very interesting to read! i'm blogging in Hebrew, and i chose different strategy -  i write what i want, and i link t to English sources a lot. i don't get huge audience like you, though, and don't even try - i still surprised i got hundreds of readers!

Interesting read, and very weird. my first associations when reading was to Lawfulness - in the GlowFic-Golarion meaning. and for me, this is the essence of responsibility, exactly the opposite of the claim of the post. 

the people who responsible to the outcomes look on all possible situations, and choose their own trade-offs. they look on the cost of the trade off, and say they are willing to pay that cost, because the alternative is worst. 

what is the opposite of that? culture in which acknowledging cost of policy is political suicide, when all political debates must appear one-sided, when person that say that they willing to pay price x to achieve outcome y is heartless and cruel.

blameless postmortems (or retrospectives, like we do at work after every sprint in agile programming) are part of the process, are the place where we should look on the trade offs and chose them. it doesn't always happen, but mostly, from my point of view, it's lack if processes, not excessive amount of processes, that is the problem. 

I think the main part here is, i see process as ultimate form of responsibility. the people who choose it bear it. and you... don't? for some reason?

practically, power buy distance from crime, and people who want to avoid accountability can use the distance for that aim. but i find the whole idea that process absolve from responsibility, instead of transfer and concentrate it in the hands of people who design the process, very weird. 

Voluntarily deciding "I don't want social skills" is a surrender that seriously harms you.

citation needed. my own experience is the opposite of that. refusing to play the game let you take the role of the local nerd, and it's not a bad role. and it's much much better then trying to play the game and failing. 

I wrote (in Hebrew, alas) two years ago, about locally-useful methods that doesn't have stopping condition. I'm sure there are people out there that will benefit from exposure. the attitude you described come from them, and from people whose bubble includes mostly them.

the problem is the luck of stopping condition. who many tries before you decide this method doesn't work? before stopping and re-evaluating? before trying something else instead?

also, what Scott Alexander wrote about exposure, and Trapped Priors. 

I think you make the same mistake the exposure people do? you. are in a bubble when insight is what needed, so you advocate insight without stopping condition.

the interesting question, to me, is when, in for who long, try either. 

It should be possible BOTH avoid denying reality AND not accepting magical explanation. it's even not that hard! but people fail at that  ALL THE TIME! the "this thing happen as you described, but i don't accept your interpretation of what happened" is very underutilized option. probably a bucket error. 

When was the last time you (intentionally) used your caps lock key?"
today. and yesterday. and the day before that. I... can't say that about escape. i used that when i tried to close window in computer game that stuck? i can't think about other examples easily.


 

this is not my experience. it's sort of the opposite of my experience. if i went and play video game or read book all evening, i replenish my desire and ability to do useful work. if i have a vacation for week and just stay home and do what i want (aka "lazy", by this post frame that i don't accept. lazy is not natural category), then after some days i will be filled with enthusiasm and desire to do things (and then do and do them). on the other hand, i tried the "just use willpower" and find in counter-productive almost always. 

disclaimer: i didn't read all the post. i start to read, decide it will be actively harmful, and stopped. then skimmed it. 

maybe there are people who need to use willpower, but in my experience it's Fabricated Option. 

what about, instead of forcing yourself do something you don't want, try to work with all your different parts, instead of crashing some of them?

I donated 100$. It's not a lot, but I don't live in USA and don't expect to get any benefit from the physical infrastructure, and not convinced on this being effective from EA point of view. so this is only for the benefit of sporadically reading the site.  

in my own frame, Yudkowsky's post is central example of Denying Reality. Duncan's Fabricated Options are another example of Denying Reality. when reality is to hard to deal with, people are... denying reality. refuse to accept it. 

the only protection i know is to leave line of retreat - and it's easier if you do it as algorithm, even when you honestly believe it's not needed. 

not all your examples are Denying Reality be my categorization. other have different kind if Unthinkable things. and sometimes they mess together - the Confused Young Idealist may be actually confused - there are two kinds if Unthinkables. the one when if someone point it up to you you say - wow, i would have never thought that myself! and then understand, and the one when the reaction is angry denial (and of course it's not actually two, and there are a lot of space on the spectrum between the two).


not very helpful, but... i'm struggling with how to talk to people who do that. I tried various strategies, and came back to tell it as it is. it's actually get me better results then trying to sneak around this. not that i got good results, but... i think it reveal useless conversations faster, AND let good potential conversations to actually occur.  

Are you sure the math hold up? there are a bunch of posts about how spend money to buy time, and if I need to chose between waste 50 HOURS on investigation and just buy the more expensive product, it's pretty obvious to me that the second option is best. maybe not in this example, though I see it as false dichotomy - I tend to go with "ask in the specialized good-looking facebook group" as way to chose when stakes are high.

In the last years I internalize more and more that I was raised by poorer people then I am now, that my heuristics just doesn't count all the time that I waste comparing products or seeking trusted professionals, and it would have been best for me to just buy the expensive phone, instead of asking people for recommendations and specs. 

also, and this is important - the interpersonal dynamics of trust networks can be so much more expansive then mere money. I preferred to work and pay for my degree myself then ask my parents for help. I see in real time as one my friend that depend on reputation for her work constantly censure herself and fret if she should censor herself. 

basically, I would have give my past self the opposite advise, and what i want is an algorithm - how to know if you want more trust networks or more markets?

or, actually, i want BETTER MAP. facebook recommendations are not exactly trust network, but not markets, either. I don't think this distinction cut reality at the joints. there is a lot to explore here - although I'm not the one who should do the exploring. IT will not be useful for me, as I try to move to the direction of wasting less time and more money on things.