LESSWRONG
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Staying Sane While Taking Ideas Seriously

Jun 27, 2020 by orthonormal

We have a meme in this community that it's essential to take ideas seriously, that you'll never make epistemic, or moral, or practical progress unless you consciously try to resolve the contradictions in your beliefs, the ones that other people just shrug off.

I'm not disagreeing with that meme, but I note that we have a significant number of people who get burnt out, or worse, go off into various bizarre locked-off belief systems.

So how do we take ideas seriously while still keeping a saving throw for your motivation and sanity? Here's my thinking over the last few years, from epistemics to psychology to effective altruism, on how to keep a margin of safety while still aiming for the frontier of knowledge and of effectiveness.

86Adding Up To Normality
orthonormal
5y
22
28Negotiating With Yourself
orthonormal
5y
0
30Map Errors: The Good, The Bad, and The Territory
orthonormal
5y
4
188The Loudest Alarm Is Probably False
orthonormal
7y
28
62Don't Make Your Problems Hide
orthonormal
5y
5
72Roleplaying As Yourself
orthonormal
8y
4
20The Real Standard
orthonormal
5y
1
170Choosing the Zero Point
orthonormal
5y
25