Apricus Learns to Post on CF Forums

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Project Summary

Learn to post on CF forums. This includes following the rules, posting medium to high quality stuff, and posting with reasonable frequency (at least once a week).

Goal

My goal is to get back into active participation in CF and learning + applying CF philosophy in my life. Posting more frequently is the next step up from reading regularly without posting. Posts I write should follow the rules, not be onerous to read like some of my previous posts, and avoid personal details unless relevant to CF and the point being made in the post.
Part of this project also includes learning to write more like I speak, which will help improve the quality and frequency of my posts. I aim to post at least once a week.
Why: My lack of ability to post well gets in the way of my ability to discuss and learn CF, which ultimately hurts my quality of life and learning.
How I will judge success and failure: I will judge after 30 days (around April 17, 2024) by looking at my posts and checking that they match the above criteria.
Bigger picture goals: In the long-term I would like to be capable of successfully executing larger projects that are related to philosophy and self-improvement. Starting small and building a series of successes (or failures that don’t take long to get through) will help me get there. I would also like to be capable of participating on this forum and contributing positively to it.
How this is relevant to CF: It’s relevant to CF because it will help me learn CF better in the long run, and contribute to the forums more effectively over time.

Plan

My plan is to start by posting about things I’m learning or things I find interesting. This will make posting easy. Then my goal is to find ways to link those things to CF or apply CF to them. I don’t want to force myself to learn a lot of CF initially as that might make it harder for me to post often. As posting becomes easier, I can then learn to read and write more about CF related articles.
I think this is a relatively small project, although it’s not a Mini Project since I can’t complete it in 3 days. I’m allocating at least 2 hours a week to this project. I’m confident I can succeed at posting, but I am not confident I can succeed on overall quality and following the rules for every post (especially with CF relevance). I hope for an error rate of 20% or below, so that at least 80% of my posts meet the above criteria. If my error rate is much higher than that, I might pause posting, or declare the project a failure and restart with more achievable criteria.
I haven’t thought of any error correction mechanisms other than running my posts through the rules if I suspect they break the rules somehow.
The main risks are that I stop posting for some reason like real life distractions, but I think 2 hours a week is fairly achievable even with that in mind. Another risk is that I get burnt out, in which case I can post about it and reduce my time investment to e.g. 1 hour a week. This can gradually be increased later.

Other People

I’m not asking for help from others at this time. I don’t think this project offers much immediate value to others, but it builds up to offering more value later as I improve at posting. I will complete the project independently if no one participates. I am sharing this partly to hold myself accountable and partly for any encourage anyone might offer along the way. Any criticism related to my posts not matching the criteria I set out near the beginning of this post is appreciated. If anyone sees ways for me to transition this project into other projects to help me get better at CF, that would also be appreciated.

Context

The context is that I have quit FI/CF multiple times in the past, mostly silently, and the most recent time that I came back, my posts were of poor quality. I then spent about a year not posting at all until now. I’ve been reading FI related content since August 2018. I’m prioritizing this over alternative projects because I think this is a pre-requisite to me being able to do any CF related projects that involve posting here. I’m doing it right now because I have free time in real life and want to dedicate some of it to learning CF. I haven’t done much so far, other than my posts in the distant past.

[Practice] Connecting ET Health Ideas With Other Health Learnings
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pinging @Apricus

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Thank you for the reminder. Sorry for failing to check back on this. I took a long break (basically quit silently again), and then came back after some time and just lurked and read new posts, actually forgetting about this project I set. I just logged in now and saw this reminder. I’ve read the posting guidelines again and wanted to post some thoughts.

I’ve enjoyed reading the recent learning posts like from Jarrod and others. It’s also made me realize that I don’t really want to put that level of effort and discipline into learning CF in a structured way. I enjoy reading the posts and I like the people in the community. There was a Alex Hormozi short that I saw on Youtube where he said something like (in the context of one of his colleagues being too busy to exercise/lift weights): You will never have more time than you do now. So if you can’t figure out how to do it now, just accept that you will never be in shape.

I think it’s a little exaggerated but the point he makes kind of applies with me and philosophy/CF. I don’t think I want it enough to really put in the effort it requires and deserves. I also put a lot of unnecessary pressure on myself when I’m trying to learn philosophy, so I think if I can accept that I don’t have to get great at it, I can maybe take small steps to get just a bit better without trying to do a lot of the stuff I dislike. I might also like the learning exercises more over time as I solve other blocks. I think some of my hangups of math and grammar come from high school.

I’ve realized that I have a hard time saying no and I tend to make promises or sign up to do things I don’t really want to do (like 15 minutes of grammar study per day) and then I silently quit. My desire to be liked or to belong overpowers my ability to be true to myself and actually pick sustainable goals. Even the above post I made is an example of this. I commit to things I can’t stick to. Part of me wants to stick to it, but another part of me doesn’t want to, and that latter part wins more often. I didn’t know myself well enough to realize that until after it happened.

I also want to express gratitude to you and the FI/CF community for changing me in a few good ways over the last ~6 years:

  • I went from left-leaning to more right-leaning on various issues, like seeing the good in capitalism (and I’ve appreciated the more recent articles on issues with big companies and how and how they are doing a lot of stuff that amounts to fraud, and sometimes the governments are helping them too, so it’s not really free market capitalism). The debate you had with another person about minimum wage helped change my mind on that issue. An online friend also told me a story from when he was homeless. He knew another homeless person named Will who would go into a local stores and offer to sweep the floors and help out however he could just for a blanket and a sandwich. There was a store owner who helped him out, but got in trouble once when a city inspector found out about it and told him he’d face consequences if he did that again. So the store owner was afraid to help Will again, and Will ended up freezing to death. That story also helped me realize some of the issues with raising and enforcing a minimum wage and how it hurts the poorest people. I also think it’s a sign that I’m swayed more by stories than logic since that story helped cement the idea for me more than the debate did, although both worked together.
  • I’m more rigorous about quoting accurately and avoiding misquotes. I also write with more precision than I used to. I value the truth more and have gotten more honest thanks to FI/CF.
  • I’m still not great at it, but I’ve gotten better at accepting criticism without taking it personally or feeling bad. If I do feel bad, it usually doesn’t last long. This has especially helped me out in my career and interpersonal relationships. FI/CF held me to a high standard and it made me much better at meeting a high standard IRL. I still have not found a place outside of FI/CF that holds me to as high as a standard, which is part of why I think I keep coming back here despite all my struggles participating properly.
  • Exposed me to certain injustices and issues in the world that I don’t get exposed to anywhere else. I’m more aware of the reality of the world than I was 6 years ago, a lot of that thanks to your posts.
  • Got me to read Ayn Rand and Karl Popper, which I think exposed me to some ideas I wouldn’t have otherwise found. I haven’t applied these ideas to my life a ton but I think they’ve subtly shaped how I see things and interact with people.

I’m still going to try this because it seems reasonable to try at least once. Some things I’ve learned about recently:

  • I’ve been trying out a daily habit of posting a Youtube video. Usually just me talking about some kind of self-improvement or philosophy idea. It feels easier than daily blog writing, which I used to do. I’ve managed to do it for 2 months in a row. I like that it just takes a few minutes.
  • I started the Stronglifts 5x5 weight lifting routine with a friend. Doing it today made me realize my sense of proprioception is pretty bad and I need a lot of practice to learn to do the exercises with the right form. I’ve struggled to stick to an exercise routine but doing it with a friend has been helping. I’m not sure how to apply CF to exercise routine until I get more advanced.

Some things I would like to figure out how to apply CF to in the mid to long-term:

  • How to use CF to pick and stick to a career path. I’ve been doing various things and have learnt more about myself in the process, but I haven’t found some productive things I like to do yet (idea credit of productive things one likes to do to ET. I like that way of simplifying the meaning of life and it has helped me. Another thing I’m grateful for). I asked for career advice many years ago and you suggested programming. I’ve tried different bootcamps and books on and off but was never able to stick with it. I could try again and post to FI to help me learn but it also just might not be a good fit for me. So far the things I’ve enjoyed seem to relate to helping people, either in person or online, as I enjoyed a community manager role at a coworking space and doing the same for an online community. I also enjoyed doing a podcast with other people for some time, although the editing, guest research, thumbnail design and title ideation was a lot of work and I ended up simplifying a lot to avoid those things, making solo videos instead. I stopped trying to succeed at it financially and just do it for fun and self-reflection now (kinda like freewriting).
  • How to use CF to be happier/more fulfilled.
  • How to use CF to be a better friend/improve my interpersonal relationships. Things like mutual preferences and problem solving, avoiding coercing other people, choosing good friends over time, cultivating meaningful relationships and so on.
  • How to get better at voicing my intuition and being more true to myself so that I betray myself less. I think part of this might be related to first-handedness too.

I want to find some way to participate in the community in a productive way, but I can already see that my tendency to ramble and be unfocussed about topics is still problematic. I have accepted that if I can’t, I’m okay with just reading instead. That has been enjoyable. I could also make a habit of just posting on things I like to say that I liked them and why.

Mostly I think I’m more accepting of the different possible outcomes and less trying to pressure myself to be good at philosophy and CF.

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I would also like to learn to be less fearful about posting in general. I don’t know if fear is the right word but there’s this kind of sinking feeling in my stomach and I hesitate before hitting post, double-checking the post and second-guessing myself. Maybe it’s a sense of trepidation or uncertainty because I don’t know what will happen after I post. I want to learn to have a positive anticipation rather than a mixed or negative one. I think that’s why I was mostly posting in Friendly, but then I also felt like I was missing out on what I should be facing, which was unbounded criticism. But I’m going to pressure myself less to seek out unbounded criticism when I’m not ready for it yet.

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One more thing I’m appreciative of from FI/CF:
* Being more open and tolerant of people, including myself. I’ve discovered lots of strange things about myself and I’ve been able to accept them more rather than shunning those parts of myself. When I meet people who express some unique traits that might be weird, I actually like asking them more about it and I see their eyes light up because I’m genuinely curious rather than judging them for it. I think FI/CF helped me move in that direction.

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I would update this why to a more honest representation of my real why (I think):

I think my real objective is to get to participate and belong and feel like part of the community. I think that’s more important to me than learning CF, although I do want to get better at CF and philosophy and thinking. I want to be able to make better decisions. But I think first and foremost I’m driven by a need to belong and feel useful in whatever community I’m in. If I feel like I’m a burden or a harm, I tend to disengage if I can’t figure out how to interact positively instead. I think my self-esteem is tied to my ability to be a positive to whatever community I’m in. If I’m a negative, my self-esteem takes a hit and I struggle to deal with that.

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I was about to post that I also want to figure out how to use CF to get better at not procrastinating things, which I think will come from understanding myself better. But then I realized that I don’t understand CF well at all.

I’m going to try to write what I think CF is, because after looking at the above posts of mine, I feel like I am using CF so broadly as a kind of silver bullet solution to most problems. After I write what I think it is, I’ll quote ET’s writing on it. (I’m not going to look up anything until after I write the below, so I might get a lot of facts wrong)

CF stands for Critical Fallibilism. It’s an evolution of Critical Rationalism, a philosophy by Karl Popper which was based on the fallibilism. Fallibilism means that we can never know for sure whether we are right about something. We must always be open to the possibility that we are wrong, even if we feel very certain or confident. Certainty is just a feeling, not a fact. By seeking out ways in which we are wrong, we can improve our knowledge, and there’s no end to this improvement because we can never be right about everything (or even if we are, we can never know that we are for sure, so we can keep trying to find errors). This process is known as error correction. Critical Rationalism proposed a theory of knowledge creation through error correction that was an alternative to “induction” which proposed that we learn by extrapolating from what we saw to what we didn’t see. (actually I don’t understand induction well at all… I just remember that it’s a common misconception of how knowledge is created)

Critical Fallibilism fixes some issues that Critical Rationalism had, one of which is weighting of ideas e.g. as being somewhat wrong or very wrong or somewhat right or very right. Or 80% right, or 99% certain etc. Critical Fallibilism proposes a Yes/No philosophy instead where ideas are treated as binary in terms of being refuted or unrefuted. A refuted idea has a valid criticism that has not been addressed. A refuted idea has an error in it that hasn’t been addressed. An unrefuted idea has no known criticisms, and thus no known errors. This doesn’t mean it’s guaranteed to be right, and we’re always fallible, so it doesn’t need to be guaranteed for us to move forward with it. We can always investigate it further and try to criticize it to uncover any potential errors and improve our knowledge. This doesn’t make the idea “stronger” or “weaker”. It’s just refuted or unrefuted.

The usefulness of this is that we can make better decisions.

I’m trying to think of what else Critical Fallibilism adds but nothing comes to mind.

Now to quote ET from criticalfallibilism.com:

Critical Fallibilism (CF) is a rational philosophy which explains how to evaluate ideas using decisive, critical arguments and accept only ideas with zero refutations (no known errors). An error is a reason an idea fails at a goal (in a context). CF explains why it’s a mistake to judge how good ideas are, how weighty evidence is or how strong arguments are, or to use credences or degrees of belief. We learn by an evolutionary process focused on error correction, not by induction or justification. CF offers an approach to thinking and decision making focused on qualitative differences not quantitative factors.

CF is an original philosophy developed by Elliot Temple which takes inspiration from Critical Rationalism (Karl Popper), Objectivism (Ayn Rand) and Theory of Constraints (Eli Goldratt). CF advocates policies to enable error correction (like my debate policy) and practicing with ideas so your subconscious can automatically use them.

So some important things I missed:

  • CF takes inspiration from CR, but also Objectivism and ToC
  • An error is a reason an idea fails at a goal (in a context). Also the IGC idea (idea - goal - context together)
  • Evolutionary process. This is important and I missed it.
  • I didn’t mention justification as a refuted alternative
  • I didn’t mention automatization, which I think is a pretty cool feature of CF that makes it possible to infinitely/unboundedly scale one’s ability to think or solve problems. Like ET has probably automatized a lot of advanced stuff that I can’t even consciously do. The whole unconscious incompetence → conscious incompetence → conscious competence → unconscious competence idea. I think that’s pretty inspiring as an aspect of CF. CF emphasizes this as part of learning and growing. So it might seem daunting at first, but with progress, stuff that was really hard at first becomes automatic and effortless later.
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With this in mind now… CF does actually seem like a silver bullet solution for a lot of things.

If I learn to evaluate ideas on Yes/No philosophy and only accept ideas with zero refutations, I’d make a lot less (or zero?) mistakes and I’d make way better decisions. It actually seems kind of superhuman.

If I can figure out how to apply that subconsciously as well, it might help address things like procrastination, depression, anxiety, and more. And since automatization is part of CF, that seems like a natural progression.

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I also mistakely wrote that CF is an evolution of CR. It’s not. It’s an original philosophy that takes inspiration from CR, Oism and ToC. Big distinction worth making.

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A useful post for me:

Practice finding and understanding error correction (and other philosophy concepts) in real life. Build up good intuitions and effective subconscious thinking for simple examples before expecting to be great at complex, abstract philosophy.

If you have a hard time, remember the steps and go through them one by one in order. The steps are considering five things:

  1. Goal

  2. Context (optional)

  3. Goal details (optional)

  4. Potential errors

  5. Error correction mechanisms

For each step, if you have trouble with it, go into brainstorming mode. And if you have trouble with step 4 or 5, then work on 2 and 3 more. If you brainstorm lists with at least 10 things for the first 3 or 4 steps, and you’re still stuck, you can also ask for help at my forum. (You can ask questions regardless of what you’ve done, but people will be more helpful if you put in some effort on your own and share what you did so far.)

If you can’t brainstorm 10 things, you’re probably suppressing your thoughts to try to hide your low quality ideas. In that case, you should practice brainstorming in general with some easy prompts. Brainstorming can be practiced alone as its own skill. It’s generally easier to practice one thing at a time. Break skills up into small chunks to learn separately. Some easy brainstorming prompts to start with are “toys”, “food”, “furniture”, “plants”, “animals”, “minerals”, “machines”, “types of stores”, “kitchen stuff” and “colors”. You should be able to brainstorm over ten things in each category without much difficulty. You could then try somewhat harder prompts (e.g. strategies for winning a footrace), and work your way up to more advanced brainstorming.

This simplifies things and makes it a lot more accessible for me to work on it. I think I enjoy working on CF when at least 1 of 2 things is true:

  • I’m intellectually curious about the topic at hand and naturally enjoying thinking and writing about it.
  • It’s connected to something I’m interested in closely enough that it interests me directly. This makes it feel useful to apply these steps.

Let me try it now with some brainstorming. I’ll put a bold O next to the option that I think is most likely the closest to the answer.

1. Goal:

  • Figure out some productive things to do that I like. O
  • Maybe a career path or my next job.
  • Figure out how to pay my bills long-term.
  • Have/find a purpose.

2. Context:

  • Figuring out what kinds of jobs to apply for or what kind of education/training to pursue to then land those types of jobs.
  • Or figuring out what business to start/freelance work to do.
  • Understanding jobs and careers in general. Maybe explore possible options and lay them out on a spreadsheet.
  • Myself. Figuring out what I like, what my preferences are, maybe listing out what jobs or activities I enjoyed in the past. List things I got paid for in the past so I have some idea of what was productive. Look for common points between the two lists to find things I liked doing that I also got paid for. O
  • My skills and knowledge. Figure out and list what I’m good at, capable of doing, things I can accomplish, results I can deliver.

3. Goal Details:

  • The job or career needs to be enjoyable enough that I don’t quit after 1-2 years like previous jobs. Or I need to figure out some way to make myself capable of enduring a job I don’t enjoy much until I can find a better job. Or learn how to make the job more enjoyable even if it doesn’t start out that way.
  • Maybe if I prioritize higher pay against less enjoyability, I can save up and invest the excess capital to buy myself more freedom to then do things I enjoy more even if they pay less or nothing.

4. Potential Errors:

  • Quitting jobs or activities too early before I’ve used them to learn enough about myself to figure out if I could do them long-term. E.g. quitting programming after one online course.
  • Not exploring all possible avenues for jobs/careers, including unconventional ones, like messaging people to ask to meet for coffee to discuss their job and see if it’s something I might enjoy as my career.
  • Not networking enough or going to events to meet people in person and be exposed to actual companies and people who are looking to hire.
  • Not listing out all the above factors that could be useful information or brainstorming for me to solve this problem.

5. Error Correction Mechanisms (What are things people do to correct errors when figuring this out?):

  • Go to college or university as a way of figuring out which courses I enjoy and which Idon’t, so you get a better idea of what I like.
  • Speak to a career counselor for help.
  • Use a career matching service or test to figure out options.
  • Use a personality test to help narrow down options.
  • Ask people who know me well about what they think might be a good fit for me
  • Read a book like “What colour is your Parachute?” and apply its ideas to make progress on the problem.
  • Volunteer in potential areas of interest to test them out in reality to see if I actually like them.
  • Pick a minimum sticking period for shortlisted options so that I don’t give up on them too early, e.g. 3 months before deciding.
  • Write down problems I experience with an option as I go through it so that I can brainstorm potential solutions before abandoning it completely.
  • Sign up for a temp agency to be exposed to a bunch of jobs I wouldn’t have found otherwise, which already have demand in the market.
  • Look for overlaps between my skills that could create potential for unique careers, sort of the way Eli Goldratt went from Physics to Philosophy and Supply Chain Efficiency and created new knowledge using his skills from both.
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Also really useful for me to understand and apply:

Especially that the only way to fail is to not do the assignment. I legitimately thought that I was failing if I felt bored, disinterested etc. and my way to avoid facing that failure was to quit, which was basically the real failure, ironically done to avoid the fake failure of my emotions.

So what I should practice is:

A) Noticing that I feel bad about doing something I said I’d do or wanted to do.

B) Raising that fact/writing it down.

C) Brainstorming potential causes and solutions, possibly using the Goal, Context, Goal Details, Errors, Error Correction Mechanisms list above.

D) Applying some of the potential solutions

E) Alternatively, or if the above doesn’t work, just try doing something easier or more interesting instead. I can always come back to the original activity later and see if I feel differently about it.

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It’s interesting to me that I posted this feeling fairly pessimistic and helpless (especially towards the end of the post where I said I’m okay with whatever outcome, including only being able to read here, or the outcome of never being good at CF)

And yet now, 2 hours later, after coming across some relevant posts (Practice Thinking in Terms of Error Correction and Student Information) I suddenly feel way more optimistic and the problem seems much more approachable and solvable.

Kinda goes to show that it’s really unpredictable to figure out what will make a difference next, and that just one or two pieces of information can completely change my outlook on things.

Maybe this also means I should be much more tentative with my outlook on things, knowing that it can change so rapidly at any time.

I guess that’s what fallibilism is.

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I had a similar feeling about posting where it was difficult to press send after making a post. Making the post was also really hard cuz I kept changing and editing things so it sounded ok or correct. That was really difficult to go through.

I don’t know a lot about what’s helped me, but what I think has was making discussion trees or paragraph trees before replying to someone. I think I get really hung up on making a discussion mistake that’s really hard to fix, and I think that’s something I could work on right now, but me making the discussion trees helps with satisfying the part of myself that wants to listen and write correctly but also the part of myself that’s ok with making mistakes.

If you’re interested in discussion trees, you can find links to articles here:

When I do make a discussion tree, it helps me see what people post as separate ideas, and those separate ideas are easier to understand. That let’s me catch stuff that I wouldn’t have understood if I didn’t do the trees in the first place. It also helps me feel better about writing out a response cuz I understand more about what the other person is saying.

I think I can use discussion trees somewhat automatically in my head while reading, but it still takes time and conscious attention to do. I try to do them in my head sometimes to respond to others quickly.

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Wow, I was dealing with anxious thinking for a long time while doing philosophy work, and I didn’t connect it to it being a sign that something is going wrong. Not until you quoted that part and you talking about practicing noticing bad feelings. Thank you.

I think I want to work on what’s going wrong now instead of treating the anxiety as a separate thing. I don’t know why I was treating it as a separate thing from learning.

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I’m glad you enjoyed them. :slight_smile:

I think both of those sound cool!

Idk if it’s any help, but I think most of us are just ~beginners so we shouldn’t expect to be perfect and 100% polished and error-free.

Even if you make a boatload of mistakes, others could learn from that! :slight_smile: So you wouldn’t be a burden. (Though I’m not sure exactly what you had in mind, maybe I’m misinterpreting your fear.)

I’ve just starting the Yes or No Philosophy product so I’m looking forward to this. I had similar thoughts. Besides, I’d like to be superhuman, ha! (Or at least more rational due to automatizing better thinking methods.)

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Welcome back. Good luck.

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Thank you

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Sounds good. That’s a good goal

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I’m reading a book called Influence by Robert Cialdini. I’m on mobile atm so I can’t quote sections conveniently but two parts stand out to me so far:

  1. He shares this fact about mother turkeys being like automatons. If they hear the sound of a baby turkey going cheep cheep, they will protect and feed it, even if it is another species that is just mimicking the sound. This reminded me of previous discussions in FI about animal intelligence and how they are like robots.
  2. Later in the book he shares a study about how laugh tracks work and lead to more laughter from an audience, and the audience rages the jokes funnier. This is true despite audiences saying they dislike laugh tracks. He compares this automatic social proof the laugh track produces to be similar to the sound of baby turkeys going cheep cheep.

I wonder how related this is to the idea of being second-handed, and whether practice can help me become less automatically affected by social proof like this.

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Ages ago, I was curious about the claim that humans have no instincts. So I read about fixed-action patterns (FAP) (a type of instinct) that get triggered by certain stimuli. One example is the egg-retrieval behavior of greylag geese. If the goose notices an egg has rolled away from its nest, it will use its beak to push the egg back into the nest.

But, amusingly, this egg-retrieval FAP/instinct can be triggered by non-eggs (e.g., putting a door knob near its nest) and the instinct/FAP (of nudging the egg back into the nest) will continue even if the egg/stimulus is removed (IOW, it’ll continue using its beak to nudge nothing/an imaginary egg) (source):

If the egg is removed from the goose during the performance of egg-rolling, the bird will continue with the behavior, pulling its head back as if an imaginary egg is still being maneuvered.[5] It has been shown that the greylag will also attempt to retrieve other egg-shaped objects, such as a golf ball, door knob, or even a model egg too large to have possibly been laid by the goose itself (i.e. a supernormal stimulus).

That’s a good point. Feeling that something as funnier merely because others laughed seems like a good example of subconscious second-handedness.

I think it’s definitely something that one could practice and get better at. (But there might be better things to practice.)

Another random example that comes to mind is feeling that something is important merely because it is on the news. When, in reality, a lot of super important stuff doesn’t get covered. Like I think approx 100k ppl die of aging every day, yet the news will cover a shark attack or whatever.