Hello Friends,
And happy Monday!
This Monday, three foundational essays on how to think and learn rationally.
The last two are by Commoncog, whose teachings I strongly recommend for improved thinking and learning.
This first one is mostly relevant as an intro - I do not specifically recommend reading the whole thing:
The hierarchy of evidence: Is the study’s design robust? 17min
This second one is short and extremely insightful:
The Hierarchy of Practical Evidence 3min
Technique Goal: A reasonable framework for evaluating non-scientific advice.
As a practitioner, you often have to seek advice from others.
How do you evaluate the credibility of the advice you're given?
“Beware people who recommend techniques they've never tried, distrust advice from people who read but do not practice.”
Last but not least, and also very short, the most practical of all three:
Believability 3min
Technique Goal: An efficient heuristic for evaluating who to ask feedback from. Also worth using during decision-making: i.e. 'believability weighted opinions'.
The example here being a) you need to make a decision, b) you approach a variety of people to get advice, c) you incorporate their views and weight their advice according to their believability.
Technique summary:
Believable people are people who have 1) a record of at least three relevant successes and 2) have great explanations of their approach when probed.
You may evaluate a person's believability on the subject matter at hand by applying this heuristic. When interacting with them:
If you’re talking to a more believable person, suppress your instinct to debate and instead ask questions to understand their approach. This is far more effective in getting to the truth than wasting time debating.
You’re only allowed to debate someone who has roughly equal believability compared to you.
If you’re dealing with someone with lower believability, spend the minimum amount of time to see if they have objections that you’d not considered before. Otherwise, don’t spend that much time on them.
It does feel like most rational people are already applying those principles most of the time. I know I did.
But definitely worth formalising it and making sure to be much more mindful in their application.
Thanks for reading, and have a rational week ahead,
V