Search Ideas

Did you mean "Any given set of knowledge cannot grow itself inferentially"?

I think it is a mistake to say or imply that variation and selection IS conjecture and criticism. At best C&C is the subset of V&S that occurs in minds. The biosphere doesn’t actually conjecture anything.

You could make an option "allow revisions by other users" in the new idea form that is off by default.

I would prefer to find out I was reading an outdated version of something before I started reading it, not at the end, and not in the comments.

Suggestion: Make italicised text the same colour as regular text.

Bold text is good in red. Italicised text is less legible, and the red compounds that.

This would also create more of a differentiation of emphasis between bold and italicised text.

I'm struggling to understand how this ties in with your original post about common preferences.

5 Minute Creativity

TL;DR: When making a decision or working to solve a problem, spend 5 minutes (using a timer) just coming up with ideas. Managing your attention like this can supercharge your creativity.

A few days ago I was helping a friend flesh out an idea for an app that he is developing in his spare time. We came up with a new feature that we were both excited about, and we spent a few minutes going over how much more useful and fun the app was going to be with this new feature.

But in the spirit of philosopher Karl Popper, I asked my friend: "Is there anything wrong with this new feature idea?"

He spent about two seconds considering the question, before confidently answering "No!"

This took me by surprise. Somehow he had come to think that if a problem didn't jump out at him within the first two seconds of looking for problems, then for him the idea mustn't have any problems.*

I took some time later in the day to reflect on that moment. My first thought was about how irrational he was to have spent so little effort trying to poke holes in this new feature idea. After all, he was getting ready to spend hours of his valuable time bringing this new feature into reality. If he had just spent one minute thinking about what could be wrong with the new idea, and in that minute he discovered a fatal flaw in it, it might've saved him hundreds of minutes of wasted work over the next few weeks! Silly guy! Lucky he had me there to save him!

But then I thought about it some more, and realised that maybe I'm not actually that different to him. In many aspects of my daily life, I don't consciously give myself a meaningful amount of time to come up with new ideas or criticisms for the things I want to do. Many of my choices are kind of uncreative—I simply do the first thing that pops into my mind, in much the same way my friend decided there was nothing wrong with the new feature idea; because that was the first thing that popped into his mind.

I did some e-sleuthing around this thought and found On Creativity - The joys of 5 minute timers by Neel Nanda. It suggests literally using timers to make sure we spend meaningful time thinking about the things that matter. It might be worth reading if you identify at all with anything I have just said.

My favourite part of the article is this:

Set a 5 minute timer, and make a list of problems in your life - things that annoy you, things you want to work on, things that could be better. And then, go through that list, and cross off any you’re confident you’ve spent at least 5 minutes of focused time trying to solve. If you’re anything like me, you’ll have an embarrassingly long list left over. I’d be pretty curious about what happens if you try doing a 5 minute brainstorm for anything left.

I also found Nate Soares blogposts talking about using this approach (I’m guessing the Neel Nanda article was at least partly inspired by Nate Soares).

In 'Obvious advice', Nate Soares writes:

When you're about to make a big decision, pause, and ask yourself what obvious things a reasonable person would do before making this sort of decision. Would they spend a full five minutes (by the clock) brainstorming alternative options before settling on a decision? Would they consult with friends and advisors? Would they do some particular type of research?

Then, actually do the obvious things.

In 'Be a new homunculus', Nate Soares writes:

Notice the guilt, listen to the message it bears, and actually write down the behavioral pattern that you wish to change. Then spend five minutes (a full five minutes, by the clock) brainstorming ways that you might change the pattern and start retraining your mind.

I think if I dedicated 5 minutes each week to thinking about all the things I could do that week, I would come up with a lot of stuff. Some of those ideas would suck, but some of them would probably be a lot more useful and interesting than whatever I would’ve done otherwise that week if I hadn't spent 5 minutes exclusively thinking about it. I might even start using 5 minute timers each morning to decide what I want to do that day. Time to explore.

It's worth mentioning that 5 minutes is just a nice round number to get started with. Some problems merit more dedicated time, and others less. If you are considering using a smaller number of minutes, I urge you to keep in mind why it is you're doing this in the first place—you're intentionally giving yourself more time to think than you would give yourself naturally. This is about experimenting with a new thinking pattern, so consider allowing yourself to feel some amount of boredom or friction when you are first trying it, rather than cutting the 5 minutes shorter. (The boredom may also be a sign that the problem isn't worth 5 minutes of your time, in which case... find a different problem!)

Let me know what you think about all this. Going forward, I expect to be using timers for a lot more than just cooking!

*Needless to say, I suggested he spend a little longer thinking about it before he added the feature to his plans. In less than a couple minutes, he found three or four legit problems that would need to be addressed before the feature would merit inclusion in the project. Yay Popper!

Suggestion: Make italicised text the same colour as regular text.

Bold text is good in red. Italicised text is less legible, and the red compounds that.

It also creates more of a differentiation of emphasis between bold and italicised text.

I like the thrust of the idea.

Like, when parents worry that their kids are having too much fun, and when socialists are suspicious of companies turning a profit… is that an expression of the same fear?

I believe these both stem from the same zero-sum worldview: that any gain anywhere must come at an equivalent cost somewhere else. Businesses making profit must be exploiting something or someone to do so. Children doing what is fun comes at the cost of their Proper Education or their dopamine receptors.

To this sort of person, no good thing can ever be an unmitigated good thing.

5 Minute Creativity

TL;DR: When making a decision or working to solve a problem, spend 5 minutes (using a timer) just coming up with ideas. Managing your attention like this can supercharge your creativity.

A few days ago I was helping a friend flesh out an idea for an app that he is developing in his spare time. We came up with a new feature that we were both excited about, and we spent a few minutes going over how much more useful and fun the app was going to be with this new feature.

But in the spirit of philosopher Karl Popper, I asked my friend: "Is there anything wrong with this new feature idea?"

He spent about two seconds considering the question, before confidently answering "No!"

This took me by surprise. Somehow he had come to think that if a problem didn't jump out at him within the first two seconds of looking for problems, then for him the idea mustn't have any problems.*

I took some time later in the day to reflect on that moment. My first thought was about how irrational he was to have spent so little effort trying to poke holes in this new feature idea. After all, he was getting ready to spend hours of his valuable time bringing this new feature into reality. If he had just spent one minute thinking about what could be wrong with the new idea, and in that minute he discovered a fatal flaw in it, it might've saved him hundreds of minutes of wasted work over the next few weeks! Silly guy! Lucky he had me there to save him!

But then I thought about it some more, and realised that maybe I'm not actually that different to him. In many aspects of my daily life, I don't consciously give myself a meaningful amount of time to come up with new ideas or criticisms for the things I want to do. Many of my choices are kind of uncreative—I simply do the first thing that pops into my mind, in much the same way my friend decided there was nothing wrong with the new feature idea; because that was the first thing that popped into his mind.

I did some e-sleuthing around this thought and found On Creativity - The joys of 5 minute timers by Neel Nanda. It suggests literally using timers to make sure we spend meaningful time thinking about the things that matter. It might be worth reading if you identify at all with anything I have just said.

My favourite part of the article is this:

Set a 5 minute timer, and make a list of problems in your life - things that annoy you, things you want to work on, things that could be better. And then, go through that list, and cross off any you’re confident you’ve spent at least 5 minutes of focused time trying to solve. If you’re anything like me, you’ll have an embarrassingly long list left over. I’d be pretty curious about what happens if you try doing a 5 minute brainstorm for anything left.

I also found Nate Soares blogposts talking about using this approach (I’m guessing the Neel Nanda article was at least partly inspired by Nate Soares):

In 'Obvious advice', Nate Soares writes:

When you're about to make a big decision, pause, and ask yourself what obvious things a reasonable person would do before making this sort of decision. Would they spend a full five minutes (by the clock) brainstorming alternative options before settling on a decision? Would they consult with friends and advisors? Would they do some particular type of research?

Then, actually do the obvious things.

In 'Be a new homunculus', Nate Soares writes:

Notice the guilt, listen to the message it bears, and actually write down the behavioral pattern that you wish to change. Then spend five minutes (a full five minutes, by the clock) brainstorming ways that you might change the pattern and start retraining your mind.

I think if I dedicated 5 minutes each week to thinking about all the things I could do that week, I would come up with a lot of stuff. Some of those ideas would suck, but some of them would probably be a lot more useful and interesting than whatever I would’ve done otherwise that week if I didn’t spend 5 minutes exclusively thinking about it. I might even start using 5 minute timers each morning to decide what I want to do that day. Time to explore.

(It's worth mentioning that 5 minutes is just a nice round number to get started using this idea with. Some problems merit more dedicated time, and others less. But don't let impatience cause you to reduce the number of minutes you go with—the best ideas often come when we are getting bored or feeling a little friction. The point of this practice is to spend more time thinking about something than you would naturally.)

Let me know what you think about all this. Going forward, I expect to be using timers for a lot more than just cooking!

*Needless to say, I suggested he spend a little longer thinking about it before he added the feature to his plans. In less than a couple minutes, he found three or four legit problems that would need to be addressed before the feature would merit inclusion in the project. Yay Popper!

5 Minute Creativity

TL;DR: When making a decision or working to solve a problem, spend 5 minutes (using a timer) just coming up with ideas. Managing your attention like this can supercharge your creativity.

A few days ago I was helping a friend flesh out an idea for an app that he is developing in his spare time. We came up with a new feature that we were both excited about, and we spent a few minutes going over how much more useful and fun the app was going to be with this new feature.

But in the spirit of philosopher Karl Popper, I asked my friend: "Is there anything wrong with this new feature idea?"

He spent about two seconds considering the question, before confidently answering "No!"

This took me by surprise. Somehow he had come to think that if a problem didn't jump out at him within the first two seconds of looking for problems, then for him the idea mustn't have any problems.*

I took some time later in the day to reflect on that moment. My first thought was about how irrational he was to have spent so little effort trying to poke holes in this new feature idea. After all, he was getting ready to spend hours of his valuable time bringing this new feature into reality. If he had just spent one minute thinking about what could be wrong with the new idea, and in that minute he discovered a fatal flaw in it, it might've saved him hundreds of minutes of wasted work over the next few weeks! Silly guy! Lucky he had me there to save him!

But then I thought about it some more, and realised that maybe I'm not actually that different to him. In many aspects of my daily life, I don't consciously give myself a meaningful amount of time to come up with new ideas or criticisms for the things I want to do. Many of my choices are kind of uncreative—I simply do the first thing that pops into my mind, in much the same way my friend decided there was nothing wrong with the new feature idea; because that was the first thing that popped into his mind.

I did some e-sleuthing around this thought and found On Creativity - The joys of 5 minute timers by Neel Nanda. It suggests literally using timers to make sure we spend meaningful time thinking about the things that matter. It might be worth reading if you identify at all with anything I have just said.

My favourite part of the article is this:

Set a 5 minute timer, and make a list of problems in your life - things that annoy you, things you want to work on, things that could be better. And then, go through that list, and cross off any you’re confident you’ve spent at least 5 minutes of focused time trying to solve. If you’re anything like me, you’ll have an embarrassingly long list left over. I’d be pretty curious about what happens if you try doing a 5 minute brainstorm for anything left.

I also found Nate Soares blogposts talking about using this approach (I’m guessing the Neel Nanda article was at least partly inspired by Nate Soares):

In 'Obvious advice', Nate Soares writes:

When you're about to make a big decision, pause, and ask yourself what obvious things a reasonable person would do before making this sort of decision. Would they spend a full five minutes (by the clock) brainstorming alternative options before settling on a decision? Would they consult with friends and advisors? Would they do some particular type of research?

Then, actually do the obvious things.

In 'Be a new homunculus', Nate Soares writes:

Notice the guilt, listen to the message it bears, and actually write down the behavioral pattern that you wish to change. Then spend five minutes (a full five minutes, by the clock) brainstorming ways that you might change the pattern and start retraining your mind.

I think if I dedicated 5 minutes each week to thinking about all the things I could do that week, I would come up with a lot of stuff. Some of those ideas would suck, but some of them would probably be a lot more useful and interesting than whatever I would’ve done otherwise that week if I didn’t spend 5 minutes exclusively thinking about it. I might even start using 5 minute timers each morning to decide what I want to do that day. Time to explore.

Let me know what you think about all this. Going forward, I expect to be using timers for a lot more than just cooking!

*Needless to say, I suggested he spend a little longer thinking about it before he added the feature to his plans. In less than a couple minutes, he found three or four legit problems that would need to be addressed before the feature would merit inclusion in the project. Yay Popper!

When I go on a profile, the posts are lost amongst the other user activity.

Posts should have an exclusive place on the profile, as well as featuring in the user activity.

When a reader comes to a Veritula post via a link, the site should let them know if there is a superseding revised version of it, and if they would like to see that version instead. When I share things with my friends, I want them to see the most current version, not the version that corresponds to the link they have been given at some point in the past.

Right now it depends on the user seeing that it is not the most recent revision on their own.

Bug: When I try to type a top level idea into a discussion on my phone, the text is covered by the keyboard.

5 Minute Creativity

TL;DR: When making a decision or working to solve a problem, spend 5 minutes (using a timer) just coming up with ideas. Managing your attention like this can supercharge your creativity.

A few days ago I was helping a friend flesh out an idea for an app that he is developing in his spare time. We came up with a new feature that we were both excited about, and we spent a few minutes going over how much more useful and fun the app was going to be with this new feature.

But in the spirit of philosopher Karl Popper, I asked my friend: "Is there anything wrong with this new feature idea?"

He spent about two seconds considering the question, before confidently answering "No!"

This took me by surprise. Somehow he had come to think that if a problem didn't jump out at him within the first two seconds of looking for problems, then for him the idea mustn't have any problems.*

I took some time later in the day to reflect on that moment. My first thought was about how irrational he was to have spent so little effort trying to poke holes in this new feature idea. After all, he was getting ready to spend hours of his valuable time bringing this new feature into reality. If he had just spent one minute thinking about what could be wrong with the new idea, and in that minute he discovered a fatal flaw in it, it might've saved him hundreds of minutes of wasted work over the next few weeks! Silly guy! Lucky he had me there to save him!

But then I thought about it some more, and realised that maybe I'm not actually that different to him. In many aspects of my daily life, I don't consciously give myself a meaningful amount of time to come up with new ideas or criticisms for the things I want to do. Many of my choices are kind of uncreative—I simply do the first thing that pops into my mind, in much the same way my friend decided there was nothing wrong with the new feature idea; because that was the first thing that popped into his mind.

I did some e-sleuthing around this thought and found On Creativity - The joys of 5 minute timers by Neel Nanda. It suggests literally using timers to make sure we spend meaningful time thinking about the things that matter. It might be worth reading if you identify at all with anything I have just said.

My favourite part of the article is this:

Set a 5 minute timer, and make a list of problems in your life - things that annoy you, things you want to work on, things that could be better. And then, go through that list, and cross off any you’re confident you’ve spent at least 5 minutes of focused time trying to solve. If you’re anything like me, you’ll have an embarrassingly long list left over. I’d be pretty curious about what happens if you try doing a 5 minute brainstorm for anything left.

I also found Nate Soares blogposts talking about using this approach (I believe the Neel Nanda article was at least partly inspired by Nate Soares):

In 'Obvious advice', Nate Soares writes:

When you're about to make a big decision, pause, and ask yourself what obvious things a reasonable person would do before making this sort of decision. Would they spend a full five minutes (by the clock) brainstorming alternative options before settling on a decision? Would they consult with friends and advisors? Would they do some particular type of research?

Then, actually do the obvious things.

In 'Be a new homunculus', Nate Soares writes:

Notice the guilt, listen to the message it bears, and actually write down the behavioral pattern that you wish to change. Then spend five minutes (a full five minutes, by the clock) brainstorming ways that you might change the pattern and start retraining your mind.

I think if I dedicated 5 minutes each week to thinking about all the things I could do that week, I would come up with a lot of stuff. Some of those ideas would suck, but some of them would probably be a lot more useful and interesting than whatever I would’ve done otherwise that week if I didn’t spend 5 minutes exclusively thinking about it. I might even start using 5 minute timers each morning to decide what I want to do that day. Time to explore.

Let me know what you think about all this. Going forward, I expect to be using timers for a lot more than just cooking!

*Needless to say, I suggested he spend a little longer thinking about it before he added the feature to his plans. In less than a couple minutes, he found three or four legit problems that would need to be addressed before the feature would merit inclusion in the project. Yay Popper!

5 Minute Creativity

TL;DR: When making a decision or working to solve a problem, spend 5 minutes (using a timer) just coming up with ideas. Managing your attention like this can supercharge your creativity.

A few days ago I was helping a friend flesh out an idea for an app that he is developing in his spare time. We came up with a new feature that we were both excited about, and we spent a few minutes going over how much more useful and fun the app was going to be with this new feature.

But in the spirit of philosopher Karl Popper, I asked my friend: "Is there anything wrong with this new feature idea?"

He spent about two seconds considering the question, before confidently answering "No!"

This took me by surprise. Somehow he had come to think that if a problem didn't jump out at him within the first two seconds of looking for problems, then for him the idea mustn't have any problems.*

I took some time later in the day to reflect on that moment. My first thought was about how irrational he was to have spent so little effort trying to poke holes in this new feature idea. After all, he was getting ready to spend hours of his valuable time bringing this new feature into reality. If he had just spent one minute thinking about what could be wrong with the new idea, and in that minute he discovered a fatal flaw in it, it might've saved him hundreds of minutes of wasted work over the next few weeks! Silly guy! Lucky he had me there to save him!

But then I thought about it some more, and realised that maybe I'm not actually that different to him. In many aspects of my daily life, I don't consciously give myself a meaningful amount of time to come up with new ideas or criticisms for the things I want to do. Many of my choices are kind of uncreative—I simply do the first thing that pops into my mind, in much the same way my friend decided there was nothing wrong with the new feature idea; because that was the first thing that popped into his mind.

I did some e-sleuthing around this thought and found On Creativity - The joys of 5 minute timers by Neel Nanda. It suggests literally using timers to make sure we spend meaningful time thinking about the things that matter. It might be worth reading if you identify at all with anything I have just said.

My favourite part of the article is this:

Set a 5 minute timer, and make a list of problems in your life - things that annoy you, things you want to work on, things that could be better. And then, go through that list, and cross off any you’re confident you’ve spent at least 5 minutes of focused time trying to solve. If you’re anything like me, you’ll have an embarrassingly long list left over. I’d be pretty curious about what happens if you try doing a 5 minute brainstorm for anything left.

I also found Nate Soares blogposts talking about using this approach (I believe the Neel Nanda article was at least partly inspired by Nate Soares):

In 'Obvious advice', Nate Soares writes:

When you're about to make a big decision, pause, and ask yourself what obvious things a reasonable person would do before making this sort of decision. Would they spend a full five minutes (by the clock) brainstorming alternative options before settling on a decision? Would they consult with friends and advisors? Would they do some particular type of research?

Then, actually do the obvious things.

In 'Be a new homunculus', Nate Soares writes:

Notice the guilt, listen to the message it bears, and actually write down the behavioral pattern that you wish to change. Then spend five minutes (a full five minutes, by the clock) brainstorming ways that you might change the pattern and start retraining your mind.

I think if I dedicated 5 minutes each week to thinking about all the things I could do that week, I would come up with a lot of stuff. Some of those ideas would suck, but some of them would probably be a lot more useful and interesting than whatever I would’ve done otherwise that week if I didn’t spend 5 minutes exclusively thinking about it. I might even start using 5 minute timers every morning to decide what I want to do that day.

Let me know what you think about all this. Going forward, I expect to be using timers for a lot more than just cooking!

*Needless to say, I suggested he spend a little longer thinking about it before he added the feature to his plans. In less than a couple minutes, he found three or four legit problems that would need to be addressed before the feature would merit inclusion in the project. Yay Popper!

5 Minute Creativity

TL;DR: When making a decision or working to solve a problem, spend 5 minutes just coming up with ideas. Managing your attention like this can supercharge your creativity.

A few days ago I was helping a friend flesh out an idea for an app that he is developing in his spare time. We came up with a new feature that we were both excited about, and we spent a few minutes going over how much more useful and fun the app was going to be with this new feature.

But in the spirit of philosopher Karl Popper, I asked my friend: "Is there anything wrong with this new feature idea?"

He spent about two seconds considering the question, before confidently answering "No!"

This took me by surprise. Somehow he had come to think that if a problem didn't jump out at him within the first two seconds of looking for problems, then for him the idea mustn't have any problems.*

I took some time later in the day to reflect on that moment. My first thought was about how irrational he was to have spent so little effort trying to poke holes in this new feature idea. After all, he was getting ready to spend hours of his valuable time bringing this new feature into reality. If he had just spent one minute thinking about what could be wrong with the new idea, and in that minute he discovered a fatal flaw in it, it might've saved him hundreds of minutes of wasted work over the next few weeks! Silly guy! Lucky he had me there to save him!

But then I thought about it some more, and realised that maybe I'm not actually that different to him. In many aspects of my daily life, I don't consciously give myself a meaningful amount of time to come up with new ideas or criticisms for the things I want to do. Many of my choices are kind of uncreative—I simply do the first thing that pops into my mind, in much the same way my friend decided there was nothing wrong with the new feature idea; because that was the first thing that popped into his mind.

I did some e-sleuthing around this thought and found On Creativity - The joys of 5 minute timers by Neel Nanda. It suggests literally using timers to make sure we spend meaningful time thinking about the things that matter. It might be worth reading if you identify at all with anything I have just said.

My favourite part of the article is this:

Set a 5 minute timer, and make a list of problems in your life - things that annoy you, things you want to work on, things that could be better. And then, go through that list, and cross off any you’re confident you’ve spent at least 5 minutes of focused time trying to solve. If you’re anything like me, you’ll have an embarrassingly long list left over. I’d be pretty curious about what happens if you try doing a 5 minute brainstorm for anything left.

I also found Nate Soares blogposts talking about using this approach (I believe the Neel Nanda article was at least partly inspired by Nate Soares):

In 'Obvious advice', Nate Soares writes:

When you're about to make a big decision, pause, and ask yourself what obvious things a reasonable person would do before making this sort of decision. Would they spend a full five minutes (by the clock) brainstorming alternative options before settling on a decision? Would they consult with friends and advisors? Would they do some particular type of research?

Then, actually do the obvious things.

In 'Be a new homunculus', Nate Soares writes:

Notice the guilt, listen to the message it bears, and actually write down the behavioral pattern that you wish to change. Then spend five minutes (a full five minutes, by the clock) brainstorming ways that you might change the pattern and start retraining your mind.

Let me know what you think about all this. Going forward, I expect to be using timers for a lot more than just cooking!

*Needless to say, I suggested he spend a little longer thinking about it before he added the feature to his plans. In less than a couple minutes, he found three or four legit problems that would need to be addressed before the feature would merit inclusion in the project. Yay Popper!

5 Minute Creativity

TL;DR: When making a decision or working to solve a problem, spend 5 minutes just coming up with ideas. Managing your attention like this can supercharge your creativity.

A few days ago I was helping a friend flesh out an idea for an app that he is developing in his spare time. We came up with a new feature that we were both excited about, and we spent a few minutes going over how much more useful and fun the app was going to be with this new feature.

But in the spirit of philosopher Karl Popper, I asked my friend: "Is there anything wrong with this new feature idea?"

He spent about two seconds considering the question, before confidently answering "No!"

This took me by surprise. Somehow he had come to think that if a problem didn't jump out at him within the first two seconds of looking for problems, then for him the idea mustn't have any problems.*

I took some time later in the day to reflect on that moment. My first thought was about how irrational he was to have spent so little effort trying to poke holes in this new feature idea. After all, he was getting ready to spend hours of his valuable time bringing this new feature into reality. If he had just spent one minute thinking about what could be wrong with the new idea, and in that minute he discovered a fatal flaw in the idea, it might've saved him hundreds of minutes of wasted work over the next few weeks! Silly guy! Lucky he had me there to save him!

But then I thought about it some more, and realised that maybe I'm not actually that different to him. In many aspects of my daily life, I don't consciously give myself a meaningful amount of time to come up with new ideas or criticisms for the things I want to do. Many of my choices are kind of uncreative—I simply do the first thing that pops into my mind, in much the same way my friend decided there was nothing wrong with the new feature idea; because that was the first thing that popped into his mind.

I did some e-sleuthing around this thought and found On Creativity - The joys of 5 minute timers by Neel Nanda. It suggests literally using timers to make sure we spend meaningful time thinking about the things that matter. It might be worth reading if you identify at all with anything I have just said.

My favourite part of the article is this:

Set a 5 minute timer, and make a list of problems in your life - things that annoy you, things you want to work on, things that could be better. And then, go through that list, and cross off any you’re confident you’ve spent at least 5 minutes of focused time trying to solve. If you’re anything like me, you’ll have an embarrassingly long list left over. I’d be pretty curious about what happens if you try doing a 5 minute brainstorm for anything left.

I also found Nate Soares blogposts talking about using this approach (I believe the Neel Nanda article was at least partly inspired by Nate Soares):

In 'Obvious advice', Nate Soares writes:

When you're about to make a big decision, pause, and ask yourself what obvious things a reasonable person would do before making this sort of decision. Would they spend a full five minutes (by the clock) brainstorming alternative options before settling on a decision? Would they consult with friends and advisors? Would they do some particular type of research?

Then, actually do the obvious things.

In 'Be a new homunculus', Nate Soares writes:

Notice the guilt, listen to the message it bears, and actually write down the behavioral pattern that you wish to change. Then spend five minutes (a full five minutes, by the clock) brainstorming ways that you might change the pattern and start retraining your mind.

Let me know what you think about all this. Going forward, I expect to be using timers for a lot more than just cooking!

*Needless to say, I suggested he spend a little longer thinking about it before he added the feature to his plans. In less than a couple minutes, he found three or four legit problems that would need to be addressed before the feature would merit inclusion in the project. Yay Popper!

A lot of policies you describe are not explained. A simple, high level explanation of the goals of each section would go a long way. One or two sentences each at least. I would like to know how you have arrived at your policy ideas, not just what they are.

A lot of policies you describe are not explained. A simple, high level explanation of the goals of each section would go a long way. One or two sentences each. I would like to know how you have arrived at your policy ideas, not just what they are.

Veritula should have a 'Posts' tab next to the 'Discussions' tab, where people can browse the things people post on their profiles.

5 Minute Creativity

TL;DR: When making a decision or working to solve a problem, spend 5 minutes just coming up with ideas. Managing your attention like this can supercharge your creativity.

A few days ago I was helping a friend flesh out an idea for an app that he is developing in his spare time. We came up with a new feature that we were both excited about, and we spent a few minutes going over how much more useful and fun the app was going to be with this new feature.

But in the spirit of philosopher Karl Popper, I asked my friend: "Is there anything wrong with this new feature idea?"

He spent about two seconds considering the question, before confidently answering "No!"

This took me by surprise. Somehow he had come to think that if a problem didn't jump out at him within the first two seconds of looking for problems, then for him the idea mustn't have any problems.*

I took some time later in the day to reflect on that moment. My first thought was about how irrational he was to have spent so little effort trying to poke holes in this new feature idea. After all, he was getting ready to spend hours of his valuable time bringing this new feature into reality. If he had just spent one minute thinking about what could be wrong with the new idea, and in that minute he discovered a fatal flaw in the idea, it might've saved him hundreds of minutes of wasted work over the next few weeks! Silly guy! Lucky he had me there to save him!

But then I thought about it some more, and realised that maybe I'm not actually that different to him. In many aspects of my daily life, I don't consciously give myself a meaningful amount of time to come up with new ideas or criticisms for the things I want to do. Many of my choices are kind of uncreative—I simply do the first thing that pops into my mind, in much the same way my friend decided there was nothing wrong with the new feature idea; because that was the first thing that popped into his mind.

I did some e-sleuthing around this thought and found On Creativity - The joys of 5 minute timers by Neel Nanda. It suggests literally using timers to make sure we spend meaningful time thinking about the things that matter. It might be worth reading if you identify at all with anything I have just said.

My favourite part of the article is this:

Set a 5 minute timer, and make a list of problems in your life - things that annoy you, things you want to work on, things that could be better. And then, go through that list, and cross off any you’re confident you’ve spent at least 5 minutes of focused time trying to solve. If you’re anything like me, you’ll have an embarrassingly long list left over. I’d be pretty curious about what happens if you try doing a 5 minute brainstorm for anything left.

I also found Nate Soares blogposts talking about using this approach (I believe the Neel Nanda article was at least partly inspired by Nate Soares):

In 'Obvious advice', Nate Soares writes:

When you're about to make a big decision, pause, and ask yourself what obvious things a reasonable person would do before making this sort of decision. Would they spend a full five minutes (by the clock) brainstorming alternative options before settling on a decision? Would they consult with friends and advisors? Would they do some particular type of research?

Then, actually do the obvious things.

In 'Be a new homunculus', Nate Soares writes:

Notice the guilt, listen to the message it bears, and actually write down the behavioral pattern that you wish to change. Then spend five minutes (a full five minutes, by the clock) brainstorming ways that you might change the pattern and start retraining your mind.

Let me know what you think about all this. As it stands now, I expect to be using timers for a lot more than just cooking going forward!

*Needless to say, I suggested he spend a little longer thinking about it before he added the feature to his plans. In less than a couple minutes, he found three or four legit problems that would need to be addressed before the feature would merit inclusion in the project. Yay Popper!

The same decision may be appealed only once.

Does this not inhibit error correction? Why not just leave this to the discretion of Veritula, on a case by case basis?

You have moved the goalposts from "isn’t it just down to other people subjectively valuing the asset you are buying" to "isn’t it just down to other people subjectively valuing the product/service the business produces” (paraphrasing).

Of course it is all subjective in a sense. My point is that you can disagree with the entire market about what an asset is worth and do just fine.

While following this kind of protocol does help some people lose weight, the model it is based off is incomplete.

'Calories in vs calories out' dieting is based on the idea that each person has a fixed rate of at which they burn calories at rest, proportional to their bodyweight. This fails to account for the fact that ‘calories out’ depends entirely on the metabolic state of the individual, which is highly dependent on the quality of their nutrition.

Some diets lack certain key nutrients required for efficient metabolism, thereby inhibiting the body’s ability to utilise calories. Some diets also contain metabolic toxins that diminish the body’s ability to utilise calories.

For these reasons, diets that are equal in calories but that vary in nutritional content can have vastly different weight gain/loss outcomes.