✳flâneur — a map of the web's best reading

Thinking By The Clock — LessWrong

lesswrong.com · 5,364 words · saved by 1 readers

I'm sure Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality taught me some of the obvious, overt things it set out to teach. Looking back on it a decade after I first read it however, what strikes me most strongly are often the brief, tossed off bits in the middle of the flow of a story. Fred and George exchanged worried glances. "I can't think of anything," said George. "Neither can I," said Fred. "Sorry." Harry stared at them. And then Harry began to explain how you went about thinking of things. It had been known to take longer than two seconds, said Harry. -Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, Chapter 25. This was the very first lesson of LessWrong-style Rationality I actually started trying to deliberately teach myself as a result of my contact with HPMoR and the sequences. This is the powerful technique of actually Thinking By The Clock. I used to call it Thinking For Five Minutes, but  that technique name is a misnomer. It's practically a lie-to-children really. Sometimes I thi

x Thinking By The Clock — LessWrong Five minute timers Techniques Rationality World Modeling Curated 200 Thinking By The Clock by Screwtape 8th Nov 2023 10 min read 29 200 I. I'm sure Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality taught me some of the obvious, overt things it set out to teach. Looking back on it a decade after I first read it however, what strikes me most strongly are often the brief, tossed off bits in the middle of the flow of a story. Fred and George exchanged worried glances. "I can't think of anything," said George. "Neither can I," said Fred. "Sorry." Harry stared at them.

Explore this link on the map →

saved by

related reading