Curriculum
4 weeks. 16 items. Start anywhere, but the order matters.
Yudkowsky
Free on LessWrong. ~4hrs. The core: what it means to have accurate beliefs.
Scott Alexander
Single essay, ~45min. The most important thing to read to understand the culture.
~30min. Tribal epistemics. Will change how you see political discourse.
Tetlock & Gardner
Read chapters 1-4 minimum. Calibration as a skill.
Yudkowsky (LessWrong 2022)
The doomer bible. Read it. Disagree with parts. That’s the point.
Yudkowsky & Soares
Dense. Skim if needed. Know the arguments.
Brian Christian
Best accessible overview. Read alongside Lethalities for balance.
Podcast
Listen in sequence. You’ll feel the disagreement viscerally.
Derek Parfit
Just Part IV. The Repugnant Conclusion. Your brain will hurt.
Nick Bostrom
Sleeping Beauty problem, observer selection. Know the controversy.
Short essay. Key concept for understanding how rationalists think about rhetoric.
John Wentworth (LessWrong)
Technical alignment. Why the world compresses into categories. Mind-expanding.
Don’t Worry About the Vase (Substack)
Read the last 8 weeks. Dense link-commentary format. Gets you calibrated fast.
Scott Alexander (Substack)
Subscribe. Read whatever looks interesting. The culture lives here.
Gwern Branwen
Pick any long essay. It’s always worth it.
Forecasting platforms
Make a few predictions. Skin in the game matters.