Self-Improvement and Research Ethics (with Rob Wiblin)
Spencer Greenberg and Rob Wiblin discuss self-improvement techniques, research ethics, and prediction markets. Rob shares his hierarchy for solving problems and insights on long-form content.
Deep Dive Analysis
9 Topic Outline
Self-Improvement Hierarchy: Buying, Skills, Systems, Personality
Self-Experimentation: Value, Skepticism, and Effect Sizes
The Indispensable Role of a Line Manager
Why PhD Programs Are a Mental Health Nightmare
The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Long-Form Audio Conversations
The Complexity and Introspection of Human Values
Critique of Research Ethics and Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)
Prediction Markets: Utility, Biases, and Reliability
Improving Personal and Public Forecasting
6 Key Concepts
Self-Improvement Hierarchy
A framework for solving personal problems by prioritizing interventions from easiest to hardest: first, buying a solution; second, learning a specific skill; third, building a systemic workaround; and only as a last resort, attempting to gradually change one's personality.
Actualism vs. Possibleism
A philosophical distinction regarding how one should judge actions; actualism suggests judging based on what one will actually do, given one's nature, whereas possibleism judges based on what one could possibly do. Rob argues for planning based on actualism to avoid frustration.
Human Challenge Trials
A type of clinical trial where participants are intentionally infected with a pathogen after receiving a vaccine or treatment. These trials are used to rapidly assess efficacy, typically in cases where a cure exists for the illness.
Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)
Ethics review boards, often composed of bureaucrats, that oversee and approve research involving human subjects, particularly in institutions receiving US government funding. They are criticized for conservatism and slowing down research.
Concision (Chomsky's idea)
The phenomenon where media formats with short time slots (e.g., 5-10 minute TV segments) limit the types of ideas that can be communicated. This effectively censors complex or non-mainstream views that require longer explanations to be fully understood and justified.
Dragonfly Eye Prediction
A method of forecasting future events by combining multiple credible forecasts (from prediction markets, polls, expert models, etc.) using a weighted average. This approach aims to leverage diverse sources to arrive at a more robust final estimate.
10 Questions Answered
The most effective strategies involve routing around personality weaknesses by first buying a solution, then learning a specific skill, then building systemic workarounds, and only as a last resort, attempting to gradually shift one's personality.
Personality changes require sustained, gradual effort over long periods and consume significant attention and emotional energy that could be used for more productive pursuits.
Valid results can be obtained if the intervention produces an effect far outside one's normal distribution of experiences, or if the effects are immediate and repeatedly observed, allowing for quick causality assessment.
A line manager (or a similar accountability partner) provides a regular check-in, helps identify and brainstorm solutions for problems, and assists in setting goals, which can be indispensable for productivity and mental well-being.
PhD programs often lack consistent line management or clear feedback, involve large chunks of work with delayed public feedback, and can be driven by instrumental goals (qualification) rather than intrinsic motivation, leading to mental health challenges.
Long-form conversations are highly engaging, allow for deeper exploration of complex topics, enable faster and more subtle communication than text, and make tacit knowledge from experts accessible to a mass audience.
While some people prefer short content, many listeners will stick with long-form audio for hours if the topic is engaging and niche, often consuming it in blocks or while multitasking, and can even use speed adjustments to enhance focus.
Intuitions about values can be misled by positive associations from lived experience, making it hard to truly isolate a concept's intrinsic value from its instrumental benefits, especially in highly abstract or impossible scenarios.
IRBs are criticized for being overly conservative, bureaucratic, and unaccountable, often delaying or blocking important research over minor procedural issues, especially in non-medical contexts, and for having misaligned incentives that prioritize preventing visible harm over enabling significant societal benefits.
Despite potential distortions from partisan betting or low liquidity, prediction markets are generally as good as or better than other forecasting sources, providing valuable public information on the likelihood of future events.
31 Actionable Insights
1. Prioritize Buying Solutions
When facing a problem, first consider buying a product that directly solves it (e.g., an ergonomic chair for back pain), as this often requires less sustained effort than trying to change your personality.
2. Learn Specific Skills
If buying a solution isn’t feasible, focus on learning concrete skills (e.g., using spreadsheets for budgeting) as this is generally easier than fundamental personality change.
3. Build Systemic Workarounds
Create systems or routines to compensate for personal weaknesses (e.g., calendar reminders for forgetfulness) rather than attempting to change your inherent nature.
4. Personality Change as Last Resort
View fundamental personality shifts (e.g., becoming more conscientious) as a last resort for self-improvement, as they require sustained, gradual effort and consume significant emotional energy.
5. Model Future Self Realistically
When planning or adopting new habits, predict your future behavior based on your past actions, assuming you’ll be your ‘somewhat lazy’ self rather than an idealized version, to set achievable goals.
6. Bet on Your Future Actions
Before committing to a new behavior or tool, ask yourself if you would bet on your future self consistently following through, which helps provide a more objective assessment of likelihood.
7. Act for All Similar Situations
When making a decision, consider that your current action might set a precedent for all sufficiently similar future situations, potentially motivating you to make the ‘right’ choice (use with caution to avoid self-criticism).
8. Establish a Line Manager Check-in
Arrange a regular (e.g., weekly) meeting with a trusted colleague or mentor to report on progress, discuss challenges, and plan for the next period, providing crucial accountability and problem-solving support.
9. Chunk Projects for Motivation
Break down large, long-term projects into smaller, manageable chunks (10-20 hours of work) that allow for quick completion and immediate feedback, boosting motivation and reducing procrastination.
10. Involve Others for Commitment
If you struggle to finish projects, involve another person who will rely on your completion, as the social reinforcement and desire not to let them down can be a powerful motivator.
11. Re-align Intermediate Goals
Regularly review your intermediate goals to ensure they still align with your ultimate long-term objectives, preventing ‘goal drift’ where the means become confused with the ends.
12. Embrace Quitting Unproductive Work
Be willing to abandon projects that are no longer enjoyable, stimulating, or delivering sufficient value, rather than being trapped by sunk costs or a self-image of always sticking with things.
13. Engage Long-Form Conversations
Seek out and engage with long-form conversations (2-6 hours) to gain deep, nuanced understanding of complex topics and access tacit knowledge not found in shorter formats.
14. Seek Deeper Knowledge Sources
Move beyond popular media to academic papers, specialized podcasts, or direct expert conversations to acquire a more profound and accurate understanding of subjects.
15. Optimize Audio Playback Speed
Adjust the playback speed of audio content (podcasts, audiobooks) to the fastest comfortable rate to maximize information intake and enhance focus by keeping your brain actively engaged.
16. Use Audio to Boost Attention
Listen to audio content during activities like walking or chores to improve focus and attention span, leveraging times when you’re less prone to digital distractions.
17. Focus on Large, Immediate Effects
Prioritize self-experiments for interventions expected to produce very large, immediate, and repeatable effects, as these are easier to detect and provide strong evidence quickly.
18. Consider High-Variance Interventions
Explore high-variance interventions (e.g., certain medications) in self-experiments, provided tail risks are low, as they offer the potential for significant personal benefit even if average effects are small.
19. Expect Experiment Failure
Approach self-experimentation with the realistic expectation that most attempts will not yield desired results, requiring multiple trials (e.g., 5-10) to find one effective solution.
20. Simplify Your Values Model
When exploring your intrinsic values, aim to develop a simpler model (e.g., focusing on well-being) that explains most of your moral intuitions, rather than overcomplicating it to fit every edge case.
21. Use Thought Experiments for Self-Knowledge
Treat thought experiments as opportunities to learn psychological facts about your own values and decision-making processes, even if the scenarios are abstract or difficult to fully imagine.
22. Distrust Extreme Thought Experiments
Be skeptical of intuitions derived from thought experiments that involve impossible, unprecedented, or extremely large-scale scenarios, as human intuition is not well-adapted to such abstractions.
23. Implement Tiered Ethics Review
Advocate for a multi-tiered system of research ethics review, where low-risk studies receive minimal oversight, while high-risk medical interventions undergo rigorous scrutiny.
24. Enable Participant-Driven Ethics Feedback
For low-risk online studies, integrate mechanisms for participants to provide real-time ethical feedback and collectively pause studies if significant concerns arise.
25. Allow Informed Opt-in for Risky Trials
Permit individuals to voluntarily participate in high-risk human challenge trials or experimental treatments with full informed consent, especially when there’s potential for significant societal benefit and appropriate compensation.
26. Shift FDA to Advisory Role
Advocate for the FDA to transition towards an advisory role, clearly labeling unapproved treatments and facilitating systematic data collection, while granting individuals greater autonomy over their medical choices.
27. Improve Systematic Data Collection
Establish robust, systematic methods for collecting comprehensive data on both positive and negative effects of all medical treatments to provide clearer information for patients and regulators.
28. Increase Public Funding for Key Trials
Support increased public funding for trials of promising treatments (e.g., bright light therapy for SAD, head-to-head drug comparisons) that lack commercial incentive but could offer broad societal benefits.
29. Use Prediction Markets as Initial Guide
Consult prediction markets for a preliminary estimate of an event’s likelihood, especially when you lack an initial sense, but be mindful of potential biases, particularly in politically charged topics.
30. Combine Multiple Forecast Sources
For important predictions, synthesize information from various credible sources (e.g., prediction markets, polls, expert forecasters) by assigning weights based on trust, to form a more robust ‘dragonfly eye’ estimate.
31. Train Personal Forecasting Skills
Improve your own prediction accuracy by using calibration tools that provide real-time feedback on thousands of diverse predictions, helping to hone your judgment over time.
7 Key Quotes
I think focusing on that is often a mistake. And then instead people should try to route around those, those issues that they have, or like perhaps the personality weaknesses, the things that they perhaps don't most like about themselves and instead try to solve their problems another way.
Rob Wiblin
If you make plans that based around the idea that in the future, you'll be better and different than you are now, you're just constantly going to be angry with yourself and constantly be frustrated because you're setting things up that are going where it's very likely, it's overwhelmingly likely, just given the kind of person that you are, that you won't be able to follow through.
Rob Wiblin
There's just something unreasonably good about the format of a long conversation between two people.
Rob Wiblin
There's so much knowledge that like nobody's bothered to write a really clear essay explaining it yet.
Spencer Greenberg
The thing that's perhaps funny about that is that those, the things that they were doing were already illegal in almost all cases. They were already crimes.
Rob Wiblin
The equilibrium is an equilibrium for a reason. There's a reason that someone else hasn't already solved this problem.
Rob Wiblin
I don't think the world's mad at all. This is exactly what you'd expect from chimpanzees wearing suits and ties building civilization.
Spencer Greenberg
4 Protocols
Rob's Self-Improvement Hierarchy
Rob Wiblin- Try to buy something that would solve the problem.
- Try to learn a specific skill.
- Build a systemic workaround to the issue.
- Attempt to gradually shift your personality.
Spencer's Morning Routine for Habit Creation
Spencer Greenberg- Design a set of habits to do every morning upon waking.
- Attach a new habit to this existing routine whenever you want to try a new thing.
Spencer's Managerial Approach for Team Members
Spencer Greenberg- Ask: How did things go this week? What did you get done? What problems came up?
- Help brainstorm and problem-solve any issues or blocking points.
- Help set goals for the next week.
- Nudge them back if intermediate goals start to overshadow long-term goals.
Positly's Automated Ethics Review for Online Studies
Spencer Greenberg- At the end of participation, ask study participants a series of questions about whether the study was unethical or frustrating.
- If participants report issues, ask them to explain why.
- Provide an option for participants to pause the study if they believe it should be.
- Automatically stop the study if more than a few participants indicate it should be paused, forcing the researcher to address the concerns.