A thread through the archive
Essays tagged “self-improvement”. Follow an idea across the archive.
A woman reviews her experiences dating men in the Bay Area, analyzing how society's failure to provide clear paths to manhood has created various categories of lost men, and proposes solutions to help future generations.
Scott Alexander discusses the concept of genetic and personal inferiority, arguing that while objective differences exist, framing comparisons in terms of inferiority is unproductive and potentially harmful.
Scott Alexander shares his 118 predictions for 2019, covering politics, economics, technology, and personal matters, with assigned probability percentages for each prediction.
Scott Alexander reflects on reader comments about his review of Jordan Peterson's '12 Rules for Life', discussing interpretations of Peterson's philosophy and its impacts.
Scott Alexander defends rationalists against common criticisms, arguing that the movement is self-aware and actively tries to avoid past mistakes while striving for improvement.
Scott Alexander discusses how people tend to seek advice that reinforces their existing tendencies and proposes considering the opposite of appealing advice.
Scott explains how thoughts and intentions are reinforced separately from actions, using B.F. Skinner's concept of "mental behavior" to show why people often intend to do things but never actually do them.
Scott tests picoeconomics theory by creating a formal written oath to study two hours daily, which successfully works by creating the same psychological pressure as serious deadlines, and he provides practical advice for others to try this technique.
Scott argues that "extreme rationality" (x-rationality) - the formal study of rationality beyond normal intelligent thinking - provides much less practical benefit than the rationalist community believes, estimating a correlation of only 0.1 with success.