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Max Learning FI

Learning Report: 2020, week 36

Date: 2020-09-06
  • tutorials:
    • 34:
      • reviewed a “simplification” of a blockchain paper
      • analysed social dynamics in some LW posts
    • 35
      • reviewed some of my analysis on social dynamics in some LW posts
      • improved list of questions to tease out social dynamics
    • 36
  • I’ve written a few LW replies about SI stuff
    • one was a post (LW, local, curi.us) checking curi’s maths in https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/9AWoAAA59hN9PEwT7/why-would-code-english-or-low-abstraction-high-abstraction. It was done in LaTeX so I could practice LaTeX stuff again and so the equations would look nice (they render nicely on LW, though there were some issues).
    • I posted an answer to curi’s post Why would code/English or low-abstraction/high-abstraction simplicity or brevity correspond?
      • I thought the other answers didn’t answered the question, instead they mostly referenced the same stuff but didn’t really link it back or talk about the topic. I wanted at least one of the replies to be answering the questions.
      • I also replied to several other answers b/c I thought they had issues. I think I had a good general criticism of the core idea that the other replies brought up. There’s one discussion running atm.
        • I tried to introduce some good discussion hygiene by stating a case clearly for what I thought was wrong with the post I was replying to and asking for clarity and agreement on the topic.
        • I might have spent too much time on all that collectively, but I hope I’ll get a decent discussion out of it as practice.
        • I note I’m slightly self-concious or anxious about replying to every top level comment/answer at the time (and the next one that appeared) because it’s generally frowned upon.
  • I’ve worked on some work-related stuff and have been mapping things out. I’m finding both the writing practice and the idea-structure / text analysis to be useful.
  • I’ve been thinking about long term commitments to philosophy including stuff like a debate policy. For many things I can defer to stuff curi’s already developed like Paths Forward.
    • I should read and understand PF et al first.
      • Practically, that means discussing it.
      • which means writing about it
      • so i can write a post about it and keep it as draft while i discuss it on FI
      • while it’s in draft I can still stick by it with the proviso that it could change unpredictably. once it’s stable i can remove the proviso
    • I think it will be important for me (personally and WRT Flux, maybe other projects too) to have a public debate policy and some well-defined boundaries for what I’ll dedicate to debating/resolving disagreements on certain topics (e.g. 1hr / day).
      • I will need to practice prioritising things effectively to be able to keep this up and do it productively.
    • goal plan this
    • this sort of ties into the “ideas for future stuff” part
  • I didn’t do anything regarding Richard Ngo’s blog and melting democracy post curi and I covered in tutorial 36. I’m not sure I will do anything directly, but I am thinking about it still.

things I’m not happy about

  • (mild) I’d prefer to spend less time thinking about SI because it’s not really relevant to my near-term goals. It might still help me generally because I’m thinking more about CR and yes/no at the same time. I like thinking about it because it’s topical and interesting, tho.
  • Reading habit - I still haven’t built this up, or spent time working towards it.
  • not using skills like brainstorming before writing posts (which I’m viewing as writing practice)

ideas for future stuff

I drafted an email to ET on Friday but didn’t send it - I wanted to think about it more. It’s added here for the record and as a source of discussion. I’m not sure if this is a good/useful idea (relatively to other options) but it does feel like working towards it is good generally. It aligns with the above goal to have better long term philosophical practices.

I had an idea for some future tutoring sessions that’s a bit different. Not necessarily the immediate future, either. I’m not completely sure how the operational/practical parts would work. It felt worth saying anyway b/c it might be valuable and/or good content.

In essence it’s paying you for a discussion and sort of tutoring/coaching in that discussion. I imagine we’d stream both sides. We could do some parts separately and some together. I noticed that on http://curi.us/2238-potential-debate-topics you have “Bitcoin and cryptocurrency are worthless investment frauds”. I think that might be a good topic. I’m imagining something a bit like the gigahurt discussion.

I don’t know if it’d be practical to do like normal tutoring about the discussion whilst having the discussion - maybe that’s an issue. If so we could chunk the discussion up. one big chunk (doing all the tutoring at the end) doesn’t feel like the best plan. but maybe it could work if there’s no limit on meta-discussion. the meta stuff could replace the urgent parts of normal tutoring.

I think it might be a good way to use stuff I’ve learnt in a practical, dedicated environment.

Maybe, if I lack some skills or need more practice, this is good inspiration for what those skills might be. Then some future tutorials could be about those things, instead.

One thing I am a bit concerned about is I don’t have much in the way of a track record of successful discussions, so I might not be very good at it early on.

(note: I don’t have any issues with this email being public, or with discussing it in future sessions)

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