3 How do you form beliefs?

Drawing
Key Points

  • Develop intuition about epistemics

    • The sensation of recognising a particular bias in yourself

    • Developing habits and noticing

Suggested Icebreaker

  • Share an example of over- or under-confidence that happened to you

Homework - develop sensitivity to epistemics

Notice & develop sensitivity to:

  • Confusion & Uncertainty

  • Overconfidence & Underconfidence

  • Potential Wrongness

    • 'How might I be wrong about X?' & 'How could I find out if I'm wrong?'

    • 'how might (someone) be wrong about Y?'

    • 'What would make me change my mind about Z?'

  • Predictions & Forecasting

    • e.g. I will spent 2 hours on this study project this week

Reflections

  • Did you gain any useful insights or benefits during the exercise?

Scale - Should we care about Epistemics?

  • How are Epistemics relevant to Altruism/Doing Good?

    • Do you have historical or current examples in which a government or the people could have avoided moral mistakes if they had improved epistemics?

    • In what way did the journaling exercise matter from a moral perspective?

    • Which cause areas could benefit from improved epistemics and how?

  • How does epistemics compare to other cause areas?

    • How much % of your resources would you invest into Epistemics & why ?

    • Why would it be better to invest in e.g., EA movement building, x-risk, etc.?

Taking Ideas Seriously

  • What do the ideas imply, if taken seriously?

  • How can EA or you be wrong that could cause the most harm?

    • What information would I need that could significantly change my ethical beliefs?

Practicing Forecasting

  • Break up into groups and discuss when XYZ will arive

  • Focus on the epistemic skills and reasons rather than the forecasted year

  • XYZ e.g,. Autonomous driving in European Capitals; Human Physical Immortality; Ban on Factory Farming

Beliefs, Decisions & Uncertainty

  • How do you suggest to make decisions, despite uncertainty and/or cluelessness?

  • How do you suggest to form beliefs & when to update them?

Skill Development

  • What skills could you develop which would most improve your epistemic skills?

    • Which of these are easiest to make progress on?

    • How do you develop those skills?

  • What skills can we develop here as a group? Are there any group rules/goals we can set up?

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