tell me what FB stand for? (It's mentioned in the very first sentence) Thanks!

Comment by Apollo13 on New Improved Lottery · 2018-10-01T18:12:06.524Z · LW · GW

This random gratitude dynamic is exactly what social media platforms use to make their apps addicting. I remember having a conversation about it with a friend and she said something along the lines of, "Man, if Instagram gave me all my notifications at noon, the rest of the day I'd look really stupid. But because there's always a random chance of getting notifications, I check my phone all the time." The lottery system is obviously a bit different because you get a call rather saying you won, rather than you have to call them, to see if you've won. Nevertheless, even if there is a more positive feedback loop it's still as addictive, if not more...

Comment by Apollo13 on The Third Alternative · 2018-10-01T18:04:39.636Z · LW · GW

Proof that they can be used singularly too: "It looks like someone left their jacket here, I wish I knew who it was so I could give them their jacket so they can stay warm."

Comment by Apollo13 on Problem Solving with Mazes and Crayon · 2018-09-28T17:47:57.040Z · LW · GW

I really like this post, it's very informative about the kind of search algorithms that exist. I had one question though, in my experience as a child solving mazes with a crayon I stumbled upon the tactic of starting at the end and getting to the beginning. This worked really well for me, but it always confused me as to why it was easier. Does anyone have a hypothesis as to why this might be?

Comment by Apollo13 on Emotional Training Model · 2018-09-27T03:32:40.986Z · LW · GW

What should I do when I don't feel calm and/or relived after feeling what I really feel for a long time?

(Edit: in this case ' a long time' means more than 6 months)