Posts
Comments
Thanks Connor! To self-prime, we need to generating priming material (or strategies for generating priming material). What might these generators look like? If your goal is to introduce new directions of thinking without particular targets, here possible strategies:
-Go to r/random and look at the best of all time for up to 5-10 minutes (set a site nanny like StayFocusd so it doesn't exceed this)
-... Same, but for YouTube, Podcasts, Wikipedia, etc. Youtube video walking tours of different cities are intriguing and different
-Quickly list things that you're [afraid of, curious about, hateful of, disgusted by, in love with, uninterested in] and choose one to investigate
-Find someone with opinions about your media consumption. Get them to recommend a book/band/movie where "there's no way you haven't seen this!!"
-Daydream in a linked list. "This reminds me of my dream about subway stations which reminds me that the BART infrastructure has always puzzled me, so I'll look into that because why not"
The problem with these for me is some part of me thinks this is artificial novelty, not something that will cause deep updates about the way the world works (so I won't actually use them). If you're like me, you'll need to generate priming material your own way, and the above list are just clever-sounding strategies.
If this norm were to be followed, I think it should apply to endorsements / positive statements as well. Unjustified positivity and endorsement is more harmful when criticism is discouraged.
I've recently begun to experiment with alcohol for entertainment. While intoxicated I attempt to retain my mental control despite handicaps as a challenge in rationality. This has led me to observe my thinking patterns while sober more often--to a hypothetical superrational being, humans in the best scenario must seem at least as impaired as those beings would in their version of drunkedness. Some of the things I'm hoping to test are how my ability to analyze logical propositions, assign probability to various outcomes, or determine the choice that maximizes utility decline.
While testing my physical capabilities is straightforward (line walking, raise one foot and count), testing mental capabilities is much harder and I'm struggling to think of tests that are simple enough to self-administer in a handicapped state and produce results that I can analyze then or later. This will help me answer the question of How scratched can the lens be before it can no longer can see its flaws? Any suggestions of tests would be appreciated.
- The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly - Sun-mi Hwang, touching contemporary fable.
- Nightfall - Isaac Asimov, old enough to be cliche and predictable despite being original for its time.
- A Song of Ice and Fire (1-5) - G R R Martin, took a while to read and addictive. Stays interesting if he explores a character you can relate to.
- Guards! Guards!, Going Postal, and Making Money - Terry Pratchett, fun Discworld novels.
- The Age of Spiritual Machines - Ray Kurzweil, outdated but thought provoking.
- My Stroke of Insight - Jill B Taylor, a TED talk-ish book on neuroscience for the masses.
- I am a Strange Loop - Douglas Hofstadter, GEB without the dialogues and focused on consciousness.
- The Signal and the Noise - Nate Silver, makes a good case for Bayes' theorem without showing the theorem.
- Social Engineering: the Art of Human Hacking - Chris Hadnagy, rehashes Cialdini's Influence, describes some neat techniques, and includes some pseudoscience. Still nice intro to social engineering despite the author being a pentester, not a writer.
Hey, I do the same thing to take notes. I even decorate the header with the "==" too! What I do is I download a pdf or epub of a book (from straight google search or libgen.info/index.php) and split the screen, notes on one side and the book on the other. If I turn off wifi, this can be fantastically productive.
Perhaps something like the representativeness heuristic? While more details make something sound more believable, each detail is another thing that could be incorrect.
A new challenge not present when everyone you knew was from your area: How do you know this person?
With text messages and twitter, conciseness is valued and practiced. Outside of those, typing is faster than handwriting and there is no physical limit on length, just what someone is willing to read.
Due to text communications, personal hygiene and appearance are less important than proper spelling and grammar. Now it is possible to have strong connections with people without knowing their real name or what they look like. Avoiding the meatspace completely is easy, so skills such as making eye contact, small talk, and strong handshakes decay.