![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.conversiondiary.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/7_quick_takes_sm1.jpg\" "\\"7_quick_takes_sm\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>\u2014 1 \u2014<\/strong><\/p>\n Some long time ago, at some point after I\u2019d discovered\u00a0Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality<\/a><\/em>, I found LessWrong. \u00a0I liked the articles I stumbled on and occasionally went on link safari the way I do on TV Tropes, but I didn\u2019t start reading the Sequences in any organized way until Luke Muehlhauser (then of Common Sense Atheism<\/a>, now of the Singularity Institute<\/a>) started blogging through all of Yudkowsky\u2019s posts in chronological order<\/a>. I flagged some of the posts as particularly interesting as I went through, but I haven\u2019t done much with that document, so today you get a sampling of things on LessWrong that caught my eye.<\/p>\n And in case this post and all the other ones this week on my time at the LessWrong retreat<\/a> aren\u2019t whetting your appetite to read through the Sequences yourself, I\u2019ll have a very \u201cnow for something completely different\u201d post later today.<\/p>\n <\/a>\u2014 2 \u2014<\/strong><\/p>\n As a solution to the \u201cbut won\u2019t debating Group X legitimize them?\u201d problem, the following suggestion:\u00a0Let them Debate College Students!<\/a><\/p>\n It\u2019s this notion of shutting down debate that I fear as dangerous; and it seems to me that you can get just the same strategic conservation of prestige, by endorsing the principle of debate, but sending out some bright college students to present the standard position. If the \u201ccontroversy\u201d as shown on CNN consists of some ID-er with a sober-looking business suit and an impressive-sounding title, versus a TA in jeans to represent the scientific community \u2013 but with accurate science, mind! \u2013 then I think this would viscerally answer what the scientific community thinks of creationism, and not create the false impression of an ongoing debate, while still giving airtime to the standard scientific replies. If CNN isn\u2019t interested in showing that \u201ccontroversy\u201d \u2013 well then, that tells us what CNN really wanted, doesn\u2019t it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n I like the style of this solution, but I just don\u2019t expect that most public debates are decided on the merits<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/a>\u2014 3 \u2014<\/strong><\/p>\n Bach when I was debating college students on a weekly basis, I probably should have shared \u201cThe Correct Contrarian Cluster<\/a>\u201d with more people. \u00a0It\u2019s a way you might be able to recognize that you\u2019re rebelling against the conventional wisdom in error. \u00a0Do the people who share your belief tend to be well calibrated on other things that are little understood that you can use as a gold standard.<\/p>\n The more of your unusual beliefs are false, the harder it will be to notice, but if you\u2019ve only got a few incorrect gonzo ideas, this approach may help you notice them.<\/p>\n <\/a>\u2014 4 \u2014<\/strong><\/p>\n You all must know by now that I\u2019m a sucker for argument by wacky, detailed hypothetical, so you won\u2019t be surprised I liked the New Improved Lottery<\/a>post a lot. \u00a0If rational actors play the lottery to purchase a bit of fantasizing, there\u2019s a way to amp it up:<\/p>\n Anyway: If we pretend that the lottery sells epsilon hope, this suggests a design for a New Improved Lottery. The New Improved Lottery pays out every five years on average, at a random time\u2014determined, say, by the decay of a not-very-radioactive element. You buy in once, for a single dollar, and get not just a few days of epsilon chance of becoming rich, but a few years of epsilon. Not only that, your wealth could strike at any time! At any minute, the phone could ring to inform you that you, yes, you are a millionaire! \u2026Maybe the New Improved Lottery could even show a constantly fluctuating probability distribution over the likelihood of a win occurring, and the likelihood of particular numbers being selected, with the overall expectation working out to the aforesaid Poisson distribution. Think of how much fun that would be! Oh, goodness, right this minute the chance of a win occurring is nearly ten times higher than usual! And look, the number 42 that I selected for the Mega Ball has nearly twice the usual chance of winning! You could feed it to a display on people\u2019s cellphones, so they could just flip open the cellphone and see their chances of winning. Think of how exciting that would be! Much more exciting than trying to balance your checkbook! Much more exciting than doing your homework! This new dream would be so much tastier<\/a> that it would compete with, not only hopes of going to technical school, but even hopes of getting home from work early. People could just stay glued to the screen all day long, why, they wouldn\u2019t need to dream about anything else!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/a>\u2014 5 \u2014<\/strong><\/p>\n One post that\u2019s a particularly useful check on an unfortunate tendency of mine is Guessing the Teacher\u2019s Password<\/a>.<\/p>\n In the school system, it\u2019s all about verbal behavior, whether written on paper or spoken aloud. \u00a0Verbal behavior gets you a gold star or a failing grade. \u00a0Part of unlearning this bad habit is becoming consciously aware of the difference between an explanation and a password.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n It can be a lot easier to model a\u00a0person<\/em> than a\u00a0problem<\/em>. \u00a0I can think about how a person talks and try to match their language and tone. I get rewarded without actually having done any heavy lifting on the problem. \u00a0I spent less time doing this in school, but a lot of time training this to sound less weird in social contexts, so I have this problem less in academic settings, but I think I\u2019m in danger of defaulting to this cognitively lazy strategy in more\u00a0informal\u00a0situations.<\/p>\n <\/a>\u2014 6 \u2014<\/strong><\/p>\n I\u2019ll confess, although I did read the Quantum Physics sequence<\/a>, I didn\u2019t get much out of it. \u00a0But you shouldn\u2019t be frightened off because if you go to that page and scroll down, you\u2019ll hit the \u201cRationality and Science\u201d subsequence which does\u00a0not<\/em>\u00a0require you to have understood the physics that precedes it and is one of my favorite subsequences since it\u2019s looking at how science works and when we get worried about this mechanism. \u00a0From \u201cWhen Science Can\u2019t Help\u201d<\/a>:<\/p>\n Evolutionary psychology is another example of a case where rationality has to take over from science. While theories of evolutionary psychology form a connected whole, only some of those theories are readily testable experimentally. But you still need the other parts of the theory, because they form a connected web that helps you to form the hypotheses that are actually testable\u2014and then the helper hypotheses are supported in a Bayesian sense, but not supported experimentally. Science would render a verdict of \u201cnot proven\u201d on individual parts of a connected theoretical mesh that is experimentally productive as a whole. We\u2019d need a new kind of verdict for that, something like \u201cindirectly supported\u201d.<\/p>\n Or what about cryonics?<\/p>\n Cryonics is an archetypal example of an extremely important issue (150,000 people die per day) that will have huge consequences in the foreseeable future, but doesn\u2019t offer definite unmistakable experimental evidence that we can get right now.<\/p>\n So do you say, \u201cI don\u2019t believe in cryonics because it hasn\u2019t been experimentally proven, and you shouldn\u2019t believe in things that haven\u2019t been experimentally proven?\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/a>\u2014 7 \u2014<\/strong><\/p>\n Finally, after I announced I was converting, a friend of mine turned to LessWrong to crowdsource a way to pull me back from the brink. \u00a0This was definitely the most interesting comment section I read on the topic. \u00a0I\u2019m linking to the discussion on the condition that my readers\u00a0do not comment<\/span><\/em><\/strong> on this thread unless you\u2019ve commented on LessWrong before.<\/p>\n This has been a problem linking to some atheist comments on my conversion before. If you want to start an argument, do it in my comment thread here. \u00a0If you think you need to comment to \u201ccome to my defense,\u201d take me literally when I say I don\u2019t want you to. \u00a0In the first place, aggressive questioning is not attack. \u00a0I don\u2019t need to be defended from interesting, difficult questions.<\/p>\n In the second place, LessWrong manages to have more streamlined arguments because people have a useful, precise vernacular. \u00a0If you\u2019re not fluent in it (i.e. if you haven\u2019t read the Sequences) you may be misinterpreting people and you\u2019ll have trouble making your point clearly. \u00a0You wouldn\u2019t try and pick an emotionally intense fight in French if your vocab was as bad as mine, so forbear and study the way people talk over there if you want to participate in the future.<\/p>\n Don\u2019t be the reason we can\u2019t have nice things! \u00a0Here\u2019s the link:\u00a0Thwarting a Catholic Conversion<\/a>.<\/p>\n