The Best Tacit Knowledge Videos on Every Subject

Pinned by Ben Pace

Updates Thread. Below are occational updates with lists of new tacit knowledge videos so you don't have to scroll through the list again to find new videos.

4Parker Conley1y

Below are the new tacit knowledge videos added to the post since mid-April, 2024. * Paul Meehl, Philosophical Psychology 1989 course lectures, "deep introduction to 20c philosophy of science, using psychology rather than physics as the model science -- because it's harder!" (via @Jonathan Stray) * "Meehl was a philosopher of science, a statistician, and a lifelong clinical psychologist. He wrote a book showing that statistical prediction usually beats clinical judgement in 1954, and a paper on the replication crisis in psychology in 1978. He personally knew people like Popper, Kuhn, Lakatos, Feyerabend, etc. and brings their insights to life in these course lectures." * Me: I was hesitant to add a lecture series to this list at first. I changed my mind after listening to the first video, where Meehl provides interesting details (gossip, almost) about the life of an academic and the various personalities of his successful academic peers. * Kenneth Folk, Guided Tour to 13 Jhanas. * “Kenneth Folk is an instructor of meditation who has received worldwide acknowledgement for his innovative approach to secular Buddhist meditation. After twenty years of training in the Burmese Theravada Buddhist tradition of Mahasi Sayadaw, including three years of intensive silent retreat in monasteries in Asia and the U.S., he began to spread his own findings, successfully stripping away religious dogma to render meditation accessible to modern practitioners” (Website). * Dave Whipple, building a "[s]imple off grid Cabin that anyone can build & afford (and many other builds on his channel). (via @Vitor) * "Construction contractor, DIY living off-grid in Alaska and Michigan." * "He and his wife bootstrapped themselves building their own cabin, then house, sell at a profit, rinse and repeat a few times. There are many, many videos of people building their own cabins, etc. Dave's are simple, clear, lucid, from a guy who's done it many times and has skin in the game." * S

3Parker Conley3mo

Below are the new tacit knowledge videos added today (the last update was August 2024). * F. Perry Wilson, "Understanding Medical Research: Your Facebook Friend is Wrong" (h/t @Marius Adrian Nicoară) * Yale clinician-researcher known for clear statistical explanations. * “Bite-sized videos explaining how to approach medical research people. Last updated July 30 2020, so hopefully it reached many people during those confusing times and helped them strenghten their intellectual self defense.” * Chef Jacob Burton, "Culinary Boot Camp & F-STEP Curriculum" (h/t @sharksmile) * Intensive fundamentals course that applies across cuisines. * “F-STEP cooking curriculum is a classic to me... first and foremost it taught me the importance of salt and what type to use when, and i think about that every time i'm cooking. goes way beyond that in the series. solid foundational info that applies to all kinds of cooking.” * Andreas Kling, "Ladybird Browser Development Livestreams" (h/t @AJ Weeks) * Veteran browser/kernel engineer building Ladybird from scratch. * “Andreas livestreams himself working on the ambitious written-from-scratch Ladybird browser all while maintaining a friendly and welcoming attitude, not something that can be said for every programming streamer!” * Joseph Noel Walker & Andy Matuschak, "Behind the Scenes of My Interview Research Process" (h/t @Benjamin Schneider) * Deep-prep podcaster interviewed by an learning researcher. * “Joe Walker puts extensive effort into researching and studying before his podcast interviews in order to come up with good and not just surface level questions for his expert guests. He also focuses on retaining the information and gaining a deep understanding which helps with subsequent conversations around similar topics.” * Ryan Singer, "Design Workflow — Part 1 & 2" (h/t @Benjamin Schneider) * Co-founder and longtime head of design at 37signals. * “Live step by step walkthrough of breaking down and

3Saul Munn2mo

thanks for keeping this alive, parker!

1Parker Conley2mo

Thank you for the encouragement and kind words!

3Parker Conley1y

Tacit Knowledge Videos added to the list from May–August, 2024. Enjoy! * Kenneth Folk, pranayama breathing. * “Kenneth Folk is an instructor of meditation who has received worldwide acknowledgement for his innovative approach to secular Buddhist meditation. After twenty years of training in the Burmese Theravada Buddhist tradition of Mahasi Sayadaw, including three years of intensive silent retreat in monasteries in Asia and the U.S., he began to spread his own findings, successfully stripping away religious dogma to render meditation accessible to modern practitioners" (Website). * Keith Johnstone, teaching improv. * Author of Impro. * "A pioneer of improvisational theatre, he was best known for inventing the Impro System, part of which are the Theatresports" (Wikipedia). * Gwern, "Internet Search Case Studies" * Gwern blogs at his well-known gwern.net. * Per his about, Gwern has also "worked for, published in, or consulted for: Wired, MIRI/SIAI, CFAR, GiveWell, the FBI, Cool Tools, Quantimodo, New Work Encyclopedia, Bitcoin Weekly, Mobify, Bellroy, Dominic Frisby, and private clients" (Website). I’ve had a busy past few months (if a three-month meditation retreat counts as busy). There have been more videos submitted than videos added to the post in this batch. I will add these in the coming months.

[-]hans truman1y30

Pinned by Ben Pace

Review Thread. Post reviews of content linked above below this comment.

[-]Parker Conley1y122

Review of: Elie Hassenfeld, Holden Karnofsky, Timothy Ogden, Rob Reich, Tom Rutledge, Brigid Slipka, Cari Tuna, Julia Wise: GiveWell's Public Board Meetings (2007–2020 have audio).

I'm a college student with only pretty low-stakes work experience. I listened to the first 5–10 meetings as I would a podcast last week. Some takeaways, emphasizing that I only just watched them last week:

It was interesting to follow the narrative of Holden and Elie getting started on the project. Like, anecdotes about people's experiences starting a startup are everywhere, but it was interesting hearing them actually talking about the struggles and business decisions they were making.
Holden worked 100h/wk in the first year; that's a lot of time spent on a project! (Then 60h/wk in the second, afaict.)
Interesting generally how assertive the business meetings were compared to everyday conversation.
I am familiar with GiveWell as a popular charity in the Rat/EA space, but I never really spent the time to understand the research methodology. It was interesting hearing the practical and strategic discussions between the founders and the board on the methodology. It also seemed to change every year in the f

... (read more)

1hans truman1y

"Mise En Place", "[i]nterviews and kitchen walkthroughs: Qualifies as tacit knowledge, in that people are showing what they're doing that you seldom have a chance to watch first-hand. Reasonably entertaining, seems like you could learn a bit here. Caveat: most of the dishes are really high-class/meat/fish etc. that you aren't very likely to ever cook yourself, and knowledge seems difficult to transfer.

[-]Parker Conley1y*81

Requests Thread. Post requests for tacit knowledge videos below this comment.

This thread also serves as a memory jogger for those who might have seen videos of the requested types.

6Ricki Heicklen1y

InDesign! Or anything on page layout / publishing / how to make a pretty and well formatted book

6Parker Conley1y

I would find forecasting videos would be interesting to watch.

4niplav1y

There's this intro series by @Alex Lawsen.

6Parker Conley1y

I would be interested in more studying/learning videos. I found Andy Matuschak's very interesting.

6Parker Conley1y

@Yoav Ravid: "I'd be interested in tacit knowledge videos about writing, if anyone knows any."

5Parker Conley1y

Fundraising videos?

3Parker Conley1y

@habryka / @mods - would it be possible to pin (1) the 'Review Thread' and (2) this thread? I think these will be the two most valuable comments on this post. The comment video submissions are a bit cluttered due to embeds and submissions are more accessible/navigatable through the OP.

2Ben Pace1y

Done.

1Parker Conley1y

Any chance you could pin the 'Updates Thread' too?

2Ben Pace1y

Done.

1Parker Conley3mo

Any chance you could unpin this comment? Seems like the idea of people suggesting videos based on it didn't work, and having the updates be the first pinned comment would probably provide more value to people looking at the post.

2Ben Pace3mo

Done.

1Parker Conley3mo

Thanks! If it’s not too much to ask, pinning the updates comment would be useful to people though. Just not this one.

1Parker Conley3mo

Looking at it now, I realize you probably unpinned it due to the dead link. Fixed this!

1Parker Conley3mo

Following up re above @Ben Pace

2Ben Pace3mo

Kk. Will move future chat to DMs so we don't keep this comment section going.

3Parker Conley1y

Meal prepping Tacit Knowledge Videos?

3Parker Conley1y

I would be interested in hearing the thought processes behind experienced interviewers. For example, Tyler Cowen has a few blog posts speaking to his interviewing tacit knowledge. If there was something like this in a more information-dense video format, I would be keen to watch it.

2Saul Munn1y

this interview between alexey guzey and dwarkesh patel gets into it a bit!

2pweids8mo

Requests: 1. Software design and architecture. Something like getting a tough feature request, and re-designing the system to support it. 2. High-performance and ultra-reliable networked systems (like something that might get launched into space)

2xepo1y

Interior design, please! I can never figure out which pieces of furniture will actually look good together or flow nice in a home. Especially when combined with lighting and shelves and art.

1Ringo8Pie3mo

Geography, because it can be oh so lacking in public education in some countries nowadays.

1pweids8mo

One theme of video I've spent small amount of time unsuccessfully looking for is videos of routine meetings. I'd like to see how some well-known business leaders actually hold and run their meetings, looking for things like thought process, presence, style, and command. Basically, the blocking and tackling of leadership.

1quailia1y

Networking, Relationship building, both professional and personal, I'm sure there are overlaps. And echoing another request: Sales

1Parker Conley1y

Sales tacit knowledge videos?

1Parker Conley1y

Tacit Knowledge Videos of eurogames.

1Parker Conley1y

At one point I had watched a video on YouTube like Upright Citizens Brigade - ASSSSCAT Improv, but with the ASSSSCAT actors rewatching their performance and providing commentary on their thought processes. I would be delighted if anyone knows the original video or has a similar video they know of.

[-]habryka1y2011

Share links to Tacit Knowledge Videos below! Share them frivolously! These videos are uncommon—the bottleneck to the YouTube knowledge transfer revolution is quantity, not quality. I will add the shared videos to the post. Here are the loose rules:

Note: I strongly recommend either changing this post to be a question (so that answers are more easily broken out), or enforcing a standard structure to comments to make the comments-section easy to skim. One of the things that was IMO most important for the success of the Best Textbooks On Every Subject thread were the requirements that each submission compared at least 3 textbooks, and that Luke kept editing the best submissions back into the main post body.

7Parker Conley1y

Thank you for the recommendation! I think I agree. I will be editing the comments back into the body, but I think it would be useful for the comments to be more legible. For those reading this, here is the format I recommend (I've since edited this recommendation into the body):

1whestler1y

Domain: PCB Design, Electronics Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySuUZEjARPY Person: Rick Hartley Background: Has worked in electronics since the 60s, senior principal engineer at L-3 Avionics Systems, principal of RHartley Enterprises Why: Rick Hartley is capable of explaining electrical concepts intuitively, and linking them directly to circuit design. He uses a lot of stories and examples visually to describe what's happening in a circuit. I'm not sure it counts as Tacit Knowledge since this is lecture format, but it includes a bunch of things that you might not know you don't know, coming into the field. I never "got" how electrical circuits really work before watching this video, despite having been a hobbyist for years.

[-]Carl Feynman1y110

“Applied science” by Ben Krasnow. A YouTube channel about building physics-intensive projects in a home laboratory. Big ones are things like an electron microscope or a mass spectrometer, but the ones I find fascinating are smaller things like an electroluminescent display or a novel dye. He demonstrates the whole process of scientific experiment— finding and understanding references, setting up a process for trying stuff, failing repeatedly, learning from mistakes, noticing oddities… He doesn’t just show you the final polished procedure— “here’s how to make an X”. He shows you the whole journey— “Here’s how I discovered how to make X”.

You seem very concerned that people in the videos should have legible symbols of success. I don’t think that much affects how useful the videos are, but just in case I’m wrong, I looked on LinkedIn, where I found this self-assesment:

<begin copied text>

I specialize in the design and construction of electromechanical prototypes. My core skillset includes electronic circuit design, PCB layout, mechanical design, machining, and sensor/actuator selection. This allows me to implement and test ideas for rapid evalua... (read more)

7Algon1y

I'm gonna quote from this article about why you'd prefer to learn tacit knowledge from "believable people" i.e. those who have 1) a record of at least 3 different successes and 2) have great explanations of their approach when probed.

1Parker Conley1y

Domain: Physics Link: "Applied Science" Person: Ben Krasnow Background: From his LinkedIn: "I specialize in the design and construction of electromechanical prototypes. My core skillset includes electronic circuit design, PCB layout, mechanical design, machining, and sensor/actuator selection. This allows me to implement and test ideas for rapid evaluation or iteration. Much of the work that I did for my research devices business included a fast timeline, going from customer sketch to final product in less than a month. These products were used to collect data for peer-reviewed scientific papers, and I enjoyed working closely with the end user to solve their data collection challenges. I did similar work at Valve to quickly implement and test internal prototypes." (I've since changed the formatting standards for this post; I hope you don't mind me reposting your information to make it more legible for new readers.)

1Parker Conley1y

Perfect—thanks for the links! Will add this and the other submission to the post when I get the chance. The main driving motivation for this was seeing that The Best Textbooks on Every Subject received traction due to a similar mechanism. Another reason was wanting the tacit knowledge in the videos to be knowledge that's appealing to learn. I don't want the mechanism to stop the post from receiving submissions though; this resource-submission genre seems like the kind that benefits from network effects. If anyone has any thoughts as to whether the mechanism is useful or counterproductive, I would be curious to hear.

1taygetea1y

That was 13 years ago across an ocean of accelerating cultural change, institutional trust, and people maturing. I'm sure you can still find plenty of people who would use mechanisms like that, but I'm pretty sure it's going to be one of the less important considerations now.

1taygetea1y

and while I'm here, i also curate something like this. ben krasnow is only the best entry point into a wider world. This list was my best attempt recently, it was particularly aimed at getting programmers into physical engineering topics, trying to removing learned helplessness around it and making the topic feel like something it's possible to engage with. https://gist.github.com/taygetea/1fcc9817618b1008a812e6f2c58ca987

1Parker Conley1y

Thanks sharing sharing this! I've added one and intend to add more of them when I have more time.

[-]lincolnquirk1y92

For home cooking I would like to recommend J. Kenji Lopez-Alt (https://www.youtube.com/@JKenjiLopezAlt/videos). He's a well-loved professional chef who writes science-y cooking books, and his youtube channel is a joy because it's mostly just low production values: him in his home kitchen, making delicious food from simple ingredients, just a few cuts to speed things up.

1Parker Conley1y

Thanks for sharing! Added. I'd be curious if anyone has this but for meal prepping instead of cooking a single meal.

[-]WitheringWeights1y*87

“American financial criminal and businessman. Shkreli is the co-founder of the hedge funds Elea Capital, MSMB Capital Management, and MSMB Healthcare, the co-founder and former CEO of pharmaceutical firms Retrophin and Turing Pharmaceuticals, and the former CEO of start-up software company Gödel Systems, which he founded in August 2016” (Wikipedia).

It should at least be mentioned that Shkreli is a convicted fraudster.

3Parker Conley1y

Agreed and added.

[-]Saul Munn1y70

Domain: Various: Startups, Events, Project Management, etc

Link: Manifund, Manifold, and Manifest {2023, 2024: meeting notes, docs, budget}

Person: Various: generally, the Manifold, Manifund, and Manifest teams

Why: This isn't a video, but it's probably relevantly close. All Manifold-sphere things are public — all meeting notes, budgets/finances, strategy docs, etc. I think that someone could learn a lot of tacit knowledge based on how the Manifold-sphere teams work by skimming e.g. our meeting notes docs, which are fairly comprehensive/extensive.

[-]Yoav Ravid1y71

I'd be interested in tacit knowledge videos about writing, if anyone knows any.

1Parker Conley1y

I've since created a requests thread where comments like these can go. Maybe the requests can serve as memory joggers for readers who've seen a certain type of Tacit Knowledge Video but don't recall the video after first reading the post.

[-]Adrian Kelly1y*60

Domain: Engineering

Building Prototypes with Dan Gelbart https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMP_AfiNlX4&list=PLSGA1wWSdWaTXNhz_YkoPADUUmF1L5x2F&index=1

Dan Gelbart has been Founder and CTO of hardware companies for over 40 years, and shares his deep knowledge of tips and tricks for fast, efficient, and accurate mechanical fabrication. He covers a variety of tools, materials, and techniques that are extremely valuable to have in your toolbox.

1Parker Conley1y

Thanks! Added.

[-]Max Entropy1y*52

Love this idea, and +1 on Jon Gjengset and Neel Nanda.

For finance though, I'm skeptical of your recommendations (DeepFuckingValue and Martin Shkreli). The former made his money pumping-and-dumping meme stocks, and I get the impression the latter has been selected for fame (like recommending Neil deGrasse Tyson to learn physics).

In general, I think finding good resources in finance requires a much stronger epistemic immune system than nearly any other field! There's so much adverse selection, and charlatans can hide behind noisy returns and flashy slide dec... (read more)

1Parker Conley1y

Thanks for the Git recommendation; added!

1Parker Conley1y

Thanks for the feedback! I too am skeptical of the finance videos, agreeing that the video probably came across my radar due to the figures being popular rather than displaying believable tacit knowledge. I've gone back and forth on whether to remove the videos from the list or just add your expert anecdata as a disclaimer on the videos. In the spirit of quantity vs. quality, I'm leaning toward keeping the videos on the list.

1Parker Conley1y

Update: added the disclaimer.

[-]habryka1y53

Promoted to curated: The original "The Best Textbooks on Every Subject" post was among the most valuable that LessWrong has ever featured. I really like this extension of it into the realm of tacit knowledge videos, which does feel like a very valuable set of content that I haven't seen curated anywhere else on the internet.

Thank you very much for doing this! And I hope this post will see contributions for many months and years to come.

1Parker Conley1y

Glad to see that people find the post useful! I hope it will see many future contributions as well. In case interesting to anyone, I've just put together a google form Substack (edited 5.6.24) to create an email list for those who would like to be sent lists of newly added videos every month or so.

[-]Yoav Ravid1y50

Domain: Singing (especially theatre/musicals, but not just)

Link: Excerpt, full interview

Person: Philip Quast

Background: He played Javert in the 10th anniversary rendition of Les Mis.

Why: Philip Quast's has probably done the best performance of Javert, and in the interview he goes through the process of how he figures out how to sing his songs.

1Parker Conley1y

Thanks! Added.

[-]depressurize1y50

For math I'd like to submit this series: "A hard problem in elementary geometry" by fields medalist
Timothy Gowers. It's a 6 part series where each part is about an hour long, of him trying to solve this easy-seeming-but-actually-very-difficult problem.

1Parker Conley1y

Thanks! Added.

2aneeshm1y

Sir Gowers actually has a number of playlists around thinking about problems in real time; haven't looked at them myself, but may be worthwhile to mention that this series is one instance of multiple playlists of the same type, each focused on its own domain.

[-]Freyja1y50

Sofia Bue is a professional SFX sculptor; she works at Weta Workshop which is the most well-known special FX company in the world; they were responsible for SFX on Lord of the Rings. She also won the SFX category at the world Bodypainting championships at least once so I think she’s pretty indisputably world-class at it.

Her entire YouTube channel demonstrates a tonne of her tacit knowledge with respect to sculpting and SFX in general, but this is one good example of her showing her work on a small sculpture:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1NwYbC5t-9w&pp=ygUJc29maWEgYnVl

1Parker Conley1y

Thanks! Added.

[-]Freyja1y50

A few channels on parenting and homemaking:

Lisa from a YouTube channel called Farmhouse on Boone walks through her house and discusses what items she keeps where and why, and how she avoids clutter. She is a mom of 8 with a successful YouTube channel (successful enough that her husband quit his job and now helps with the channel and homeschooling).

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5slnHqMG22Q&pp=ygUjZmFybWhvdXNlIG9uIGJvb25lIG1pbmltYWxpc3QgaG91c2U%3D

This woman (whose name I don’t know) is a Christian mom who homeschools her 8 children. In this video she wal... (read more)

1Parker Conley1y

Thanks! Added.

1wassname1y

Interesting, got anymore? Especially for toddlers and so on, or would you go through everything those women have uploaded?

1Freyja1y

Lisa doesn’t post much about parenting toddlers; she posts a bit about birth and newborns but the focus of her channel is more on cooking and homemaking and less on parenting IMO. I don’t know enough about the other woman’s channel to evaluate; I’ve only watched a few. A parent friend recommended the RIE parenting philosophy, and RIE has several demo videos of parents interacting with their kids according to the principles. I’ve watched a few; I think they’re searchable by keyword.

1wassname1y

Thanks!

[-][anonymous]1y50

an all around handyman (the Essential Craftsman on youtube) talking about how to move big/cumbersome things without injuring yourself:

the same guy, about using a ladder without hurting yourself:

He has many other "tip" style videos.

1Parker Conley1y

Thanks for sharing! Added to the post.

[-]Morpheus1y*50

Juggling: Anthony Gatto's juggling routine from 2000. Anthony Gatto holds several juggling world records. This routine is infamous in the juggling world (here's a decent juggler commenting on it). As well as the fact that he gave up juggling to work with concrete instead (because it pays the bills). Here's more context on Gatto and his routine (the guy picking up the balls for him in the video is his father, for example):

1Parker Conley1y

Thanks! Added.

1Parker Conley1y

Domain: Juggling Link: Anthony Gato's juggling routine from 2000 Person: Anthony Gato Background: Anthony Gato holds several juggling world records. This routine is infamous in the juggling world (here's a decent juggler commenting on it). As well as the fact that he gave up juggling to work with concrete instead (because it pays the bills). Here's more context on Gatto and his routine (the guy picking up the balls for him in the video is his father, for example). (I've since changed the formatting standards for this post; I hope you don't mind me reposting your information to make it more legible for new readers.)

[-]Jonathan Stray1y*40

Domain: Philosophy of science

Link: Philosophical Psychology 1989 course lecturres

Person: Paul Meehl

Background: Deep introduction to 20c philosophy of science, using psychology rather than physics as the model science -- because it's harder!

Why: Meehl was a philosopher of science, a statistician, and a lifelong clinical psychologist. He wrote a book showing that statistical prediction usually beats clinical judgement in 1954, and a paper on the replication crisis in psychology in 1978. He personally knew people like Popper, Kuhn, Lakatos, Feyerabend, etc. a... (read more)

1Parker Conley1y

Thanks! Added. Relevant note from the entry:

[-]Freyja1y40

This guy Lance has grown a prolific permaculture food garden in the high deserts of Colorado for the last (iirc) 40 years. It provides almost all his food, including grains and legumes. Here they do a walkthrough of the garden and he discusses how it works: https://youtu.be/i5yUPau-F1c?si=S6lRE4a2Ns9HujGJ

1Parker Conley1y

Thanks! Added.

[-]Freyja1y40

I don’t have one video to recommend for each topic, but YouTube is a great source of videos of giving birth and of related activities like breastfeeding, babywearing, and even holding a baby.

I think simply searching ‘birth video’ or ‘homebirth’, ‘hospital birth’ or something similar gets you enough such videos, and watching a bunch of different women give birth is probably better than watching a single ‘expert’.

1Parker Conley1y

Thanks! I didn't add this as I couldn't readily think of a way to make it fit the format. But I've upvoted the comment to make it more visable.

[-]trevor1y40

There's some great opportunities here to learn social skills for various kinds of high-performance environments (e.g. "business communication" vs Y Combinator office hours).

Often, just listening and paying attention to how they talk and think results in substantial improvement to social habits. I was looking for stuff like this around 2018, wish I had encountered a post like this; most people who are behind on this are surprisingly fast learners, but didn't because actually going out and accumulating social status was too much of a deep dive. There's no reason that being-pleasant-to-talk-with should be arcane knowledge (at least not here of all places).

2matto1y

Did you find anything interesting in 2018? Did you use it, and, if yes, how'd it go?

[-]Algon1y42

I think speedrunning videos should count, though many people may not find them useful. Likewise for watching high level competitions.

3Parker Conley1y

Agreed. I added the link to speedrun.com/games to the post. From there readers can navigate to individual games and their respective leaderboards, click on a player, and watch the player's speedrun YouTube video.

[-]Jared Peterson1y40

As someone who researches and trains tacit knowledge, I appreciate this effort. Wish I had some better public resources!

Watching Simon from Cracking the Cryptic has given me a good feel for how to solve a hard Sudoku. Not exactly revolutionary, but there's some really clever logic there. (Watching anyone think aloud as they do a task is going to be great for tacit knowledge)

https://youtu.be/hAyZ9K2EBF0?si=65SYQQSpE0V_m3ah

A really good debate between two people is another thing I would recommend to watch. You can learn a lot about rationality and rhetoric f... (read more)

1Parker Conley1y

Thanks Jared! I've added the channel as well as the book recommendation to the post.

[-]sharksmile3mo*30

F-STEP cooking curriculum is a classic to me... first and foremost it taught me the importance of salt and what type to use when, and i think about that every time i'm cooking. goes way beyond that in the series. solid foundational info that applies to all kinds of cooking.

[-]Noah Topper8mo32

Domain: Miscellaneous (Running D&D/RPGs)

Link: Your First Adventure, Your First Town, Prepping an Adventure, Sandboxing

Person: Matt Colville

Why: Matt's videos are really informative and his primary goal is to show that DMing is a straightforward thing that anyone can do, not something reserved for certain members of the tabletop RPG hobby. I've tried to pick out a few of his videos that are especially hands-on, but he has lots more which are very useful. I recommend exploring them at your leisure if you're into TTRPGs at all.

[-]Algon1y32

This is not a video, but I think it counts as a useful example of tacit knowledge.

Domain: Google-fu

Link: https://gwern.net/search-case-studies

Person: Gwern

Background: Creator of consistently thorough essays

Why: Gwern talks you through what he did to hunt down obscure resources on the internet and in the process shows you how much dakka you could bring to bear on googling things you don't know.

3Parker Conley1y

Thanks! If there were a bunch of videos of people Google-fu-ing like this, I wouldn't add this article to the post. However, since this is one of the few good resources on Google-fu that I know of, I'm adding it to the post. Despite it not being a video.

[-]Parker Conley1y32

[pasting a comment of mine on Zvi's recent monthly roundup]

If anyone has anecdotes as to why they think the videos have been useful to them I'd be curious to hear. I'm still unsure of their benefit; the interest could just be novelty/insight-porn (Andy Matuschak speculates something in this direction, though he too seems ambivalent). I wrote the post partly as a test to see if there is much use.

Do people really learn anything from these streams? People certainly claim to learn things from my note-writing stream. I can believe it, maybe, but I wonder to wha

... (read more)

[-]lfrymire1y30

Domain: Piano

Link: Seymour Bernstein Teaches Piano https://youtu.be/pRLBBJLX-dQ?si=-6EIvGDRyw0aJ0Sq

Person: Seymour Bernstein

Background: Pianist and composer, performed with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Adjunct Associate Professor of Music and Music Education at New York University.

Why: Tonebase (a paid music learning service) recorded a number of free to watch conversations with Bernstein while he plays through or teaches a piece. Bernstein is about 90 years old at the time of recording and shares an incredible amount of tacit knowledge, especially about body mechanics when playing piano.

1Parker Conley1y

Thanks! Added.

[-]Freyja1y30

Interviews and kitchen walkthroughs with the head chefs at Michelin-star restaurants; I particularly like one with the head chef at a wild seafood restaurant demonstrating his daily ingredient procurement processes: https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUeEVLHfB5-T7E5TPxSphcDweIL5ioLrj

1Parker Conley1y

Thanks! Added.

[-]Freyja1y30

Esther Perel’s podcast called ‘Where Shall We Begin?’ where she does a live couples’ therapy session with a guest couple. It is rare to get access to a recorded therapy session, and she is at least world-renowned as a relationship therapist (although that doesn’t necessarily prove that she’s good at it).

1Parker Conley1y

Thanks, added!

[-]bertrand russet1y30

Domain: Music composition / arrangement / production

Link: Logic Session Breakdowns playlist

Person: Jacob Collier

Background: 6-time (at 29 yo) Grammy-winning multi-instrumentalist.

Why: Most of the videos in the playlist are walkthroughs and commentary of the Logic sessions containing hit songs. The #IHarmU marathon (directly linked) is probably the best, featuring livestreamed music-making.

1Parker Conley1y

Thanks! Added.

[-]jsd1y30

Related: Film Study for Research

[-]the gears to ascension1y30

I'm not sure your choices of finance examples are particularly good

1Parker Conley1y

I was on the fence as to whether or not to include those.

[-]Review Bot1y*30

The LessWrong Review runs every year to select the posts that have most stood the test of time. This post is not yet eligible for review, but will be at the end of 2025. The top fifty or so posts are featured prominently on the site throughout the year.

Hopefully, the review is better than karma at judging enduring value. If we have accurate prediction markets on the review results, maybe we can have better incentives on LessWrong today. Will this post make the top fifty?

[-]Carl Feynman1y30

Here’s a weird one. The YouTube channel of Andrew Camarata communicates a great deal about small business, heavy machinery operation and construction. Some of it he narrates what he’s doing, but he mostly just does it, and you say “Oh, I never realized I could do that with a Skid Steer” or “that’s how to keep a customer happy”. Lots of implicit knowledge about accomplishing heavy engineering projects between an hour and a week long. Of course, if you‘re looking for lessons that would be helpful for an ambitious person in Silicon Valley, i... (read more)

1Parker Conley1y

Domain: Heavy Machinery Operation, Farming Link: FarmCraft101 Person: N/A Background: No legible symbols of success, other than speaking standard American English like he’s been to college, owning a large farm, and clearly being intelligent. Why: The channel is nice because he includes all his failures, and goes into articulate detail on how he debugged them. I feel like learned some implicit knowledge about repair strategies. I particularly recommend the series of videos in which he purchases, accidentally sets on fire, and revives an ancient boom lift truck. (I've since changed the formatting standards for this post; I hope you don't mind me reposting your information to make it more legible for new readers.)

1Parker Conley1y

Domain: Small Business, Heavy Machinery Operation, Construction Link: Andrew Camarata Background: He has no legible success that I know of, except that he’s wealthy enough to afford many machines, and he’s smart enough that the house he designed and built came out stunning (albeit eccentric). Why: The YouTube channel of Andrew Camarata communicates a great deal about small business, heavy machinery operation and construction. Some of it he narrates what he’s doing, but he mostly just does it, and you say “Oh, I never realized I could do that with a Skid Steer” or “that’s how to keep a customer happy”. Lots of implicit knowledge about accomplishing heavy engineering projects between an hour and a week long. Of course, if you‘re looking for lessons that would be helpful for an ambitious person in Silicon Valley, it will only help in a very meta way. (I've since changed the formatting standards for this post; I hope you don't mind me reposting your information to make it more legible for new readers.)

[-]Benjamin Schneider8mo21

Domain: UX Design/Product

Link: Ryan Singer design workflow — Part 1 | Part 2

Person: Ryan Singer

Background: Co-founder and longtime head of design at 37signals (the company behind Basecamp and Hey)

Why: Live step by step walkthrough of breaking down and designing a feature for a web app through various stages of fidelity from basic structure to HTML

[-].CLI1y21

Game Design

The videos under this category fits better the label "game development" instead. Game Design is more focused on designing rules, mechanics, sometimes narratives, instead of programming.

2Parker Conley1y

Edited - thanks!

[-]Aorou1y20

Alexey Guzey, walkthrough of his computer setup and productivity workflow.
Founder of New Science. Popular blogger (eg, author of Matthew Walker’s “Why We Sleep” Is Riddled with Scientific and Factual Errors).

It seems like Guzey has changed his mind about a bunch of things, including needing all those huge monitors.
Makes me think this video is no longer relevant.
Blogpost

1Parker Conley1y

I've added this as a note. Thanks!

[-]ABishop1y20

This is one of the most useful articles on acquiring knowledge.

1Parker Conley1y

Thanks for the kind words! I'd be curious to hear more about what makes you think that!

[-]Robert Diersing1y20

Into Quilez is a phenomenal computer graphics programmer. His videos show him making works of art from pure code without importing textures. https://youtube.com/@InigoQuilez?si=P468pB_dPf_Icq57

1Parker Conley1y

Thanks! Added.

[-]Amadeus Pagel1y20

I was enthusiastic about the title of this post, hoping for something different from the usual lesswrong content, but disappointed by most of the examples. In my view if you take this idea of learning tacit knowledge with video seriously, it shouldn't affect just how you learn, but what you learn, rather then trying to learn book subjects by watching videos.

2habryka1y

If you have recommendations, post them! I doubt the author tried to filter the subjects very much by "book subjects" it's just what people seem to have found good ones so far.

1Parker Conley1y

Thanks for the feedback! I'd be curious to hear more about (1) what subjects you're referring to and (2) how learning tacit knowledge with video has changed your learning habits (if your view here is based on your own experience).

1Amadeus Pagel1y

You've already mentioned cooking as an example and this is definitely something I'd like to imiprove in. I looked up how to crack eggs: How to clip nails: https://www.tiktok.com/@jonijawne/video/7212337177772952838?q=cut%20nails&t=1713988543560 How to improve posture:

[-]TANSTAAFL1y20

Domain: Farming, Construction, & Craftsmanship

Link: https://www.youtube.com/@Advoko (English narration)

https://www.youtube.com/user/advocatttt (Russian narration)

Person: Max Egorov

Background: Unknown

Why: Bushcraft and off-grid craftsmanship. Advoko has a site in the woods near Lake Ladoga in Russia where he films himself building various improvements by hand with ... (read more)

1Parker Conley1y

Thanks! Added.

[-]Misha Glouberman1y20

Domain: Business & Business Communication, Mastering Difficult Conversations, Coaching

Link: Misha Glouberman - Recorded Coaching Sessions

Person: Misha Glouberman (That's me)

Background: Consultant, Business Coach, and Co-Author of The Chairs Are Where The People Go.

Why:

While there’s lots of reading materials on this kind of work, this recording offers the unique opportunity to actually listen and experience the coaching work and learnings happening in real-time. The concepts discussed can be applied to work-related, ... (read more)

1Parker Conley1y

Added. Thanks!

[-]masasin1y20

I have a bunch that I like watching. I'll add more in separate comments as I remember, but some highlights for transportation are Reg Local for driving cars (former police driving instructor; he has a book, but the videos themselves are so helpful) and Missionary Bushpilot for flying small aircraft in Papua New Guinea (gorgeous shots, very careful pilot).

1Parker Conley1y

Thanks, added! I look forward to seeing what else you have.

[-]Vitor1y20

Domain: Farming Construction and Craftsmanship

Link: Simple off grid Cabin that anyone can build & afford: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOOXmfkXpkM (and many other builds on his channel)

Person: Dave Whipple

Background: Construction contractor, DIY living off-grid in Alaska and Michigan.

Why: He and his wife bootstrapped themselves building their own cabin, then house, sell at a profit, rinse and repeat a few times. There are many, many videos of people building their own cabins, etc. Dave's are simple, clear, lucid, from a guy who's done it many times and has skin in the game.

1Parker Conley1y

Thanks! Added.

[-]zookini1y20

Tacit knowledge videos for CAD modelling:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzMIhOgu1Y5fwotlIEKNnuIXcEbVIZ7Qm

1Parker Conley1y

Thanks! Added.

[-]Jonathan Sheehy1y20

Domain: Linguistics

Link: [The Art of Language Invention, Episode 25: Ghost Segments]

Person: David J. Peterson

Background: Writer of many 'conlangs' (artificial languages) such as Dothraki from Game of Thrones

Why: 30+ part video-series about conlangs. In theory, it's meant as a resource to guide your own creation of a language. But it's also just a really good resource for absorbing how a linguist thinks about language. He talks about sounds/words/grammar, how they change over time, and what mechanisms are involved in that. IIRC he doesn't use very many tech... (read more)

1Parker Conley1y

I did not know 'conlangers' were a thing. Thanks for sharing and added.

[-]arrrtem1y20

Domain: Technology

Link: [https://youtube.com/@primitivetechnology9550](Primitive technology)

Person: Anon

Background: He became pretty famous, and published a book of the same name

Why: from youtube description "Primitive technology is a hobby where you make things in the wild completely from scratch using no modern tools or materials. This is the strict rule. If you want a fire- use fire sticks, an axe- pick up a stone and shape it, a hut- build one from trees, mud, rocks etc. The challenge is seeing how far you can go without modern technology."

1Parker Conley1y

Thanks for sharing! Added.

[-]talelore1y20

Domain: Math and Game Dev

Link: Shaders for Game Devs

Person: Freya Holmer

Why: She shares a lot of practical knowledge about math and shaders in her streams. She explains not just what, but why, answering people's questions as she goes using her in-depth industry knowledge.

1Parker Conley1y

Thanks! Added.

[-]talelore1y20

Domain: VFX

Link: Vfx artists react to bad & great cgi

Person: Corridor Crew

Why: They're skilled VFX artists reacting to good and bad VFX in movies. In doing so, they share tacit knowledge on compositing, lighting, 3D modelling, etc. They have lots of high profile guests from Seth Rogen to Adam Savage.

1Parker Conley1y

Thanks! Added.

[-]raydora1y20

Domain: Combat Sports

Link: Muay Thai Library

Person: Sylvie Von Duuglas-Ittu

Background: Muay Thai fighter with over 200 fights.

Why: Sylvie shows herself learning with her 'Muay Thai Library' videos. She narrates how she explores learning someone's technique or strategy.

More than any particular technique, these videos show someone's learning process. This is applicable to all combat sports.

2Parker Conley1y

Thanks! Added.

[-]Freyja1y20

Her entire YouTube channel demonstrates a tonne of her tacit knowledge with respect to sculpting and SFX in general, but this is one good example of her showing her work on a small sculpture:

https://youtu.be/1NwYbC5t-9w?si=r0zGFKQXIiQkoLac

1Parker Conley1y

Thanks! Added.

[-]jsd1y20

Domain: Mathematics

Link: vEnhance

Person: Evan Chen

Background: math PhD student, math olympiad coach

Why: Livestreams himself thinking about olympiad problems

5Neel Nanda1y

Oh nice, I didn't know Evan had a YouTube channel. He's one of the most renowned olympiad coaches and seems highly competent

1Parker Conley1y

Added, thanks! (x2)

[-]jsd1y20

Domain: Mathematics

Link: Thinking about math problems in real time

Person: Tim Gowers

Background: Fields medallist

Why: Livestreams himself thinking about math problems

1Parker Conley1y

Added, thanks!

[-]Metacelsus1y20

For biology, JoVE ("Journal of Visual Experiments") is a very good source of videos like this. https://www.jove.com/ Unfortunately it's paywalled.

[-]lesswronguser1232mo10

Not a video yet fairly useful primer

https://commoncog.com/the-tacit-knowledge-series/

[-]umerha2mo10

Domain: Interior Design

Link: Step-by-step redesign of spaces

Person: Caroline Winkler

Background: Interior Design YouTuber with 960k subs as of July 2025.

Why: Winkler shows how she redesigns spaces, narrating and explaining each step. I found it super valuable, maybe others will too.

[-]hooboo3mo10

Domain: Web Development

Link: From Start to Finish

Person: Russell Samora

Background: Writer at Pudding.

Why: You can see how a world-class visual essay, Life After Death on Wikipedia, is made.

[-]AmigoNico3mo11

3Blue1Brown's (Grant Sanderson's) YouTube series on linear algebra does a phenomenal job of developing the intuition needed to understand the topic.

[-][anonymous]4mo10

Domain: Programming, Browser Development

Link: Programming livestream VODs

Person: Andreas Kling

Background: Very experienced broswer/kernel developer

Why: Andreas livestreams himself working on the ambitious written-from-scratch Ladybird browser all while maintaining a friendly and welcoming attitude, not something that can be said for every programming streamer!

[-]Benjamin Schneider8mo10

Domain: Research, Studying

Link: Behind The Scenes of My Interview Research Process

Person: Joseph Noel Walker (interviewed by Andy Matuschak)

Why: Joe Walker puts extensive effort into researching and studying before his podcast interviews in order to come up with good and not just surface level questions for his expert guests. He also focuses on retaining the information and gaining a deep understanding which helps with subsequent conversations around similar topics. Andy Matuschak, who interviews him about his process in this video, is an independent resea... (read more)

[-]Benjamin Schneider8mo10

Domain: Web/UI Design

Link: Refactoring UI

Person: Steve Schoger

Background: UI designer who wrote the book "Refactoring UI", which breaks down some simple UI design principles

Why: Live breakdowns of how real existing designs/pages/interfaces fail and working through improvements to make them clearer and more usable (and better looking) live and step by step.

[-]Benjamin Schneider8mo10

Domain: Graphic Design

Link: Typography & Design (The Futur)

Person: Chris Do

Background: Longtime graphic designer and founder of design education platform "The Future"

Why: Experienced designer breaks down and critiques designs from his employees and course students, showing how certain changes affect the overall layout and how it could be improved, often mentioning the principles he applies throughout. Was really helpful in learning some things about visual balance, contrast, and so on.

[-]Benjamin Schneider8mo10

Domain: Programming, Productivity

Link: Coding with AI

Person: Salvatore Sanfilippo (antirez)

Background: Developer of Redis

Why: Experienced programmer screen records brief videos of himself working on real problems with the help of LLMs

[-]Isabelle Thibault8mo10

Domain: Writing

Person: Brandon Sanderson

Background: one of the biggest fantasy writer today, wrote more than 70 books and has been traching creative writing for more than 20 years

Why: The videos shows him writing a chapter in one of his most well known book in a few hours and shows his pre-writing notes. There is also another session with a live audience where he comments his writing a bit more

Links:

Writing the Stormligh Archive volume 2 Rysn Interlude (13 videos).

The first one is : Pre-writing

Part 1: https://youtu.be/NHlPczUmjrQ?s... (read more)

[-]Vlad Md Golam8mo10

Domain: Chess

Link: Hikaru YouTube Channel

Person: Hikaru Nakamura

Background: Hikaru Nakamura is a five-time United States Chess Champion, a Grandmaster, and one of the most prominent figures in the chess world. Known for his rapid and blitz chess skills, he has also gained massive popularity as a content creator and streamer.

Why: Hikaru streams and comments games, and of course plays himself. For example, in a video “How to Crush a 500, Every Step Explained” he plays different people from 500 to ~2700 Elo for an hour, explaining each move, which is fascinat... (read more)

[-]Vlad Md Golam8mo10

Domain: Programming, Web Development

Link: Dan Abramov's JS Coding Playlist

Person: Dan Abramov

Background: Dan is a creator of Redux and a key contributor to React, a software engineer specializing in JavaScript (and Typescript) and modern front-end development practices

Why: Dan dives deep into React's core logic, which is already very interesting, at the same time the videos are pretty simple to watch and following Dan's thoughts can be really exciting. Besides React, he has videos where he recreates Wordle, Snake, Minesweeper games, solves Advent of Code p... (read more)

[-]Julian Hunt8mo10

Domain: Chess

Link: Youtube Playlist

Person: Daniel Naroditsky

Background: Chess Grandmaster and top bullet player

Why: Daniel streams himself playing chess while talking through every decision to a very deep level. He discusses why he makes certain moves and why certain moves feel better than others.

[-]Liface1y10

Domain: Language Learning

Link: YouTube Channel

Person: Alexander Arguelles

Background: Polyglot and director of foreign language education at various institutions, known in the community for his rigorous and inventive study methods

Why: He has various videos of him live-studying different languages which give learners direct insight into his methods.

[-]Mike Sage1y10

Beginner-friendly pottery tutorials and start-to-finish production explainers: Florian Gadsby on youtube. Notable in part for the high production values and clear explanations. The tutorials were particularly helpful for me earlier this year as I was just getting into pottery.

[-]Curt Tigges1y10

Domain: Software engineering, mech interp

Bryce Meyer (primary maintainer of TransformerLens, and software engineer with many years of experience) has a weekly coding stream event where he does live coding on TransformerLens--resolving bugs, adding features and tests, etc. I've found it to be useful!

You can find it in the Open Source Mechanistic Interpretability Slack, under the "code-sessions" channel (feel free to DM for an invite).

1Parker Conley3mo

Thanks for the submission. Ideally, there would be a link of some kind for single-click access. I imagine that doesn't exist, but just double checking!

[-]Marius Adrian Nicoară1y10

For the category Research/Studying, I recommend the series "Understanding Medical Research: Your Facebook Friend is Wrong" by F. Perry Wilson. Bite-sized videos explaining how to approach medical research people.

Last updated July 30 2020, so hopefully it reached many people during those confusing times and helped them strenghten their intellectual self defense. I wish I found out about it sooner, so that I could have recommended it earlier.

2Parker Conley3mo

Thanks, added!

[-]Parker Conley1y*10

(sample comment, to set a standard for quality)

Domain: Video Editing

Link: World's Most Advanced Video Editing Tutorial (Premiere Pro)

Person: Taran Van Hemert

Background: "Editor, Camera Operator, Writer, Host at Linus Tech Tips" for ~10 years (Website).

Why: Incredibly in-depth look into Taran's video editing workflow for a YouTube channel with 15M subscribers.

2Parker Conley1y

(another one) Domain: Business, Business Communication Link: GiveWell's Public Board Meetings (2007–2020 have audio). People: Elie Hassenfeld, Holden Karnofsky, Timothy Ogden, Rob Reich, Tom Rutledge, Brigid Slipka, Cari Tuna, Julia Wise, and others. Backgrounds: * Holden Karnofsky. “Director of AI Strategy (formerly CEO) of Open Philanthropy and co-founder of GiveWell” (Website). * Elie Hassenfeld. co-founder and CEO of GiveWell (LinkedIn). * Timothy Ogden. Chief Knowledge Officer at Geneva Global, Inc.; founding editor of Gartner Press; founder of Sona Partners; chairman of GiveWell (Aspen Institute). * Rob Reich. Political Science professor at Stanford for 26 years (Stanford). * Tom Rutledge. Has worked in finance since 1989 (LinkedIn). * Brigid Sliplka. Director of Philanthropy at ACLU (LinkedIn). * Cari Tuna. President at Open Philanthropy and Good Ventures (Wikipedia). * Julia Wise. Community Liaison at Centre for Effective Altruism (LinkedIn). Why: I've personally found it interesting to listen to these meetings for generally instantiating "what actually is a board meeting?". They can be listened to just like you would listen to a podcast, in a multi-tasking sort of way.

[-]Viktor Dörfler8mo-10

Domain: Grandmaster-apprentice relationship

Link: Grandmasters and Apprentices in the Age of AI

Person: Viktor Dörfler

Background: Professor of AI Strategy. Wrote a number of papers on tacit knowledge and related topics.

Why: Studies creativity, intuition, talent, grandmaster-apprentice relationships, and AI.

^{^}

What valuable project did they ship? How many years have they worked for their prestigious company or university? How many papers have they published? What awards have they won? What other domain-relevant metric did this person perform well on? You could also give your feedback based on your expertise. Ideally, these are proxies for the knowledge and expertise of these practitioners being good.

^{^}

Feel free to leave out the 'Background' and 'Why' sections.

LESSWRONG
LW

LESSWRONG
LW

442

The Best Tacit Knowledge Videos on Every Subject

442

442

TL;DR

What are Tacit Knowledge Videos?

How to Submit

List of Tacit Knowledge Videos

Software Engineering

Machine Learning

Competitive Programming

Game Development

Web Development

Other

Research, Studying, & Problem Solving

Research

Studying

Problem Solving

Business & Business Communication

Construction & Craftsmanship

Cooking

Engineering & Machining

Farming

Finance

Housekeeping & Parenting

Media & Arts

Design

Filmmaking

Music

Productivity

Sports & Games

Therapy

Transportation

Writing

Miscellaneous