We're sunsetting PodQuest on 2025-07-28. Thank you for your support!
Export Podcast Subscriptions
cover of episode “Subskills of ‘Listening to Wisdom’” by Raemon

“Subskills of ‘Listening to Wisdom’” by Raemon

2024/12/9
logo of podcast LessWrong (30+ Karma)

LessWrong (30+ Karma)

Shownotes Transcript

A fool learns from their own mistakes The wise learn from the mistakes of others. – Otto von Bismark

A problem as old as time: The youth won't listen to your hard-earned wisdom. This post is about learning to listen to, and communicate wisdom. It is very long – I considered breaking it up into a sequence, but, each piece felt necessary. I recommend reading slowly and taking breaks. To begin, here are three illustrative vignettes:

** The burnt out grad student** You warn the young grad student "pace yourself, or you'll burn out." The grad student hears "pace yourself, or you'll be kinda tired and unproductive for like a week." They're excited about their work, and/or have internalized authority figures yelling at them if they aren't giving their all. They don't pace themselves. They burn out.

** The oblivious founder** The young startup/nonprofit founder [...]


Outline:

(00:35) The burnt out grad student

(01:00) The oblivious founder

(02:13) The Thinking Physics student

(07:06) Epistemic Status

(08:23) PART I

(08:26) An Overview of Skills

(14:19) Storytelling as Proof of Concept

(15:57) Motivating Vignette:

(17:54) Having the Impossibility can be defeated trait

(21:56) If it werent impossible, well, then Id have to do it, and that would be awful.

(23:20) Example of Gaining a Tool

(23:59) Example of Changing self-conceptions

(25:24) Current Takeaways

(27:41) Fictional Evidence

(32:24) PART II

(32:27) Competitive Deliberate Practice

(33:00) Step 1: Listening, actually

(36:34) The scale of humanity, and beyond

(39:05) Competitive Spirit

(39:39) Is your cleverness going to help more than Whatever That Other Guy Is Doing?

(41:00) Distaste for the Competitive Aesthetic

(42:40) Building your own feedback-loop, when the feedback-loop is can you beat Ruby?

(43:43) ...back to George

(44:39) Mature Games as Excellent Deliberate Practice Venue.

(46:08) Deliberate Practice qua Deliberate Practice

(47:41) Feedback loops at the second-to-second level

(49:03) Oracles, and Fully Taking The Update

(49:51) But what do you do differently?

(50:58) Magnitude, Depth, and Fully Taking the Update

(53:10) Is there a simple, general skill of appreciating magnitude?

(56:37) PART III

(56:52) Tacit Soulful Trauma

(58:32) Cults, Manipulation and/or Lying

(01:01:22) Sandboxing: Safely Importing Beliefs

(01:04:07) Asking what does Alice believe, and why? or what is this model claiming? rather than what seems true to me?

(01:04:43) Pre-Grieving (or leaving a line of retreat)

(01:05:47) EPILOGUE

(01:06:06) The Practical

(01:06:09) Learning to listen

(01:10:58) The Longterm Direction

The original text contained 14 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

The original text contained 4 images which were described by AI.


First published: December 9th, 2024

Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5yFj7C6NNc8GPdfNo/subskills-of-listening-to-wisdom)

    ---
    

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO).


Images from the article: undefined)undefined)undefined)undefined)undefined) Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts), or another podcast app.