Jacob Falkovich

Is Rationalist Self-Improvement Real?

Cross-posted from Putanumonit where the images show up way bigger. I don't know how to make them bigger on LW. Basketballism Imagine that tomorrow everyone on the planet forgets the concept of training basketball skills. The next day everyone is as good at basketball as they were the previous day, but this talent is assumed to be fixed. No one expects their performance to change over time. No one teaches basketball, although many people continue to play the game for fun. Snapshots of a Steph Curry jump shot. Image credit: ESPN. Geneticists explain that some people are born with better hand-eye coordination and are thus able to shoot a basketball accurately. Economists explain that highly-paid NBA players have a stronger incentive to hit shots, which explains their improved performance. Psychologists note that people who take more jump shots each day hit a higher percentage and theorize a principal factor of basketball affinity that influences both desire and skill at basketball. Critical theorists claim that white men’s under-representation in the NBA is due to systemic oppression. Papers are published, tenure is awarded. New scientific disciplines emerge and begin studying jump shots more systematically. Evolutionary physiologists point out that our ancestors threw stones more often than they tossed basketballs, which explains our lack of adaptation to that particular motion. Behavioral kinesiologists describe systematic biases in human basketball, such as the tendency to shoot balls with a flatter trajectory and a lower release point than is optimal. When asked by aspiring basketball players if jump shots can be improved, they all shake their heads sadly and say that it is human nature to miss shots. A Nobel laureate behavioral kinesiologist tells audiences that even after he wrote a book on biases in basketball his shot did not improve much. Someone publishes a study showing that basketball performance improves aft

276Dec 9, 2019

Jacob Falkovich

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Writes Putanumonit.com and SecondPerson.dating. @yashkaf on Twitter.

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Coupling for Decouplers

Previously in sequence: Moonlight Reflected Cross-posted from SecondPerson.dating Rationalism has a dating problem. I don’t mean simply the fact that a lot of rationalists are single, which may be adequately explained by age, sex ratio, and an unusual combination of slow life history with fears of an imminent apocalypse. A...

Apr 7, 202516

Moonlight Reflected

Previously in sequence: Navigation by Moonlight Cross-posted from SecondPerson.dating. I’m very proud of Navigation by Moonlight, and not just because it got a warm reception and resonated with many readers. I’m proud because I didn’t understand it well enough to write about even six months ago. Which, coincidentally, is when...

Apr 7, 202511

Navigation by Moonlight

Previously in sequence: You Are not a Thought Experiment Cross-posted from SecondPerson.dating. I want to conclude our interplanetary exploration of sex differences with one that’s of great interest to me personally: there seems to be little explicit advice on dating for women, and almost none of it is written by...

Apr 7, 202524

You Are Not a Thought Experiment

Previously in sequence: Love is Love, Science is Fake Cross-posted from SecondPerson.dating. You awaken on a couch in a strange room. Throw pillows look warm in the soft lamplight, the rug has a complex, asymmetric pattern. A pale, dark-haired woman walks in and sits across the small coffee table. You...

Apr 7, 20255

Love is Love, Science is Fake

Previously in the sequence: Coupling for Decouplers — Intro Cross-posted from SecondPerson.dating. In my essay on "dating advice", we discussed the dating books full of recipe-like instructions for your romantic life. These recipes don’t really work, even for the men who write them. You need to know how to demonstrate...

Apr 7, 202517

Coupling for Decouplers — Intro

Rationalist don't talk about dating much. At least — not on LessWrong. This is surprising! Dating touches on every theme of interest to rationalists: psychology, game theory, epistemology, signaling, self-transformation, agency, even AI — not to mention most people's personal interest in the matter. I started writing about dating a...

Apr 7, 20259

Seth Explains Consciousness

The Real Problem For as long as there have been philosophers, they loved philosophizing about what life really is. Plato focused on nutrition and reproduction as the core features of living organisms. Aristotle claimed that it was ultimately about resisting perturbations. In the East the focus was less on function...

Aug 22, 202339

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Jacob Falkovich

Jacob Falkovich

Jacob Falkovich

Is Rationalist Self-Improvement Real?

The Treacherous Path to Rationality

Seeing the Smoke

Explaining the Twitter Postrat Scene

Jacob Falkovich

Coupling for Decouplers

Moonlight Reflected

Navigation by Moonlight

You Are Not a Thought Experiment

Love is Love, Science is Fake

Coupling for Decouplers — Intro

Seth Explains Consciousness

Is Rationalist Self-Improvement Real?

The Treacherous Path to Rationality

Seeing the Smoke

Explaining the Twitter Postrat Scene

Coupling for Decouplers

Moonlight Reflected

Navigation by Moonlight

You Are Not a Thought Experiment

Love is Love, Science is Fake

Coupling for Decouplers — Intro

Seth Explains Consciousness