Becoming Eden

Author: Will

  • Self-Improvement: What It Is And Why We Care

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    We like to talk about this concept we call “self-improvement” a lot. On the face of it, it’s a relatively simple and easy concept to understand: we are improving our selves. End of post! …except it’s still a little bit vague what I mean by that, even in my own mind. Let’s forget about defining…

  • Productivity 101 Recap!

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    On Tuesday night, we gathered together to discuss the productivity techniques that me and Divia actually use in our daily lives (instead of the ones we think would be helpful, but never use in practice). Some of the main topics we covered were: Goal setting and formulation Reducing cognitive load Utilizing social pressure Taking very…

  • Beyond Rationality

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    I called this post “Beyond Rationality” because I wanted to move past the unfortunate connotations and bad habits associated with the word “rationality” in our culture. With tongue firmly in cheek, Divia and I often refer to the cluster of ideas I am about to present as post-rationality, and you may well encounter us using…

  • The Promise and Perils of Rationality

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    In my previous post I laid out what I did and did not mean by the term “rationality”. While I addressed what I consider to be misconceptions around the word rationality and how self-described rationalists would behave, I do think that there are some common problems that real-life rationalists run into in practice. In this…

  • Compassionate Communication Recap

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    Thanks to everyone who showed up to yesterday’s webinar! The title was Compassionate Communication: What to Say When People Get Upset, and we were talking about the ideas from Marshall Rosenberg’s book Nonviolent Communication. We outlined the basic model of NVC, talked about our experiences with it and how we think about it, and even…

  • Rationality, Unpacked

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    The word “rationality” carries a lot of historical baggage and cultural misconceptions, enough so that I have considered not using it at all. Yet a substantial portion of my social circle has decided to adopt this label (spoiler alert!), and for better or worse, it is the label that I use in my own mind. First I am…

  • Learning Programming

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    My relationship with programming has a long and sordid past. We got our first computer when I was very young, and I was immediately transfixed by this devil machine. How did it possibly work?? This curiosity got me a handful of vague enough answers to temporarily satisfy me, and I went about playing Dune II.…

  • O, Fragile Productivity!

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    Will
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    As long as I stick to my systems I don’t get sick very often, and thus I sometimes forget what it’s like. Getting enough sleep seems to render me immune to infections, though sometimes I stay up late or wake up too early. If I do start to feel a cold coming on, a complete…

  • Exploration/Exploitation Applied

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    In my previous post, I discussed the exploration/exploitation tradeoff that is inherent to optimizing under significant uncertainty, and alluded to some of the ways that this influences my thinking. In this post, I want to give some examples of how using this framework has actually changed my behavior. From a Global Parameter… As far as…

  • What I Wish I Knew in College

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    I feel like I only learned how to optimize effectively during my senior year of college. At that point I was mostly set into my college path: I was an economics major, I had already used my off-terms, I was involved in particular organizations, I had my group of friends, etc. What I could change…