Poker and Productivity (with Chris Sparks)
1. Prioritize Societal Wisdom
Prioritize and work towards increasing societal wisdom and rationality to mitigate risks from rapidly advancing technology and complex global challenges, as humanity’s power is growing faster than its wisdom.
2. Cultivate Compassionate Wisdom
Develop wisdom that focuses on clarifying goals, understanding trade-offs, and integrating compassion to ensure that increased power benefits all conscious beings and promotes thriving.
3. Foster Widespread Cooperation
Actively seek and implement strategies for widespread cooperation, especially among adversarial groups, to address complex global challenges like nuclear weapons or climate change, which cannot be solved unilaterally.
4. Improve Truth-Seeking Disagreement
Engage in empirical research and implement interventions (e.g., training programs, moderation, specific protocols) to make people better at discerning truth through conversation and constructive disagreement.
5. Strive for Constructive Disagreement
Aim for disagreements where all parties become more confident in the truth afterward, rather than just arguing or fighting, to make people better at figuring out the truth.
6. Enhance Individual Decision-Making
Actively seek ways to improve your decision-making and belief-formation processes to enhance individual well-being and achieve personal goals.
7. Practice Moral Trade
Engage in ‘moral trade’ by recognizing that others have different values, allowing for cooperation and mutual benefit rather than constant argument or conflict.
8. Avoid Moral Absolutism
When values conflict, focus on the tension between your values and theirs rather than declaring them ‘wrong,’ to clarify the nature of the disagreement and open avenues for cooperation.
9. Identify Neutral Areas for Trade
Recognize topics where you are neutral towards others’ values, as these present opportunities for ‘moral trade’ and cooperation.
10. Be Honest About Your Values
Be truthful with yourself about what you truly care about, avoiding the trap of sacrificing genuine values for what you think you’re supposed to care about.
11. Care Beyond Experiences
Allow yourself to care about things beyond just conscious experiences, such as direct events or non-experiential outcomes, as this expands your capacity for value.
12. Recognize Intrinsic Desires
Understand that some desires, like wanting to be attractive or for your children to love you, may be fundamental intrinsic values, not just means to other ends or beliefs about them.
13. Distinguish Wanting vs. Endorsing
Practice distinguishing between what you actually want (e.g., liking smoking) and what you endorse or want to want (e.g., endorsing not smoking), as these are distinct psychological mechanisms.
14. Minimize Intuition in Analysis
When engaging in rigorous philosophical or analytical thinking, consciously try to minimize the influence of your intuitions on your conclusions and arguments.
15. Hone Argumentation Skills
Develop skills in analyzing arguments and making subtle distinctions, as these are useful benefits of studying philosophy and other analytical fields.
16. Consult Philosophers for Problems
If working on a specific problem, consult philosophers who have explored related issues to gain deeper insights and avoid conceptual confusion.
17. Question Argumentation Training
Be aware that training to argue for any position (as in some philosophy or debate) may not improve your ability to discern truth; focus on truth-seeking, not just persuasive argumentation.
18. Study Philosophy for Interest
Pursue philosophy if you are intrinsically interested and curious about its fundamental questions, as it can be a fulfilling intellectual endeavor.
19. Consider Economics First
For most people, consider studying economics before philosophy, as it may offer more practical benefits.
20. Use Daily Ritual Program
Utilize the free ‘Daily Ritual’ program from Clearer Thinking to learn simple techniques for forming new, beneficial daily habits.
21. Answer Life-Changing Questions
Answer the ’life-changing questions’ from Clearer Thinking to gain new and important insights about yourself.
22. Collaborate on Truth-Seeking
If interested in improving truth-seeking through disagreement, consider collaborating with Ronnie Fernandez or utilizing his existing infrastructure for empirical work on this topic.