meta discussion isn't a problem. DD was wrong.

the actual problem is parochial content that isn't of general interest. that includes stuff about specific people, events, times, places, activities (including conversations) that lack objective importance and value.

say a confused idiot is arguing boring, wrong details about a sub-point of a sub-point of a sub-point, and every single sub-point is totally misconceived and he's gone way down the rabbit hole.

it's equally boring if you then reply with parochial meta ("here is where your discussion methodology went wrong when going from sub-point 2 to 3, you should have...") or parochial non-meta (specific, detailed arguments about sub-point 3 that no one cares about because no one else has the same idea you're criticizing because they don't make that exact sequence of errors to get to that bad idea).

you want to say something interesting and important that a third party who doesn't know anyone involved in the conversation could care about. it doesn't matter if this is meta (great tips on writing, on communication, on how to discuss like Paths Forward stuff, thinking methodology content, talking about methodological errors people make, talking about error-correcting methods) or non-meta (talking about parenting, dating, politics, economics, art, programming, gaming). what matters is if it's general-interest or parochial. being about one specific person or conversation is a way to make things parochial, whether it's meta (discussing the conversation directly) or not (the detailed sub-points themselves of the parochial conversation that no one cares about).

another aspect of meta discussion is it's frequently off topic. suppose originally the conversation was about schools, and now it's about discussion methods. that's a topic change. topic changes aren't a bad thing in general. conversations shouldn't be limited to the original topic. tangents should be allowed. however, topic changes can be problematic when people are disorganized which is common. disorganized people can't deal with a branching, unbounded conversation that covers many issues and deals with sub-issues, connections to other fields, etc. the problem here isn't really meta discussion, it's some people lacking the skills to deal with multi-topic conversations at all, whether the second topic is a meta-topic or not. (they'd have equal trouble talking about both school and liberalism at once, because they'd lose track of the big picture and how the two topics are connected.)

do not consider "is what i'm about to write meta discussion?"

consider "is what I'm about to write parochial? is what I'm about to write of general, objective interest to strangers?" also if you're changing the topic or adding an additional topic to the conversation, consider if you and others involved have the organizational skill to deal with it.

People often think something they do is bad and then try to stop right away. Like smoking or spending lots of time on Facebook.

Often they don't do anything at all about it for a long time. Then they abruptly try to quit their "habit". (Peeing isn't call a "habit". People usually only call something a "habit" if they think it's bad.)

First they didn't judge their activity. They weren't thoughtful. Then they get super judgey. They think of a reason it's bad and now view it as totally unacceptable.

If something is a significant part of your life, or you otherwise find it difficult to stop, then don't try to quit abruptly.

Pay attention to what you do. Pay attention to how you feel about it. Try to understand why you do it. Try to learn more things about it, both good and bad. Write down factual notes about what you do including thoughts and feelings you have as part of the activity. Think of it as an information-gathering phase.

Don't threaten the activity. Then that part of you will get defensive. Do introspection. Be more thoughtful, present and mindful about it. That isn't an attack. Don't attack that part of yourself.

Once you understand yourself better (gather information for longer than you think is enough) then you can calmly analyze what you learned and consider if you'd like to make any changes and what problems you could run into.

What's good about the activity that maybe you don't want to give up? Maybe you can find another way to get it, and get that working first, and then after that's already successful then you could quit the original activity since you don't need it anymore.

When you quit it should be easy. If you have a good solution then you won't have much temptation, relapses, mixed feelings, etc. If you're running into those kinds of issues then stop trying to quit and go back to the learning-but-not-changing phase.

This all fits with the general pattern I advocate of powering up first (especially by learning) and then doing things when they're easy. Trying to do things when they're hard is inefficient and you'd be better off learning more instead of putting so much effort into doing this one thing early.

The thrill of teaching a child to spell.

Children figure out how to spell. They are the primary drivers of their learning. Children make tons of guesses about everything – what letters are, what spelling is, how to spell particular words, why to spell, how organize all the information to remember it, what parent/teacher is trying to say. Children think of tons of criticism of all their guesses and judge which ones are correct and which aren't. With lots of work, children figure it out.

Parents/teachers are helpers who play a secondary role. You cannot literally share ideas with someone. All you can do is make sounds, make gestures, write things down, draw pictures, etc. All you can do is create physical stuff (e.g. sound waves going towards child, patterns of photons with certain frequencies going towards child, or an arrangement of labelled blocks child can touch) which child's senses can detect, and child may then interpret as a communication and try to figure out the meaning of and then try to figure out how it's useful to child's current problems (which parent/teacher has only a vague conception of).

Adults forget what it's like to be a child and massively underestimate how much learning young children do. They don't realize all the details the children have to figure out. Adults take for granted lots of big conclusions they've known for ages. People start finding many of their ideas so obvious and simple that they stop realizing it could be broken down into many little pieces which are actually hard to combine into the right answer.

People have a hard time seeing the world from a perspective that's super different than their current perspective. They don't realize how little of their communications to students actually succeed. Children keep learning things, so parents and teachers assume that they taught the child. But a lot of the time the child figures out most of it on his own, doesn't understand a lot of what he was "taught", and finds a lot of other things he was "taught" useless and unhelpful.

DD is bad now. There's so many things wrong here!

He said "indeed" to a tweet insulting children. Most people would do that, but in the past DD wouldn't have. He was good about ageism.

He said "indeed" to a tweet no one considers literally true.

He said "indeed" to an exaggerated, ageist, unserious, unintellectual claim that Trump is clueless and incompetent. (Also file that under unoriginal!)

He likes Obama more than Trump. (Previously we found out he likes Hillary more than Trump.)

He says "yes" that Putin is "the worst dictator" which is false.

DD says "yes" that Trump is "befriending" Putin. That's false. Trump is – as he should – having a working relationship with a person his job requires him to work with. Work relationships are different than friendships. Suggesting that Trump is personal friends with Putin is a lazy smear.

From Obama's worst policies, DD excludes: Obamacare, supporting Iran, supporting the Muslim Brotherhood, supporting Cuba, open borders, appointing activist leftist judges, and losing the Iraq war. That's just a small start on what Obama did wrong.

DD not only claims that Trump will pursue all Obama's worst policies, but that Trump is even worse at all of them than Obama. This is unfair to Trump by ignoring many terrible Obama policies where Trump is way better. And it's false because Trump is better on every listed policy than Obama. Trump is going to be more financially irresponsible than Obama? Really? I read Trump's tax plan, among other things, and I don't see it. I await DD's considered argument for this claim and the others. But DD doesn't explain serious arguments anymore, he tweets.

DD has become an apologist for Obama and the left. DD speaks imprecisely and participates in superficial commentary. DD no longer cares much about ageism.

I follow DD's tweets and this quality is typical. He used to be a much better thinker.

Update: Here's a second example of low quality DD tweets. From someone else it'd just be expected that they are confused about AI, persons, animals, etc, all of that. But DD used to be good at these things. And he used to be my peer. But these tweets aren't in my league or up to DD's former standards of thinking.

I usually do philosophy first when I wake up, when I'm fresh. This works for me because I'm not sleep deprived. Lots of people have a hard time in the mornings because they are chronically sleep deprived. Getting enough sleep is important to being a good thinker. I wake up without caffeine, an alarm, a shower, or anything to wake me up. I don't keep track, but I'd guess that I average over 8 hours of sleep per day (including naps).

I don't eat until after doing philosophy. (I find I'm not hungry for at least 4 hours after waking up.) When convenient, I use eating, exercising or showering as a break after doing morning philosophy.

Happily, I do contract software work from home and can choose my own hours to work. So I can do philosophy first regardless of what time I wake up, then do software work or whatever else later on. My sleep and wake times vary significantly and sometimes I take naps. I sleep when I'm tired, not on a schedule.

I avoid scheduling many activities. And I get a lot of stuff delivered, including lots of my groceries, so I don't need to go places during business hours much. This improves my sleep and gives me the flexibility to do what I want when I want to.

If I worked a 9-5 job, I would go to sleep by 8pm so I could wake up by 4am and do philosophy in the morning before work.

If you work a regular job, and you want to be a better thinker, I recommend you try something like this. Don't wake up for work. Sleep after work and then wake up long before work. Then you can do your own thing (e.g. study critical thinking skills and read philosophy books) when you're fresh. This can also work with anything intellectual, e.g. if you're writing a novel. It's really hard to do your best thinking after an 8 hour workday.

There are some problems you may run into:

1) Missing new TV shows. You should record your shows for watching later, or buy or torrent them online. You don't have to watch TV shows when they air. If people at work will discuss the show the next day and you want to join the discussions and avoid spoilers, consider watching in the morning. E.g. do philosophy from 4-7:30am, then watch the TV show (while eating breakfast) then go to work.

2) Social life. If you care more about socializing than thinking, you'll want to be available in the evenings when our culture prefers to do social activities. You've gotta choose. You can't be a productive, great thinker; work a regular job; deal with life (load the dishwasher, go to the dentist, etc); and also keep up a conventional social life. There isn't time for all that.

3) Family time. If you need to stay up until midnight to have enough time with your kids and spouse after work, then you aren't going to have enough time for intellectual activities regardless of your sleep schedule. That's your choice. Good luck trying to squeeze in some thinking on weekends, I guess, but that's when you'll be busy going places and doing family and/or social activities that don't fit on weekdays.

4) I need to be at my best at work. If you're especially smart (like most people interested in my blog who want to be intellectually productive outside of work) then you can do most jobs just fine without being at your very sharpest. You aren't being paid extra to work right after sleeping (actually lots of people come in tired in the morning because they're sleep deprived, and that's perfectly acceptable at most jobs). If you're struggling at work, then OK focus on that but don't expect to be very productive on an intellectual side project. But don't give up your own stuff to try extra super hard at work when you're already doing fine, that'll just get you exploited more than rewarded.

Real talk: If you work full time and have a family life and a social life, you're probably sleep deprived already. You've chosen how to spend your time. On the other hand, if you want to do some kind of thinking or creative pursuit, and you're willing to allocate time for it, then try changing your sleep cycle so you can do it in the morning before work, while fresh, instead of trying to do it after work.

All of this applies if you go to school rather than work. And if you don't work, then try getting enough sleep and doing your most intellectually demanding activity first thing after waking, when you're the freshest.

I'm asked lots of questions. Writing great answers for all of them would take too long.

I prioritize writing answers I consider interesting or important.

Sometimes I give a short answers or a link. Sometimes I suggest that a friend answer a question. But I still don't answer some questions at all.

My first priority is what I want to answer. Secondarily, I'd like to answer questions that the asker cares more about, puts more effort into, and gets more value from.

Sometimes people ask careless questions. Sometimes they barely care what the answer is. Sometimes they lose interest in the topic a couple days later but don't share this fact. Sometimes they could have easily found the answer with Google, but they don't respect my time. Some questions are dead ends where they have no comment on the answer and no followup questions.

I have limited information about how important a question is to you. You can help with this problem by writing better questions. Here are some things you can do to get more attention:

• Ask on the Fallible Ideas discussion group or curi forum (this website). Those are my preferred places to take questions and I give them priority. But don't use FI unless you read the guidelines and format your post correctly.
• State steps you already took to find the answer yourself, and why they didn't work.
• Write well. Use short, simple words, sentences and paragraphs. Clearly mark quotes. Emphasize key points. Do an editing pass to make it clearer and easier to understand. Keep things organized and limit repetition.
• Make it really clear what the question actually is.
• Give specifics. I don't have a solution to "I am sad". That describes millions of different problems. (If you want a very general purpose answer like "Then do problem solving." you can state that you want a general case answer with no specifics.)
• Mention relevant background knowledge you have. If you ask about altruism, I may suggest you read Ayn Rand. If you've already read her, you should have told me!
• Say what kind of answer you're looking for. What are you looking for? What sort of information would you consider an adequate answer?
• Say why you want an answer to this question and what problem it will solve for you. Say why the question is important.
• Use relevant quotes and make sure they are 100% accurate (use copy/paste) and give the source. E.g. if the question has to do with something I've written, link and quote it.
• Keep it short. If some detailed information is important for reference, put it in a footnote after the question.
• If you refer to something, and it's important to your question, then provide a link. For books you generally want to give the Amazon link. If it's long, say which section is relevant and explain what information the reference has and how it relates to the question.
• Sending money, even just $5, sets your question apart from others.
• I strongly prefer ebooks over paper. They don't have page numbers and do allow searching for quotes. And if you really want me to look at a book and can't find a free link, then buy me the ebook. But it's usually better to just quote a lot instead.
• If your question isn't answered, look at it from another angle or make some progress on it, then ask another question. Having a question unanswered is no big deal. It's not a negative response or a rebuke. No answer is neutral. If it's important, just reread this guide and try again after a few days.
• If you have followup questions or arguments that depend on my answer to the question, especially criticism of my ideas, let me know.
• If you think I need to address this question for Paths Forward reasons, explain that.
• If you want me personally to answer, say why. Otherwise write your question in a generic way that other people could answer, too.
• If you think I'll get value from the question or a followup, tell me what's in it for me.
• Don't be or act helpless or needy, don't act like you deserve free answers, and don't rush and write carelessly.

If this sounds like too much effort to you, then understand that answering your questions is not my problem. But note that you will benefit from these steps too because they'll guide you to do better thinking. They'll help you understand your problem better, make some problem solving progress, and sometimes answer your own question.

How do you judge (ASAP) when someone is talking to you because they are triggered or reactive instead of out of interest?

People usually respond because they are reacting to something. They feel pressured, they don't like something, or even they do like something. Positive reactions are still reactions, instead of the person being a self-starter who controls their own life. Being passive and reacting to stuff is different than deciding what to do yourself. It's only people who decide to pursue something, because they're interested, who learn much.

There are degrees. More reactive people are worse people.

People do chain reactions. E.g. first they react to an event or situation with an emotion. Then they react to their emotion.

If you ask people, they frequently don't understand the question and give an answer anyway (lie they understand the question and know the answer) or lie (lie they're not being reactive/triggered when they are).

If you interact with someone over time, you can see patterns like they don't bring a topic up themselves, they only talk about it when you bring it up.

This is adapted from a Fallible Ideas discussion called "How to help someone find their motor".

How do you tell the difference between genuine vs. cargo culting interests? You don’t give up / lose interest in a genuine interest just because it gets hard or when some passing
distraction comes up and catches your attention.

that describes a big, strong interest.

lots of interests are genuine but small and/or weak.

it's good to have lots of small interests where you finish quickly. you should have more small interests than big ones. that's part of creating lots of interests. not everything has to be or should be a giant quest.

and it's fine to have lots of weak interests where, if you realize the price is higher than you initially estimated, you drop the project. that's efficient. most of your interests should be sensitive to the time/effort/money/resources involved in a project. you can have a few things where you're like "whatever it takes, i wanna do this" but you shouldn't have that attitude all the time (also you should always be willing to reconsider goals, change interests, etc). it often makes sense to have some weak interest in 20 projects and then actually do the 3 you find to be most cost efficient and drop the other 17. (don't lose track of what you actually like looking for what's cost efficient, though! use cost efficient as a tiebreaker between different things you like about equally.)

small projects often lead to new problems and projects, which are often small themselves, and lead to even more.

people should be interested in problems more than topics. topics are only an approximation of rational interests. super dedicated chess players don't actually like everything about chess, they are more interested in some aspects than others. some chess problems interest them and some don't. saying they are interested in the topic of chess is a reasonable approximation because they are interested in a wide variety and large number of chess problems.

even a very broad problem like being interested in winning chess games is more of a specific problem than chess as a topic. winning chess games covers a lot of material, but chess as a topic includes even more stuff that doesn't actually help you win games.

looking at it abstractly, out of all possible information related to chess in some way, most is not useful to any problem a human cares about. most information about all topics is boring. selecting interesting problems to guide you is crucial to making good decisions about which information to focus on and which to ignore.

anyway, one doesn't just sit down and "study chess". that's either an approximate statement (no big deal normally, but imprecise) or wrong. one studies a chess related problem, e.g. on a particular day one sits down and studies how to win games against the Najdorf variation of the Sicilian defense, which fits into one's broader interest of being prepared to play aggressive e4 openings in order to win rather than draw more games with white and play to one's strengths of fast, open positions. which will help solve the problem of winning chess tournaments, not the problem of knowing every fact, no matter how pointless, about chess just b/c "i'm interested in chess" (no you're not, you're interested in lots of chess stuff, but not all of it!). people often do this is a semi-reasonable way in practice, but don't understand it in words very well, and could make some improvements if they knew what was going on more accurately.

so: find projects to solve problems, preferably usually small ones you can finish. do them successfully. do more. don't look for a whole huge quest from the start if you don't have one. bigger projects may develop naturally as you do lots of small projects successfully and develop various skills and gradually increase the size of project you can confidently complete and handle. those skills include time organization and resource management skills, understanding your interests and what you'll actually do or finish, general purpose get-shit-done skills, and much more.

it's better if small problems you work on relate to a larger interest, even if it's one you're unsure about. e.g. you might find a chess opening interesting to learn about on its own, and it'd also have the additional big-picture benefit of helping your chess game. or if you think you might potentially like to learn some physics stuff, then you could look for little projects with some connection to physics. like anything to do with science, learning, writing or computer skills could come in handy later for learning physics.

What if my interest leads to a dead end?

suppose theoretically you did follow an interest to a dead-end. dead-ends are bad so that means you made a mistake. that leads somewhere: you could investigate why you made that mistake, what went wrong, how to find, fix and avoid mistakes in the future, what kinds of methods and ideas that requires, what errors and error correction are, etc... so it's led to lots of great stuff. so it wasn't actually a dead-end in the bigger picture.

broadly: solutions lead to new problems. in the alternative, lack of solutions is a problem. there's always more problems to work on. there are no dead ends except irrationality (which shouldn't be blamed on the interest/topic, irrationality is about how people approach stuff badly and e.g. create dead ends).