I think we should suspect that they've done some basic background research (this individual, not in general), and take the rest of the information about people failing to see improvements as data that also points this direction.

They (and initially I) read it as a question: "True or false: this market will resolve No at the end of 2025?"

Pie day!

I did that. I didn't want to fill in the worksheet, but I read through it. Now I'm reading through this post and noting anything that I understood differently when I read the worksheet or that is worth mentioning:

• The post has links and a story at the start that could draw some people away, but I didn't have an issue (except for noticing that other people could, yuck)
• The link might cause people to be drawn away. I almost added it to my tabs and then decided to ignore it
• The story about Yudkowsky might cause people to get distracted.
• There's a lot in this one that details how you got here, which isn't really about why someone should read on. The worksheet didn't noticeably have this, which meant I got into your ideas faster.
• The example about UI I like. It is helpful to see an example early on instead of a framework that I have to imagine an example for.
• It is quite detailed though.

Overall, I think both had their ups and downs. The 30-seconds-of-thought synthesis, I think, is to try to make a worksheet, slap a small example problem and solution above it, then work through the example below. Your other sections can fall yet lower. This would give you a strong "So What?" hook like your example gave, while getting readers into the meat of your technique quickly. Working the example below makes the technique less impersonal, and would make the total feeling of reading your post be

• So what? Oh, that would be nice to be able to do
• Hrm. I need a bit more explanation
• Oh, I see! That's not so bad
• [reading your further sections]

I'm curious which one people find easier as an initial read.

I used the random.org list randomizer to shuffle my reading order. It said worksheet then post.

Jesus, thanks for you story and for the link to The Gentle Seduction. Both had me tearing up. I did not read The Gentle Seduction until after your piece, so I did not know how badly we needed something like it for AI, but now that I've read both I really appreciate it. Thank you.

Seems sort of like Alice is attempting to Euler bully Bob

Alice: I think the negative impact of my rudeness is probably smaller than the potential positive impact of getting you to act in line with the values you claim to have. 

Bob: That doesn’t even seem true. If everyone is rude like you, then the Effective Altruism movement will get a bad reputation, and fewer people will be willing to join. What if I get so upset by your rudeness that I decide not to donate at all?

Alice: That kind of seems like a you problem, not a me problem.

Alice is being extremely rude! She is implementing a strategy that reduces both Alice's and Bob's value in the world in order to get Bob to change his position. This fulfills the rudimentary criteria for a Decision-Theoretic Threat, which you should not give in to, indicating that Bob should tell Alice to kick rocks, because it is only because Bob is malleable that she is inflicting rudeness on him.

If the strategy is vibes-invariant, it's also ignoring useful information.

I am not one to suggest ignoring useful information if you're able to process it in order to get a better answer. However, I think all the examples above were examples where people do not expect to be acting more effectively after processing the information.

That is, I agree with you for a perfect Bayesian that you shouldn't ignore anything ever, but I read Said Achmiz as saying "If you get bad vibes from someone, be safer around them through planning", which is not actually a qualitative difference from what Kaj Sotala suggested.

Hmm, this comment reads as if you are unaware of ways that information could be passed down over time other than the written word, even though you sort of hint towards some in your comment.

It seems like epics often survived for very long times without being destroyed entirely, and it seems like the same techniques could be used here. Do you have reason to believe otherwise?