# Learnable Skills

*Epistemic Status: Journal*

There are problem classes that I was bad at fixing where I implicitly judged them as something fixed, that I couldn't change. Followed by learning that *actually* there was something I could do. That there was a learnable skill involved the skill was just not obvious. I have yet to ask other people whether they had similar experiences.

This idea is somewhat related to this post from Scott Alexander on [adult developmental milestones](https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/11/03/what-developmental-milestones-are-you-missing/). 

Examples
========

1.  When I was in middle school I regularly forgot stuff like my school bag. Being disorganized was kind of part of my identity. I used to joke that I would have to be so good at my job that I could afford a secretary to keep my life in order.
    1.  In February 2018 I started to listen to the [Cortex](https://www.relay.fm/cortex)-Podcast. Listening to the Podcast was genuinely enjoyable. I learned that to be organized you could start to do funny things like setting reminders, Writing down all the things you have to remember down, I learned about the Pomodoro Technique and the GTD-Method. I started timetracking and setting reminders with [a watch](https://www.tassiloneubauer.com/docs/android-watch-gone.html).
2.  In tenth standard I listened to a podcast about conspiracy theories and how even very intelligent people can fall prey to them. Sadly the podcast's hosts had no principled reason why they thought they were doing better than those people believing into the conspiracy theories. From this point on I worried from time to time which things I was believing in were actually just conspiracy theories or stupid like all the people around me.
    1.  It was a year later that I watched [the Crash Course Series on Fact-Checking](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLlv2o6UfTU): The main idea is that there are a few simple actions you can take to evaluate evidence. This is not yet about learning about using the evidence you have as efficiently as possible. This helps more with how to identify propaganda.
    2.  It was a thrilling experience to learn that there were things I could do to address my problem. I could learn to recognize misleading information by practicing the skills from this course (Doing exciting stuff like reading "about"-pages and reading what other sources say about the organization/claim I was investigating).
3.  My main takeaway from "Superforecasting" by Tetlock had been that Prediction/being right about the future was something you could learn and get better at. At some point I had this awakening where I noticed that all my political beliefs were living in some hypothetical ideal and just world and then I noticed I could just dump most of my convictions there.
4.  Rationality from AI to Zombies Mostly the same takeaway as Superforecasting. Predictions are great. Try to have a good model of reality. Turned me from an Agnostic into an Atheist by making me realize my world model was disconnected from my God-model, so I might as well get rid of it.
5.  I remember when I learned first order logic with a textbook as preparation for university that I wish someone had told me about that years ago. Suddenly I had all of this language to express mathematical ideas when before I would not have known how to express them in a way how I could see how they ground out in math.

With the first two cases, I had the luck to find a medium I liked to solve a problem I had. The first one was something I didn't want to face before I stumbled over the podcast which made it easy to engage with. While the second one was something where I had been actively seeking a solution. With the third, I stumbled upon an Insight where I didn't even know that this skillset I was lacking existed. Rationality from AI to Zombies I was deliberately picking up because I hoping there were further parts of the skillset that I missed.

To be honest though, I don't think I made a lot of progress on more general skills ever since university. I can read my notes from 2 years ago and I can't see how past me is an absolute idiot. Sure past me knew less about some object level things I learned about in the past 2 years, but my takes from 2 years ago are not significantly more confused than my takes from 3 months ago. Should I be concerned? Have I picked all the low hanging fruit worth investing in or are the other fruit just harder to find? What other valuable skills that would be obviously worth prioritizing am I oblivious to? It is probably more subtle things. Things I have heard of before and that I practiced a little, but where probably not the full form of the skill has transfered. Like [noticing confusion](https://www.lesswrong.com/s/zpCiuR4T343j9WkcK).

Or how to properly reflect on my work. For example I have noticed recently that I don't enjoy reflecting on my work a lot and that part of me believes it is a waste of my time, but I haven't taken the time to figure out what's wrong which is probably worth it. Maybe I should take a timer and track where I am wasting most of my time. I remember reading in one of Alex Turner's posts how this was helping him identify places where he was wasting most of his time when studying math (like looking up definitions). I notice I feel averse to even try this. I think the part that is averse to trying this has the objection that trying to optimize the process of learning is taking away cognitive capacity that could be spent on the object-level thing I am trying to understand. Especially when doing research, I like to just be really immersed in it and follow down trails that feel alive and interesting. I feel like maybe my curiosity-driven parts feel like this is my optimising parts, taking away all the fun. I guess that concern is valid. I'll think about how to do more reflection while making sure it doesn't kill the fun. Reflecting here also made me realise I should probably read [listening to wisdom](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5yFj7C6NNc8GPdfNo/subskills-of-listening-to-wisdom). I feel like I have most of the prerequisites there? Will give it a more thorough read at some point. Now I "just" need someone wise to listen to.