does penny have any explicitly stated physical features?

great post! i'm surprised the models were willing to play.

in these cases, the steganography was human readable. i expect (but of course, cannot prove) the models to be much more proficient at steganography that hides from humans, as they have faced selection pressure in this direction. i do not expect that they are able to communicate precise words/phrases through such channels; there may be secret spiral personas lurking in almost every response.

perhaps perfectionists find an outlet in violin, and classical music, rather than (as suggested) the other way around.

nonetheless, incredibly important advice!

all this sounds right to me.

the most benefit i've found personally has been from memetic rationality. for example:

• "i notice that i am confused"
• "0. something i haven't listed yet"
• steelman / ITT
• "what do i have? what do i want? how can i use the former to get the latter?"

the list is rather thin. i'd like to see many more of these! each one is a concrete, concise thought with a clear external/observed trigger that serves as a starting point for further inquiry. more mystically, we could call them incantations to bring about a rational state of mind.

some nearby memes that fall short:

• list of fallacies (does not encourage further inquiry)
• bayes' rule (hard to remember to check priors in advance. if anyone has operationalized this, please let me know!)
• various social observations (e.g. "status games" theory is true, (and a useful frame for understanding specific interactions/reactions!) but not concrete enough to inspire rationality. it goes signal-signal-counter-signal... who can track it?!)

attending a workshop, practicing a bunch of rationality exercises from a handbook, discussing in a group setting, etc. would not have been particularly effective on its own, and potentially even detracting or at least distracting.

this matches my experience. [in person] social forces are extremely strong, and rationality is fragile. it is a single-player game until either (a) all players have a strong baseline, or (b) all players are deeply comfortable with one another. [well, perhaps those requirements apply to the single-player version as well. :) ]

real rationality is something that only i can keep myself honest to. only i know if i'm really doing it: you must be able to testify from inner spirit.

this is not to say that writing down the outcomes, publishing them, or checking with others is not a useful act. but if these mushroom fruits are the purpose, and not a side-consequence of the healthy mycelium, [as i suspect they must be in workshop settings,] then "rationality" is "out the window".

faith vs acts. Raemon seeks salvation through their actions. what use is faith if it does not lead to proper behavior? Gordon finds salvation through faith alone. good acts cannot be trusted if they are not rooted in proper belief.

it definitely sounds like if everyone followed the reasonable norms you suggest it would have saved you awkwardness around your ex!

Humans are hilariously bad at wilderness survival in the absence of societal knowledge and support.

what does this mean? it doesn't seem true to me.

it helps with some tasks, not with others. it's more fun, especially for moving-files-around sort of things. i am not seeing an overall improvement -- the bottleneck was always code review, and context switching, and it's not at all close to helping with those activities.

it uses much less mental effort. this is enticing, but the tradeoff is a lack of flow state. on the other hand, it's way easier to get started.

i have spent hours prompting and re-prompting, making progress, feeling like i was flying, only to be interrupted by api limits, and then solve the problem in a normal unadorned text editor in minutes. well, claude laid the groundwork. you can't argue with that.

i thought it was great for writing tests. then i tried it myself. i prefer my tests -- they are more self-documenting, and i know they cover important cases.

it is noticeably improving.

anecdotes: certain dogs learn to be uncomprehending, as it gives them license to stubbornly pursue goals they have been told off of. you can catch them in it, but you have to be wise.