# Training Regime Day 0: Introduction

# Introduction

The sad truth of life is that there is a difference between knowing how to do something and actually being able to do it. Knowledge about how various instrumental rationality techniques work is not a substitute for actually being able to use them in practice. As the [story](https://towardsdatascience.com/man-plans-god-laughs-the-planning-fallacy-ea9bcacc16f4) goes, even Kahneman committed the planning fallacy when writing a textbook about the planning fallacy.

The Center for Applied Rationality (CFAR) holds workshops where they teach people rationality. I've been to one of these workshops and think that they do it quite well. Part of this is the content, which is a collection of rationality techniques that have been extensively iterated into strong thinking tools. Part of this is the teaching, which has likely been honed many hours. In addition to these two things, I claim that a large part of people actually learning how to do applied rationality at a CFAR workshop is because the environment is such that people _actually practice applied rationality._

It's an obvious truth that practicing something makes you better at it. Unfortunately, it's also an obvious truth that most people never commit themselves to practicing things that they want to get better at. Especially if those things are hard-to-practice thinking tools.

CFAR recommends that workshop participants spend a fair amount of time figuring out applied rationality training regimes, ways to practice the skills that they've learned in day-to-day life. The obvious training regime is to _actually do the thing._ Sometimes this works. Most of the time it doesn't.

An easier training regime is reading a single blog post every day and doing a ~15 minute rationality technique exercise. This is what I hope to provide for you. This sequence might be thought of as an updated version of the [hammertime sequence](https://www.lesswrong.com/s/qRxTKm7DAftSuTGvj), with a slightly broader scope.

(In the process, I am also executing one of my own training regimes, which is something like "write 30 blog posts about my take on CFAR content.")

# Contents

Disclaimer: this is _not_ CFAR's take on applied rationality. This is my take on CFAR's take on applied rationality. 

By my own estimate, CFAR contains approximately 30 hours of content. I will produce one blog post for each hour, for a total of 30 blog posts. The contents will be as follows (subject to change):

(It's like a 30 day juice cleanse but with rationality instead of juice.)

1. What is applied rationality?
2. Searching for bugs
3. Tips and tricks
4. Murphyjitsu
5. TAPs
6. Seeking Sense
7. Goal Factoring
8. Noticing
9. Double Crux
10. Systemization
11. Socratic Ducking
12. Focusing
13. Resolve Cycles
14. Traffic Jams
15. CoZE
16. Hamming Questions
17. Deflinching and Lines of Retreat
18. Negative Visualization
19. Hamming Questions for Potted Plants
20. OODA Loop
21. Executing Intentions
22. Murphyjitsu 2
23. TAPs 2
24. Resolve Cycles 2
25. Recursive Self-Improvement
26. TAPs for Tutoring
27. CoZE 2
28. Training Regimes
29. Final Exam
30. Postmortem

# Exercise

Describe some of the training regimes that you engage in, both intentional and unintentional. Consider whether or not the unintentional training regimes practice skills that you want. Consider whether or not you have good training regimes in place for skills you wish to acquire; if you do not, speculate on how to create some.