The Nonlinear Library LW - What did you change your mind about in the last year? by mike hawke
Nov 24, 2023
01:53
Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: What did you change your mind about in the last year?, published by mike hawke on November 24, 2023 on LessWrong.
Seems like a good New Year activity for rationalists, so I thought I'd post it early instead of late.
Here are some steps I recommend:
Go looking through old writings and messages.
If you keep a journal, go look at a few entries from throughout the last year or two.
Skim over your LessWrong activity from the last year.
If you're active on a slack or discord, do a search of
from: [your username] and skim your old messages from the last year (or the last 3 months on the free tier of slack).
Sample a few of your reddit comments and tweets from the last year.
Same for text messages.
Think back through major life events (if you had any this year) and see if they changed your mind about anything. Maybe you changed jobs or turned down an offer; maybe you tried a new therapeutic intervention or recreational drug; maybe you finally told your family something important; maybe you finally excommunicated someone from your life; maybe you tried mediating a conflict between your friends.
Obvious, but look over your records of Manifold trades, quantitative predictions, and explicit bets. See if there's anything interesting.
Here are some emotional loadings that I anticipate seeing:
"Well, that aged poorly."
"Wow, bullet dodged!"
"But I mean...how could I have known?"
"Ah. Model uncertainty strikes again."
"Yeah ok, but this year it'll happen for sure!"
"[Sigh] I did have an inkling, but I guess I just didn't want to admit it at the time."
"I tested that hypothesis and got a result."
"Okay, they were right about this one thing. Doesn't mean I have to like them."
"Now I see what people mean when they say X"
"This is huge, why does no one talk about this?!"
Thanks for listening. To help us out with The Nonlinear Library or to learn more, please visit nonlinear.org
Seems like a good New Year activity for rationalists, so I thought I'd post it early instead of late.
Here are some steps I recommend:
Go looking through old writings and messages.
If you keep a journal, go look at a few entries from throughout the last year or two.
Skim over your LessWrong activity from the last year.
If you're active on a slack or discord, do a search of
from: [your username] and skim your old messages from the last year (or the last 3 months on the free tier of slack).
Sample a few of your reddit comments and tweets from the last year.
Same for text messages.
Think back through major life events (if you had any this year) and see if they changed your mind about anything. Maybe you changed jobs or turned down an offer; maybe you tried a new therapeutic intervention or recreational drug; maybe you finally told your family something important; maybe you finally excommunicated someone from your life; maybe you tried mediating a conflict between your friends.
Obvious, but look over your records of Manifold trades, quantitative predictions, and explicit bets. See if there's anything interesting.
Here are some emotional loadings that I anticipate seeing:
"Well, that aged poorly."
"Wow, bullet dodged!"
"But I mean...how could I have known?"
"Ah. Model uncertainty strikes again."
"Yeah ok, but this year it'll happen for sure!"
"[Sigh] I did have an inkling, but I guess I just didn't want to admit it at the time."
"I tested that hypothesis and got a result."
"Okay, they were right about this one thing. Doesn't mean I have to like them."
"Now I see what people mean when they say X"
"This is huge, why does no one talk about this?!"
Thanks for listening. To help us out with The Nonlinear Library or to learn more, please visit nonlinear.org