The Rationality Sequences
One of my “everyone should read this” recommendations is the collection of sequences on LessWrong. You can read it for free online, buy it as a paperback, e-book, or even audiobook.
You’ll be left with a collection of useful tools and examples to improve your the accuracy of what you believe, and perhaps understand why you believe what you do. Additionally, the author explains some options for steering reality into your preferred directions using rational choices instead of guesswork, hope, or any other techniques.
You may not agree with all of the ideas, and you may dislike the writing style or examples at times, but the primary reason I’m sharing this is: it presents new ideas that are not commonly discussed elsewhere in detail, many of which are useful.
The articles are broken into many sections called “Sequences”.
Map and Territory
How to identify biases in the big and small of everyday life, and how to steer away from them. One of my favourite articles in this section is Scope Insensitivity, which opens with this excerpt:
Once upon a time, three groups of subjects were asked how much they would pay to save 2,000 / 20,000 / 200,000 migrating birds from drowning in uncovered oil ponds. The groups respectively answered $80, $78, and $88. This is scope insensitivity or scope neglect: the number of birds saved—the scope of the altruistic action—had little effect on willingness to pay.
Another good section is in Biases:
Imagine meeting someone for the first time, and knowing nothing about them except that they’re shy.
Question: Is it more likely that this person is a librarian, or a salesperson?
Most people answer “librarian.” Which is a mistake: shy salespeople are much more common than shy librarians, because salespeople in general are much more common than librarians—seventy-five times as common, in the United States.
Some other great articles to read are:
How to Actually Change Your Mind
Stubbornness can really hinder decision-making. Especially if the decision maker is blind to it! This section covers topics from political bias to playing the lottery. It eventually leads towards methods to overcome these biases and change your own way of seeing the world. Some highlight-worthy articles are:
The Machine in the Ghost
What is it to be human? How do we form the link between what we think and the actual concept? How do we communicate it?
Other Sequences:
There are an additional three sequences which are also worth reading (but perhaps with lower priority): Mere Reality, Mere Goodness, and Becoming Stronger. They discuss the intersection of science, humanity, rationality, ethics, and personal growth.
I hope you enjoy reading these articles as I did, and I hope you gain something from it.