curi podcast Rationalism and Convention

[Anne B]

I listened to a new curi podcast, Rationalism and Convention:

https://curi.us/files/podcasts/rationalism-and-convention.mp3

I took a lot of notes. My notes are here:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/dftvpdtdxh5dckl/curi%20podcast%20Rationalism%20and%20Convention.pdf?dl=0

[Elliot Temple]

I don’t trust dropbox links to keep working in the long term future. Dropbox actually has intentionally broken links before and removed their whole public folder feature to limit sharing.

Also dropbox doesn’t let you view pdfs in your browser like a normal pdf link. dropbox’s own reader is bad enough to use that i download stuff instead of using it. but if it was a regular pdf file link that opened in my browser i’d be able to read it there fine. drop box also prevents right click + open in Preview.

changing dl=0 to dl=1 forces download instead of allowing you to view the pdf in the browser.

so it’d be better if you’d host files somewhere else.



Elliot Temple
www.fallibleideas.com

[Justin Mallone]

I came up with an approach to translate these notes into email format in
a reasonable way.

two quote levels is Anne's notes on what Elliot directly said, one quote
level is what she has colored as her own personal comments in her notes
file.

I think this is reasonable for readability. It will make the colors of
the text different in various email software, and the colors were
different in the original notes file, so that seems good.

>> TCS Parenting
>> • be careful.
>> • TCS has criticisms of conventional parenting. but conventional
>> parenting has been around a
>> while and probably has good things in it.
>> • you should study all this in depth before making big changes.
>> • TCS isn't developed enough to be ready to go.
>> • you could be a conventional parent with minor changes.
>> • or if you have a lot of philosophy skill you can study TCS a lot
>> and try to do it for real. but
>> don't try to really do it without the philosophy skill. you'd have to
>> redo lots of things and do
>> them well.

> not sure what i think about this. i’m not sure what counts as a
> minor change in parenting. i don’t regret trying to do TCS, even
> with a poor understanding of the philosophy behind it.

Without an understanding of the philosophy behind it, it can be hard to
judge what counts as 1) doing TCS vs 2) messing up TCS vs 3) being a
nicer conventional parent.

> having been exposed to the idea that “... it is both possible and
> desirable to bring up children entirely without doing things to them
> against their will, or making them do things against their will, and
> that they are entitled to the same rights, respect and control over
> their lives as adults”, i felt like i couldn’t ever go back to
> bossing my kids around.

There are ways to control children that don't involve openly bossing
them around but would violate TCS. So you could reject bossing kids
around but still be doing various bad things.

Lots of TCS-inclined people can identify openly authoritarian parenting
but have trouble identifying subtler methods of control.

> that led to a lot of changes

Maybe you did conventional parenting with some minor changes? You say
you don't understand what counts as a minor change in parenting. Maybe
that is something you could figure out. You could talk about a few
example changes and give your evaluation of whether the change is minor
or major.

btw, you may want to format your notes in a way that is easier to post
to the list in the future. You could use quote levels, or you could do
something I've done which is use labels e.g.:
curi's stuff: blah blah blah
J's comments: blah blah blah

-JM

[Anne B]

On Sep 25, 2020, at 3:11 PM, Elliot Temple <cu...@curi.us> wrote:

> I don’t trust dropbox links to keep working in the long term future. Dropbox actually has intentionally broken links before and removed their whole public folder feature to limit sharing.
>
> Also dropbox doesn’t let you view pdfs in your browser like a normal pdf link. dropbox’s own reader is bad enough to use that i download stuff instead of using it. but if it was a regular pdf file link that opened in my browser i’d be able to read it there fine. drop box also prevents right click + open in Preview.
>
> changing dl=0 to dl=1 forces download instead of allowing you to view the pdf in the browser.
>
> so it’d be better if you’d host files somewhere else.

I tried out my dropbox link and the same link but changing dl=0 to dl=1. I see what you mean about both those options not being as nice as being able to view pdfs in your browser.

I could host pdfs on my own website. When I click on a pdf link there it opens in my browser. I don’t have any plans to take that site down but it’s hard to predict.

I looked up some other places to host pdfs. I could go through them and see how easy it is to read stuff on them. But I don’t know how to judge whether they are likely to keep links working in the future. I don’t know how to judge that. Anyone have opinions? Or thoughts about what else to keep in mind when deciding where to host pdfs?

The places I found are:

OneDrive
Google Drive
https://www.docdroid.net/
https://www.keepandshare.com/htm/file_sharing/file_hosting/free_pdf_hosting.php
https://www.pdf-archive.com/
https://www.pdfhost.net/
https://www.publitas.com/publish-pdf-online/
https://www.scribd.com/upload-document
https://www.box.com/

[Anne B]

On Sep 26, 2020, at 6:12 AM, Justin Mallone <jus...@justinmallone.com> wrote:

> On Sep 25, 2020, at 14:56 PM, Anne B <anne...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I listened to a new curi podcast, Rationalism and Convention:
>>
>> https://curi.us/files/podcasts/rationalism-and-convention.mp3
>>
>> I took a lot of notes. My notes are here:
>>
>> https://www.dropbox.com/s/dftvpdtdxh5dckl/curi%20podcast%20Rationalism%20and%20Convention.pdf?dl=0
>
> I came up with an approach to translate these notes into email format in a reasonable way.
>
> two quote levels is Anne's notes on what Elliot directly said, one quote level is what she has colored as her own personal comments in her notes file.
>
> I think this is reasonable for readability. It will make the colors of the text different in various email software, and the colors were different in the original notes file, so that seems good.

> btw, you may want to format your notes in a way that is easier to post to the list in the future. You could use quote levels, or you could do something I've done which is use labels e.g.:
> curi's stuff: blah blah blah
> J's comments: blah blah blah

I actually considered both the options you suggest for that post. I went with the pdf because my notes were so long and because it seemed easier for me. But I’ll keep the others in mind too.

Another option would have been to post my notes on my blog and maybe also post a link to my blog post on the FI list.

Your suggestions are the easiest for a reader to quote and reply to.

[Anne B]

On Sep 26, 2020, at 6:12 AM, Justin Mallone <jus...@justinmallone.com> wrote:

Changes like not having rules about what kids should do with their time (sleep, video games, not going to school) or what/when they should eat seemed like huge changes to me at the time. I felt like I was violating societal norms in a big way. I got pushback from lots of people. But maybe those were relatively minor changes compared to other changes I could have made.

Thinking about TCS is not a priority for me right now; there are other things I want to focus on. So I don’t expect to follow up on this much. But I do have some interest in parenting. I’d read and maybe comment if someone else was studying the topic and posting about it.

[anonymous FI]

Why?

[Anne B]

It’s harder than some of the things I’m working on now. I don’t know how I’d approach it. I’d rather learn more thinking/learning/reading skills first, which I have a better idea of how to learn, and then later learn more difficult things like TCS.

[anonymous FI]

When is "later"? A year? 10 years? No timeline? Do you have any plan
where this happens?

[Anne B]

I have no plan where this happens. I don’t think it’s impossible, but I don’t see a way to get from here to there.

I view studying TCS as roughly in the same category as studying Objectivism or Popper or Deutsch. These are things where I don’t know how to get from general skills like using technology better, reading better, and writing better, to actually learning the things.

I view learning coding as easier. There’s a path. There are things to read and watch that are meant to teach coding, arranged from basic to advanced. There are exercises to do. There are other people’s answers to the exercises to check against my answers.

[Jordan Talcot]

I don’t think you actually had “no rules” about those things. You
might have had no explicit rules, or said you had no rules. But parents
still exert control and have unwritten rules about things. They are more
helpful with some things and less helpful with others. They try to do
“CP finding” or have “discussions” about some of the choices the
child makes, while ignoring or being helpful with other choices.

Parents also have control over the money and the environment. They
advise children on what is & isn’t affordable. They advise them on
what options even exist. They decide how much money to let the child
have total control over and how much money the child can control if he
asks or does “CP finding”. They will advise the child that some
things aren’t affordable, while being willing to spend exact same
amount of money on something else without comment. They will keep some
foods in the house at ~all times, while other foods will only be bought
when children ask and/or will be allowed to run out.

I can give lots of examples of parents doing this kind of thing, but I
can’t give consistent, accurate examples of times *you* did it. I
can’t prove to you that you had these kinds of “unspoken rules”.
If you can’t write about it now though – explain the issue
thoroughly, go through old TCS emails and take them apart showing how
many unspoken rules the “TCS” parents on list actually had – then
there is no way you would have been able to avoid it yourself.

> I felt like I was violating societal norms in a big way. I got
> pushback from lots of people. But maybe those were relatively minor
> changes compared to other changes I could have made.

Pushback is not evidence that you made big changes. You can get big
pushback from lots of conventional parenting choices. Homeschooling is
conventional parenting with some minor changes (and *was* conventional
parenting until fairly recently) and people get a huge amount of
pushback from family & friends for that.

There are some topics where people can get pushback for doing normal,
conventional options: women who bottle feed and women who breastfeed can
both get pushback. And if you breastfeed, you can get pushback either
for doing it openly or for trying to do it discretely.

People also tend to get pushback from conventional things that people
consider “extreme”, even if they are within convention. If you are
strict about diet (e.g., no candy, gluten-free, “whole foods” only)
people don’t like that, but if you feed your kids “too much”
McDonald’s, they don’t like that either.

> Thinking about TCS is not a priority for me right now; there are other
> things I want to focus on. So I don’t expect to follow up on this
> much. But I do have some interest in parenting. I’d read and maybe
> comment if someone else was studying the topic and posting about it.

Most adult children still care how their parents treat them. People in
their 20s & 30s still care about how nice their parents are, how
helpful, how controlling, etc. And people in that age range are also
trying to figure out their own lives, trying to figure out how to live &
work & make money without feeling too coerced by the world. Or how to
have relationships that work well. Or some of them are having children
and care about parenting.

Understanding TCS would still be valuable for your children. Especially
since you somewhat tried to do it. (I saw somewhat because there is no
evidence that *anyone* actually “did TCS”.) There isn’t anything
written about adult TCS kids, but there is some stuff written about
adult unschoolers, and some of them have mixed feelings about it. Some
of them didn’t really understand how the were raised or why. Some of
them learnt it after they grew up and read about it on their own: their
parents never explained it to them.

If you *were* actually successful with doing something like TCS, it’s
even *more* important that you understand it. TCS - as it was explained
on the website and the TCS list, at least - had some major flaws. You
should be able to explain those mistakes to your children and help them
with any problems they might have from using those bad ideas.

Jordan

[anonymous FI]

Do you think your kids would mind waiting indefinitely for you to be a
better parent?

[Elliot Temple]

On Oct 7, 2020, at 1:51 AM, Jordan Talcot <jordan...@gmail.com> wrote:

> On 30 Sep 2020, at 13:59, Anne B wrote:
>

>> I felt like I was violating societal norms in a big way [by my parenting]. I got pushback from lots of people. But maybe those were relatively minor changes compared to other changes I could have made.

>
> Pushback is not evidence that you made big changes. You can get big pushback from lots of conventional parenting choices. Homeschooling is conventional parenting with some minor changes (and *was* conventional parenting until fairly recently) and people get a huge amount of pushback from family & friends for that.
>
> There are some topics where people can get pushback for doing normal, conventional options: women who bottle feed and women who breastfeed can both get pushback. And if you breastfeed, you can get pushback either for doing it openly or for trying to do it discretely.
>
> People also tend to get pushback from conventional things that people consider “extreme”, even if they are within convention. If you are strict about diet (e.g., no candy, gluten-free, “whole foods” only) people don’t like that, but if you feed your kids “too much” McDonald’s, they don’t like that either.

You can also do 100% conventional parenting, but *say* something like “I have no rules for my kids” and then get tons of pushback. Pushback is often about what you say to the people giving pushback, rather than what you do with your kids.

Elliot Temple
www.elliottemple.com

[Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum]

Some speculation:

Her kids might not mind that. It depends on, among other things, what they think being a better parent means and how much work, time, and other resources they think it would take for her to improve.

They might well think that her current learning plan is reasonable.

[Jordan Talcot]

I don’t think learning to code well has a path. I don’t think there
is any reliable path that teaches how to think well about coding, how to
actually understand it, how to be a good coder.

I think that some people manage to become good coders, but they have to
figure a lot of it out on their own, or have pre-existing knowledge. And
there are a lot of coders who follow the paths that exist and manage to
become employed as coders, but they aren’t very good coders.

If you disagree, please share the path. I would like for there to be a
good path. I know people who would be interested in following a path to
learn to code well.

[anonymous FI]

On Oct 7, 2020, at 8:30 PM, Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum

Maybe anything. Maybe aliens will kill her kids if and only if she tries
to learn TCS within the next 4 years. What's the point of making up
maybes?

[Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum]

I don't see any point to making up maybes.

My post was missing some info that would have helped it have more of a point: the fact that I thought my scenarios were plausible.

One point of sharing plausible scenarios is to share some of the poster's thinking on the topic. The poster's belief that the scenario is plausible can be criticized.

[Anne B]

Good point. I’m sure I did and still do this kind of thing, in many ways.

> I can give lots of examples of parents doing this kind of thing, but I can’t give consistent, accurate examples of times *you* did it. I can’t prove to you that you had these kinds of “unspoken rules”. If you can’t write about it now though – explain the issue thoroughly, go through old TCS emails and take them apart showing how many unspoken rules the “TCS” parents on list actually had – then there is no way you would have been able to avoid it yourself.

You’ve given me some ideas for learning more about TCS: Explain unspoken rules. Think up some fictional examples. Find some examples in myself and in others, including old TCS posters.

>> Thinking about TCS is not a priority for me right now; there are other things I want to focus on. So I don’t expect to follow up on this much. But I do have some interest in parenting. I’d read and maybe comment if someone else was studying the topic and posting about it.
>
> Most adult children still care how their parents treat them. People in their 20s & 30s still care about how nice their parents are, how helpful, how controlling, etc. And people in that age range are also trying to figure out their own lives, trying to figure out how to live & work & make money without feeling too coerced by the world. Or how to have relationships that work well. Or some of them are having children and care about parenting.

Yes.

Understanding TCS better would also be helpful to me in my relationships with friends and family other than my children. I’m sure I pressure people in ways I and they don’t understand.

> Understanding TCS would still be valuable for your children. Especially since you somewhat tried to do it. (I saw somewhat because there is no evidence that *anyone* actually “did TCS”.) There isn’t anything written about adult TCS kids, but there is some stuff written about adult unschoolers, and some of them have mixed feelings about it. Some of them didn’t really understand how the were raised or why. Some of them learnt it after they grew up and read about it on their own: their parents never explained it to them.
>
> If you *were* actually successful with doing something like TCS, it’s even *more* important that you understand it. TCS - as it was explained on the website and the TCS list, at least - had some major flaws. You should be able to explain those mistakes to your children and help them with any problems they might have from using those bad ideas.

What are the major flaws in TCS as explained on the TCS website and the TCS list? Would you say that TCS didn’t take unspoken rules into account enough, or something like that? What else, if anything?

[anonymous FI]

You replied to specific, local points individually. What do you think
Jordan's theme(s), goal(s) or global point(s) was? What is your response
to that? Your post has no conclusion section and leaves it difficult to
tell what you think because it contains only details.

You also deleted a third of Jordan's post, with no indication anything
was deleted, and it's hard to tell why. It doesn't appear to be for
trimming reasons given your inclusion of lots of less relevant text
above.

[Anne B]

I think Jordan’s main point was that it would be good for me to try to understand TCS better.

My main points in answer are

- I agree now that it would be good for me to try to understand TCS better.

- His post gave me an idea for some things I could do that might help me understand TCS better.

There’s more, and it’s below, but it’s muddled.

> You also deleted a third of Jordan's post, with no indication anything was deleted, and it's hard to tell why. It doesn't appear to be for trimming reasons given your inclusion of lots of less relevant text above.

I deleted some of Jordan’s post because I meant to reply to it separately, with a different subject line. But then when I got to doing that, I decided not to.

The big picture about me and TCS is that I do now, after reading some replies in this thread and thinking about it some more, think it would be valuable for me to understand TCS better. And there are some things I could try doing to see if they help me understand TCS better. But I don’t think I’d get very far. I don’t have much skill at or comfort with learning things without using material that’s meant to teach those things. And TCS is a hard topic. And TCS isn’t understood by lots of people in the world, like grammar and calculus are, for instance. That makes it harder because I can’t search the internet for several different answers to a question I might have about it.

Another issue I have is that if I did start to study TCS now, it would be hard for me to know if I was doing itt because I thought FI people wanted me to or if I was doing it because I really thought it was a good next step for me. I don’t have much confidence in my ability to choose learning steps for myself.

[Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum]

On Thu, Oct 08, 2020 at 01:19:26AM -0700, Jordan Talcot wrote:

> On 1 Oct 2020, at 14:24, Anne B wrote:

>> I view studying TCS as roughly in the same category as studying Objectivism or Popper or Deutsch. These are things where I don’t know how to get from general skills like using technology better, reading better, and writing better, to actually learning the things.
>>
>> I view learning coding as easier. There’s a path. There are things to read and watch that are meant to teach coding, arranged from basic to advanced. There are exercises to do. There are other people’s answers to the exercises to check against my answers.

> I don’t think learning to code well has a path.

Anne mentioned learning to code, and Jordan replied about learning to code *well*. It's plausible that Anne would be satisfied for now with learning to code at all, at which point she could look for ways to improve if she's interested.

As a benchmark for being able to code at all, I would propose being comfortable solving random easy LeetCode problems. (LeetCode grades problems by difficulty.) Here's an easy LeetCode problem called "Two Sum" ( https://leetcode.com/problems/two-sum/ ):

> Given an array of integers nums and an integer target, return indices of the two numbers such that they add up to target.
> You may assume that each input would have exactly one solution, and you may not use the same element twice.
> You can return the answer in any order.
> Example 1:
> Input: nums = [2,7,11,15], target = 9
> Output: [0,1]
> Output: Because nums[0] + nums[1] == 9, we return [0, 1].

Jordan continues:

> I don’t think there is any reliable path that teaches how to think well about coding, how to actually understand it, how to be a good coder.

Jordan is talking about a *reliable* path. Anne didn't mention reliability.

> I think that some people manage to become good coders, but they have to figure a lot of it out on their own, or have pre-existing knowledge. And there are a lot of coders who follow the paths that exist and manage to become employed as coders, but they aren’t very good coders.
>
> If you disagree, please share the path. I would like for there to be a good path. I know people who would be interested in following a path to learn to code well.

AOPS Prealgebra ( https://aopsacademy.org/courses/course/catalog/prealgebra ) classes have

- pre-tests to see if you're ready for the class
- post-tests to give you an idea of the kinds of problems you'll be able to solve after you learn the material
- instructors who will go over each lesson and answer questions
- videos
- books
- homework problems
- people to grade your homework

AOPS also has an Intro to Programming with Python class ( https://artofproblemsolving.com/school/course/python1 ). Suppose Jordan thinks the AOPS Prealgebra classes are a good path for learning prealgebra. Then, if the AOPS Python class is the same caliber, it might meet Jordan's requirements. Disclaimer: I haven't reviewed the AOPS Python class materials (they aren't free).

[Justin Mallone]

Why did you decide not to reply?

> The big picture about me and TCS is that I do now, after reading some
> replies in this thread and thinking about it some more, think it would
> be valuable for me to understand TCS better. And there are some things
> I could try doing to see if they help me understand TCS better. But I
> don’t think I’d get very far. I don’t have much skill at or
> comfort with learning things without using material that’s meant to
> teach those things. And TCS is a hard topic. And TCS isn’t
> understood by lots of people in the world, like grammar and calculus
> are, for instance. That makes it harder because I can’t search the
> internet for several different answers to a question I might have
> about it.

FWIW there are thousands of pages of archives you can use:
http://curi.us/ebooks

That's not to say it has the same amount of discussion as the other
subjects you mention, but there is a body of knowledge and discussion
that has been built up and to which you can refer.

> Another issue I have is that if I did start to study TCS now, it would
> be hard for me to know if I was doing itt because I thought FI people
> wanted me to or if I was doing it because I really thought it was a
> good next step for me.

This sounds like you don't actually fully agree that it would be good
for you to try to understand TCS better. Full agreement with that
proposition would include stuff like having your own understanding of
why such study was important that you were confident in.

One thing to consider is that you don't actually have to be fully
confident that you should study TCS in order to try studying TCS. You
can, honestly and as a conscious policy, try studying TCS at the
suggestion of others. You could try doing so as a short-term experiment,
see how it goes, talk about problems that come up, and drop it if you
don't like it.

> I don’t have much confidence in my ability to choose learning steps
> for myself.

I find that it is the areas in which I am the least confident that I am
most open to trying out other people's suggestions. I think that sort of
thing is common and makes sense. An example is when you go to eat at a
new sort of restaurant with someone who is familiar with that genre of
restaurant. I think it is logical to defer to the other person's
suggestions in such a case, since they have more knowledge than you
about the type of food at the restaurant. If that seems reasonable to
you, you should consider whether the same principle might apply re:
trying out people's learning suggestions.

-JM

[Anne B]

I don’t remember well. I think it was a combination of not having an interesting point to make and that it would have taken some work to write something up.

>> The big picture about me and TCS is that I do now, after reading some replies in this thread and thinking about it some more, think it would be valuable for me to understand TCS better. And there are some things I could try doing to see if they help me understand TCS better. But I don’t think I’d get very far. I don’t have much skill at or comfort with learning things without using material that’s meant to teach those things. And TCS is a hard topic. And TCS isn’t understood by lots of people in the world, like grammar and calculus are, for instance. That makes it harder because I can’t search the internet for several different answers to a question I might have about it.
>
> FWIW there are thousands of pages of archives you can use: http://curi.us/ebooks

I knew this existed but didn’t remember where. Thank you for the link.

> That's not to say it has the same amount of discussion as the other subjects you mention, but there is a body of knowledge and discussion that has been built up and to which you can refer.
>
>> Another issue I have is that if I did start to study TCS now, it would be hard for me to know if I was doing itt because I thought FI people wanted me to or if I was doing it because I really thought it was a good next step for me.
>
> This sounds like you don't actually fully agree that it would be good for you to try to understand TCS better. Full agreement with that proposition would include stuff like having your own understanding of why such study was important that you were confident in.

I do think it’s a good idea for me to study TCS. But I’m not sure if I should do it now. I don’t know if I need some prerequisites first (better learning skills? reading? writing? discussing?). And I don’t know if there’s some other topic that’s more important for me to learn (Objectivism? Critical Rationalism? economics?).

I also don’t know if people are suggesting that I study TCS sometime or that I study it now. I don’t know if people think I currently have the skills to profit from studying TCS. I don’t know if people are saying that studying TCS is more important for me than studying other things. If anyone wants to clarify, please do.

> One thing to consider is that you don't actually have to be fully confident that you should study TCS in order to try studying TCS. You can, honestly and as a conscious policy, try studying TCS at the suggestion of others. You could try doing so as a short-term experiment, see how it goes, talk about problems that come up, and drop it if you don't like it.
>
>> I don’t have much confidence in my ability to choose learning steps for myself.
>
> I find that it is the areas in which I am the least confident that I am most open to trying out other people's suggestions. I think that sort of thing is common and makes sense. An example is when you go to eat at a new sort of restaurant with someone who is familiar with that genre of restaurant. I think it is logical to defer to the other person's suggestions in such a case, since they have more knowledge than you about the type of food at the restaurant. If that seems reasonable to you, you should consider whether the same principle might apply re: trying out people's learning suggestions.

Yes, that makes sense. I could try out studying TCS. Then I’d have to judge whether it was going well. If I hated it, I would stop. But if I sort of liked it and couldn’t tell whether I was learning much (which could easily happen), I wouldn’t know whether to continue.

Main idea of this post: I’m still not sure if I want to try studying TCS now. I’m considering it.

Meta note: I could make a tree of this thread. That seems hard but also useful.

[Anne B]

On Oct 14, 2020, at 5:54 PM, Anne B <anne...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Yes, that makes sense. I could try out studying TCS. Then I’d have to judge whether it was going well. If I hated it, I would stop. But if I sort of liked it and couldn’t tell whether I was learning much (which could easily happen), I wouldn’t know whether to continue.
>
> Main idea of this post: I’m still not sure if I want to try studying TCS now. I’m considering it.
>
> Meta note: I could make a tree of this thread. That seems hard but also useful.

One of the reasons I don’t like my current learning plan is that when I come upon something like this that I want to try, trying that thing takes away time from following my learning plan and then I feel like I’m failing at my learning plan. I can go and change my learning plan to the new thing I want to try, but it takes effort to do that, and it seems to defeat the purpose of having a learning plan if what I put in my learning plan follows what I’m doing instead of the other way around.


I just went and looked at this post about learning plans again:

https://curi.us/2295-fallible-ideas-learning-plan

It says:

> But the plan doesn't dictate *what* you learn, anyway.

I did not remember this! And the sample plan in the post doesn’t say anything about learning particular things, just spending certain amounts of time and keeping records and evaluating how it's going and sharing some stuff for criticism. That kind of plan is easier than what I’ve been doing. And then I could try things like reading TCS posts or essays and commenting on them, or making a tree of this thread, and those things would count towards my plan!

But the whole paragraph says:

> Some people want to do freeform, unscheduled, unstructured learning. They think it's more rational or fun. Most people are bad at that. Anyway, it's fine to do that if you get results which clearly surpass those of the example learning plan above. Otherwise, you should do a plan. You can do all the extra learning you want in addition to the plan. Since the plan only takes around 10 hours a month minimum, just stick to the minimum when you're doing extra learning and you should still have time for more. But the plan doesn't dictate what you learn, anyway.

The sample plan seems kind of freeform, unscheduled, and unstructured to me. There’s no plan for what will be studied or what activities will be done and in what order, or what will be learned. I guess the structure is in the process of doing something just about daily, and keeping track of what you do, and sharing some stuff for criticism.

Another thing in the post:

> In general, you should place a high value on *finishing things*. After doing an FI learning plan for a while, you should have a *list of accomplishments* instead of just 50 things you started and then stopped halfway through. It's fine to stop some things partway through and to look at a variety of stuff and be selective, but you should also finish some. That can be small things like finishing reading an essay, or bigger thrings like finishing a book or finishing a project to learn about an essay by writing notes about it and discussing one idea related to it (and having some goal which the discussion reaches).

I had been picturing a list of accomplishments as having some big accomplishments like "become a grammar expert" or "do every exercise in SICP". Maybe my accomplishments can all be smaller, like "make a tree of a conversation" or "analyze an essay".

I will make a new learning plan for myself.

I like this part:

> IMO, you should be happy if you can do this, and be happy with progress that looks kinda small to you. It's far better than no progress. And keep in mind that people in general in our culture (like you) are bad at judging how good/effective philosophy progress is or where it will lead. Our culture doesn't understand philosophy learning projects well and doesn't adequately respect the important early-stage work to achieve mastery over the relatively basic skills related to rational, critical thinking.

I’m often not happy with my progress, which looks small and slow to me. But yes, it’s far better than no progress. And I think I can do the kind of learning plan that’s in the post.

[Anne B]

On Oct 14, 2020, at 6:37 PM, Anne B <anne...@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Oct 14, 2020, at 5:54 PM, Anne B <anne...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Yes, that makes sense. I could try out studying TCS. Then I’d have to judge whether it was going well. If I hated it, I would stop. But if I sort of liked it and couldn’t tell whether I was learning much (which could easily happen), I wouldn’t know whether to continue.
>>
>> Main idea of this post: I’m still not sure if I want to try studying TCS now. I’m considering it.
>>
>> Meta note: I could make a tree of this thread. That seems hard but also useful.
>
> One of the reasons I don’t like my current learning plan is that when I come upon something like this that I want to try, trying that thing takes away time from following my learning plan and then I feel like I’m failing at my learning plan. I can go and change my learning plan to the new thing I want to try, but it takes effort to do that, and it seems to defeat the purpose of having a learning plan if what I put in my learning plan follows what I’m doing instead of the other way around.
>
>
> I just went and looked at this post about learning plans again:
>
> https://curi.us/2295-fallible-ideas-learning-plan
>
> It says:
>
>> But the plan doesn't dictate *what* you learn, anyway.
>
> I did not remember this! And the sample plan in the post doesn’t say anything about learning particular things, just spending certain amounts of time and keeping records and evaluating how it's going and sharing some stuff for criticism. That kind of plan is easier than what I’ve been doing. And then I could try things like reading TCS posts or essays and commenting on them, or making a tree of this thread, and those things would count towards my plan!
>
> But the whole paragraph says:
>
>> Some people want to do freeform, unscheduled, unstructured learning. They think it's more rational or fun. Most people are bad at that. Anyway, it's fine to do that if you get results which clearly surpass those of the example learning plan above. Otherwise, you should do a plan. You can do all the extra learning you want in addition to the plan. Since the plan only takes around 10 hours a month minimum, just stick to the minimum when you're doing extra learning and you should still have time for more. But the plan doesn't dictate what you learn, anyway.
>
> The sample plan seems kind of freeform, unscheduled, and unstructured to me. There’s no plan for what will be studied or what activities will be done and in what order, or what will be learned. I guess the structure is in the process of doing something just about daily, and keeping track of what you do, and sharing some stuff for criticism.
>
> Another thing in the post:
>
>> In general, you should place a high value on *finishing things*. After doing an FI learning plan for a while, you should have a *list of accomplishments* instead of just 50 things you started and then stopped halfway through. It's fine to stop some things partway through and to look at a variety of stuff and be selective, but you should also finish some. That can be small things like finishing reading an essay, or bigger thrings like finishing a book or finishing a project to learn about an essay by writing notes about it and discussing one idea related to it (and having some goal which the discussion reaches).
>
> I had been picturing a list of accomplishments as having some big accomplishments like "become a grammar expert" or "do every exercise in SICP". Maybe my accomplishments can all be smaller, like "make a tree of a conversation" or "analyze an essay".
>
> I will make a new learning plan for myself.

Here’s a draft of my new learning plan.

> Long-term goals
>
> - Get better at thinking, reading, writing.
>
> - Get better at learning.
>
> - Know more things (any topic).
>
> - Use my time more effectively.
>
> - Make better use of technology.
>
> - Enjoy learning.
>
> Plan
>
> - Spend at least an hour a day, at least six days a week, on learning activities. Learning activities include: reading or listening to or watching something with a purpose other than passing the time, analysis, writing, doing learning exercises devised by me or by someone else, learning new technology, planning or recording or evaluating my learning, other things that seem like they might lead to learning.
>
> - Keep a record of what learning activities I do each day and approximately how long I spend on each.
>
> - At least once a week, share something I’ve done, for criticism or comment.
>
> - Once a month, write about the bigger picture: what progress I’ve made, what changes I’m considering, what goals I have for the next month.

One question I have about this plan is how to share what activities I’m doing.

I’ve been keeping a spreadsheet that I like. It’s got columns for different topics. I note in a few words what I did that day regarding that topic and approximately how much time I spent at it. I put the text in a different color if I published it to my blog, and another color if I published it to FI. I can easily see how much time I spent on each thing over the course of a week and how much time I spent on all learning things on each day.

I’m not comfortable sharing the whole spreadsheet publicly. I’m not sure exactly why. I keep other things on the spreadsheet, like an exercise routine, but I could easily split that off. There’s something about sharing a list of all the things I read that I don’t like. And I think there’s more to my discomfort.

So maybe I’ll try sharing a weekly summary of what I do, posted to my blog. I can see how easy that is and if it seems to convey enough information.

This new plan is simpler and easier to follow without pressuring myself than my previous learning plan was. It might lead to less learning because I don’t plan to learn about any specific topics, but if that’s the case, it might be worth it to me to have less stress. It’s also possible that having more topic flexibility will lead to more learning.

My goal for the rest of October is to get used to this new system and maybe think about some topic or activity goals that I want for November.

Any comments on this new plan?

[Justin Mallone]

On Oct 14, 2020, at 17:54 PM, Anne B <anne...@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Oct 14, 2020, at 7:41 AM, Justin Mallone <jus...@justinmallone.com>
> wrote:
>
>> On Oct 13, 2020, at 19:20 PM, Anne B <anne...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> On Oct 10, 2020, at 3:15 PM, anonymous FI
>>> <anonymousfa...@gmail.com> wrote:

>>>> You also deleted a third of Jordan's post, with no indication
>>>> anything was deleted, and it's hard to tell why. It doesn't appear
>>>> to be for trimming reasons given your inclusion of lots of less
>>>> relevant text above.
>>>
>>> I deleted some of Jordan’s post because I meant to reply to it
>>> separately, with a different subject line. But then when I got to
>>> doing that, I decided not to.
>>
>> Why did you decide not to reply?
>
> I don’t remember well. I think it was a combination of not having an
> interesting point to make and that it would have taken some work to
> write something up.

If you didn't have an interesting point to make, what aspect of the
reply you intended to write would have involved much work? What would
the content have been, if not interesting points?

BTW if you break writing stuff up across multiple sessions, it may seem
like less work than powering through a big piece of writing or post all
at once.

-JM

[Anne B]

On Oct 14, 2020, at 5:54 PM, Anne B <anne...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Meta note: I could make a tree of this thread. That seems hard but also useful.

I made a tree. It is here:

https://my.mindnode.com/9MsY27vYYN5UVvPbJLQVnNBJksAsLTT5VBQLuMJj

There are notes near the upper left corner that explain the tree a bit.

I was hoping to look at the whole tree and draw some conclusions from it. But I don’t see much in the way of conclusions. Here’s what I’ve got:

- It’s a big, complicated tree.

- There were places where I made lots of new branches. I don’t know if I should have chosen not to in those places, to keep things simpler.

- There were places where I didn’t respond to branches. I think it would be nice to respond to people when they say something to me. But on the other hand, I feel overwhelmed by the size of the tree. I’m not sure how to decide which things to respond to and which things to let go. I usually go by intuition on that.

- It does help me feel more in control of the conversation to write out a tree like this, but only a little.

Anyone have thoughts on other kinds of things you could look for in a conversation tree like this?

[Justin Mallone]

On Oct 16, 2020, at 15:41 PM, Anne B <anne...@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Oct 14, 2020, at 5:54 PM, Anne B <anne...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Meta note: I could make a tree of this thread. That seems hard but
>> also useful.

Maybe you thought that making a tree seemed hard cuz you felt like you
had to make a big, detailed tree.

Doing a big, detailed tree can be fine if you want to and feel like
there is a point to doing so. But you could also try to summarize, be
selective, distill points, and leave some stuff out.

You could also do something like focus on one branch that seems
particularly important.

> I made a tree. It is here:
>
> https://my.mindnode.com/9MsY27vYYN5UVvPbJLQVnNBJksAsLTT5VBQLuMJj
>
> There are notes near the upper left corner that explain the tree a
> bit.
>
> I was hoping to look at the whole tree and draw some conclusions from
> it. But I don’t see much in the way of conclusions. Here’s what
> I’ve got:
>
> - It’s a big, complicated tree.
>
> - There were places where I made lots of new branches. I don’t know
> if I should have chosen not to in those places, to keep things
> simpler.
>
> - There were places where I didn’t respond to branches. I think it
> would be nice to respond to people when they say something to me. But
> on the other hand, I feel overwhelmed by the size of the tree. I’m
> not sure how to decide which things to respond to and which things to
> let go. I usually go by intuition on that.

You could try going through the tree systematically and using it to make
a list of all the things you didn't respond to. Then, rather than going
by intuition, you could try to come up for reasons why you are replying
to some things and not to others, if that is your choice, and include
that information along with the responses that you do write. Your reason
could be something short like "not sure what to say" or "seemed
unimportant" or "tired of talking about this issue." And you could try
be open to criticism or advice about those decisions.

-JM

[Justin Mallone]

On Oct 14, 2020, at 17:54 PM, Anne B <anne...@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Oct 14, 2020, at 7:41 AM, Justin Mallone <jus...@justinmallone.com>
> wrote:
>
>> On Oct 13, 2020, at 19:20 PM, Anne B <anne...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>

>> FWIW there are thousands of pages of archives you can use:
>> http://curi.us/ebooks
>
> I knew this existed but didn’t remember where. Thank you for the
> link.

np.

>> That's not to say it has the same amount of discussion as the other
>> subjects you mention, but there is a body of knowledge and discussion
>> that has been built up and to which you can refer.
>>
>>> Another issue I have is that if I did start to study TCS now, it
>>> would be hard for me to know if I was doing itt because I thought FI
>>> people wanted me to or if I was doing it because I really thought it
>>> was a good next step for me.
>>
>> This sounds like you don't actually fully agree that it would be good
>> for you to try to understand TCS better. Full agreement with that
>> proposition would include stuff like having your own understanding of
>> why such study was important that you were confident in.
>
> I do think it’s a good idea for me to study TCS. But I’m not sure
> if I should do it now. I don’t know if I need some prerequisites
> first (better learning skills? reading? writing? discussing?).

Well you could try learning TCS and see what barriers you hit. If you
hit a barrier in terms of pre-requisites, you could double-back.

>>> I don’t have much confidence in my ability to choose learning
>>> steps for myself.
>>
>> I find that it is the areas in which I am the least confident that I
>> am most open to trying out other people's suggestions. I think that
>> sort of thing is common and makes sense. An example is when you go to
>> eat at a new sort of restaurant with someone who is familiar with
>> that genre of restaurant. I think it is logical to defer to the other
>> person's suggestions in such a case, since they have more knowledge
>> than you about the type of food at the restaurant. If that seems
>> reasonable to you, you should consider whether the same principle
>> might apply re: trying out people's learning suggestions.
>
> Yes, that makes sense. I could try out studying TCS. Then I’d have
> to judge whether it was going well. If I hated it, I would stop. But
> if I sort of liked it and couldn’t tell whether I was learning much
> (which could easily happen), I wouldn’t know whether to continue.

Re: sort of liking it and having difficulty self-evaluating, you could
try crossing that bridge if/when you come to it.

-JM

[Max Kaye]

On Wed, 30 Sep 2020 16:18:12 -0400 Anne B <anne...@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Sep 25, 2020, at 3:11 PM, Elliot Temple <cu...@curi.us> wrote:
>
> > I don’t trust dropbox links to keep working in the long term future. Dropbox actually has intentionally broken links before and removed their whole public folder feature to limit sharing.
>
> I could host pdfs on my own website. When I click on a pdf link there it opens in my browser. I don’t have any plans to take that site down but it’s hard to predict.
>
> I looked up some other places to host pdfs. I could go through them and see how easy it is to read stuff on them. But I don’t know how to judge whether they are likely to keep links working in the future. I don’t know how to judge that. Anyone have opinions? Or thoughts about what else to keep in mind when deciding where to host pdfs?
>
> The places I found are:
>
> OneDrive
> Google Drive
> https://www.docdroid.net/
> https://www.keepandshare.com/htm/file_sharing/file_hosting/free_pdf_hosting.php
> https://www.pdf-archive.com/
> https://www.pdfhost.net/
> https://www.publitas.com/publish-pdf-online/
> https://www.scribd.com/upload-document
> https://www.box.com/

The easiest thing that comes to mind is using a github repository. It's not ideal but you won't have a problem storing lots of pdfs. They have a *github pages* feature which will host a static site (this is how I host xertrov.github.io/fi -- there are some PDFs in there somewhere). You don't need to worry about html or anything, just turn the feature on and then whatever you push (to the repo) will show up on https://<username>.github.io/files/<filename> in like 30s.

ATM I use AWS S3 with a slightly-involved set up so I can drop files in a folder from one of multiple computers and it's live as quickly as I can upload it. S3 is like $0.023 / GB / mo (with a 5GB for 12 months free tier), so it's pretty cheap and it'll stay there basically forever.

--
Max
xk.io

I post my FI work/articles/exercise/practice here:
https://xertrov.github.io/fi

[Max Kaye]

On Fri, 25 Sep 2020 14:56:06 -0400 Anne B <anne...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I listened to a new curi podcast, Rationalism and Convention:
>
> https://curi.us/files/podcasts/rationalism-and-convention.mp3

I only realised like a week ago that curi had released this podcast, and I've listened to it a few times since then.

I really like it, for a few reasons:

* it feels pretty different from a lot (all?) of the other podcasts, and it does something unique. It reminds me a bit of https://curi.us/1994 but they're still pretty different from one another.

* it's given me pause for thought on a bunch of stuff, and helped me realise I was mistaken on a few things. (like: being oneself w/in context of FI, the role we all play in FI culture, the context/depth of some of curi's ideas)

* it feels like a good curi->audience msg that we don't often get. we get curi's ideas, curi->person stuff, and some high-stakes curi->audience, but I can't really thing of more general and less urgent curi->audience examples. I think low-stakes stuff is good to have a bit of b/c it's sort of like downtime in one's life.

* touching on the cargoculting stuff, it's easy to misinterpret or overthink things curi says or go over-the-top with some idea. I feel like there was some reassurance that being more ourselves is okay (as opposed to trying to be in robotic-perfect-hyperlogical-no-error mode or something). This feels like one of those things where it's easy to not go far enough, though. Seems like practicing when to apply which frames of mind is the way to manage this though.

* it had lots of good practical advice -- I felt at least. Lots of stuff that applies and helps avoid focusing on the wrong things.

Particularly I liked the section on praise and FI culture. Some of the stuff curi said feels a bit obvious in hindsight, but FI is unfamiliar territory so it's not always obvious what ideas from outside-FI are okay/good. I'm going to consciously be praising things I like more.

I think one of the reasons praise is withheld (at least for me) is that it doesn't feel substantial enough to contribute. That doesn't really make sense though b/c feedback like "I liked this bit", "this was elegant", or "I'm not sure but it has got me thinking about X" all contain useful information for the author and audience. It might not be the most substantial if it's just that but there is something useful there. but all of those bits of feedback could easily be expanded into a paragraph, too, so lack-of-substance shouldn't really be a reason for anyone to withhold praise.

Another reason is a sort of quid-pro-quo static meme, where praise is withheld b/c it's not being received. I'm pretty sure something like that exists, so it makes sense it's playing some role here, though maybe less so than non-FI contexts.

I also think curi's role in FI and efforts are generally under-appreciated, and more public recognition would be good. Genuine praise is cheap and meaningful, so withholding it doesn't make much sense. Plus I think the rest of us would like and be encouraged by praise from one-another too.

[Elliot Temple]

On Oct 23, 2020, at 5:03 PM, Max Kaye <m...@xk.io> wrote:

> On Fri, 25 Sep 2020 14:56:06 -0400 Anne B <anne...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I listened to a new curi podcast, Rationalism and Convention:
>>
>> https://curi.us/files/podcasts/rationalism-and-convention.mp3
>
> I only realised like a week ago that curi had released this podcast, and I've listened to it a few times since then.
>
> I really like it, for a few reasons:
>
> * it feels pretty different from a lot (all?) of the other podcasts, and it does something unique. It reminds me a bit of https://curi.us/1994 but they're still pretty different from one another.
>
> * it's given me pause for thought on a bunch of stuff, and helped me realise I was mistaken on a few things. (like: being oneself w/in context of FI, the role we all play in FI culture, the context/depth of some of curi's ideas)
>
> * it feels like a good curi->audience msg that we don't often get. we get curi's ideas, curi->person stuff, and some high-stakes curi->audience, but I can't really thing of more general and less urgent curi->audience examples. I think low-stakes stuff is good to have a bit of b/c it's sort of like downtime in one's life.
>
> * touching on the cargoculting stuff, it's easy to misinterpret or overthink things curi says or go over-the-top with some idea. I feel like there was some reassurance that being more ourselves is okay (as opposed to trying to be in robotic-perfect-hyperlogical-no-error mode or something). This feels like one of those things where it's easy to not go far enough, though. Seems like practicing when to apply which frames of mind is the way to manage this though.
>
> * it had lots of good practical advice -- I felt at least. Lots of stuff that applies and helps avoid focusing on the wrong things.
>
> Particularly I liked the section on praise and FI culture. Some of the stuff curi said feels a bit obvious in hindsight, but FI is unfamiliar territory so it's not always obvious what ideas from outside-FI are okay/good. I'm going to consciously be praising things I like more.
>
> I think one of the reasons praise is withheld (at least for me) is that it doesn't feel substantial enough to contribute. That doesn't really make sense though b/c feedback like "I liked this bit", "this was elegant", or "I'm not sure but it has got me thinking about X" all contain useful information for the author and audience. It might not be the most substantial if it's just that but there is something useful there. but all of those bits of feedback could easily be expanded into a paragraph, too, so lack-of-substance shouldn't really be a reason for anyone to withhold praise.

i think it may be related to ppl trying to sound sophisticated on FI. lots of praise has a simple reason and just a little bit of explanation (often less than a sentence). simple reasons are fine! saying simple stuff is fine!

> Another reason is a sort of quid-pro-quo static meme, where praise is withheld b/c it's not being received. I'm pretty sure something like that exists, so it makes sense it's playing some role here, though maybe less so than non-FI contexts.

i agree

> I also think curi's role in FI and efforts are generally under-appreciated, and more public recognition would be good. Genuine praise is cheap and meaningful, so withholding it doesn't make much sense. Plus I think the rest of us would like and be encouraged by praise from one-another too.

i agree

Elliot Temple
www.curi.us

[Anne B]

On Sep 30, 2020, at 4:18 PM, Anne B <anne...@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Sep 25, 2020, at 3:11 PM, Elliot Temple <cu...@curi.us> wrote:
>
>> I don’t trust dropbox links to keep working in the long term future. Dropbox actually has intentionally broken links before and removed their whole public folder feature to limit sharing.
>>

>> Also dropbox doesn’t let you view pdfs in your browser like a normal pdf link. dropbox’s own reader is bad enough to use that i download stuff instead of using it. but if it was a regular pdf file link that opened in my browser i’d be able to read it there fine. drop box also prevents right click + open in Preview.
>>
>> changing dl=0 to dl=1 forces download instead of allowing you to view the pdf in the browser.
>>
>> so it’d be better if you’d host files somewhere else.
>
> I tried out my dropbox link and the same link but changing dl=0 to dl=1. I see what you mean about both those options not being as nice as being able to view pdfs in your browser.

>
> I could host pdfs on my own website. When I click on a pdf link there it opens in my browser. I don’t have any plans to take that site down but it’s hard to predict.
>
> I looked up some other places to host pdfs. I could go through them and see how easy it is to read stuff on them. But I don’t know how to judge whether they are likely to keep links working in the future. I don’t know how to judge that. Anyone have opinions? Or thoughts about what else to keep in mind when deciding where to host pdfs?
>
> The places I found are:

> https://www.docdroid.net/

I tried docdroid for something today and I noticed the site says this:

> Documents are automatically deleted after 60 days without view.

This is fine for the purpose I’m using it for, but not fine for philosophy or coding stuff that I don’t expect to get frequent views.

I did find it very easy to upload a pdf and get a link to it that I can share.

[Anne B]

Update on this, six weeks later:

I’ve read some about TCS. I’ve written around ten posts about TCS on the curi blog, and some other things that I didn’t publish. I have some interest in doing more but not a lot. I don’t want to pressure myself to do things I’m not enthusiastic about, so I may or may not do much with TCS anytime soon.