A Postmortem or Retrospective is a reflection on past actions with an eye to what went well, what didn't, and the cause of any failures. Retrospectives are crucial for improving one's rationality: they are the opportunity to the grade both one's direct decisions as well as the decision-procedure and epistemic algorithms that one was employing. Sharing such accounts publicly is prosocial and allows others to learn from one's experience too.
One can ask "could I have done better had I reasoned better with the information available?" Often the answer is "yes", and one can apply lessons learnt going forward. It can feel painful to reflect on one's mistakes, but doing so is how one grows.
| Updated Beliefs tag | Postmortems & Retrospectives (this tag) |
|---|---|
| Changes in general beliefs about the world – what you believed before, what you believe now, and causes of the change. | Focus on reporting actions and outcomes together with an evaluation of the choices/thinking patterns used. |
| e.g. 'Other people are wrong' vs 'I am right' | e.g. Arbital Postmortem |
| e.g. Six Economics Misconceptions | e.g. Eliezer's retrospective on The Sequences |
Related pages: Updated Beliefs (examples of), Growth Stories, Progress Studies
See also: Premortem