I think I gained a lot from reading blogs and writing comments on the internet, but of course it is very costly in terms of time. I think I’m happy with the benefits, but I have a poor understanding of the counterfactual (like if I spent the time reading books or doing small programming projects or something else instead). Also to be clear I mostly started writing internet comments because it was the natural thing to do, and not because I had any pretensions that it’d be useful. I would be very surprised if commenting on the internet is anywhere close to optimal, as my initial reasons for doing so are far from virtuous.
In addition, my understanding/guess is that internet engagement is substantially more emotionally/cognitively costly to other people than for me. Still, you may find it an attractive option until you have better ones.
If you find commenting on the Forum or LW during times when you’re very tired/low-energy unappealing or scary, consider commenting in other communities with reasonably high epistemic quality (eg analytic blogs about your day job, Q&A sites like StackExchange, strategy articles if you play a competitive game).
I’ve also heard good things about podcasts like 80k, though I have not gained as much from them myself relative to (inter)active participation. I’ve enjoyed the relatively few documentaries I’ve finished watching though I have not found them to be too useful.
Forecasting on platforms like Metaculus and GJO is another option.
I think I gained a lot from reading blogs and writing comments on the internet, but of course it is very costly in terms of time. I think I’m happy with the benefits, but I have a poor understanding of the counterfactual (like if I spent the time reading books or doing small programming projects or something else instead). Also to be clear I mostly started writing internet comments because it was the natural thing to do, and not because I had any pretensions that it’d be useful. I would be very surprised if commenting on the internet is anywhere close to optimal, as my initial reasons for doing so are far from virtuous.
In addition, my understanding/guess is that internet engagement is substantially more emotionally/cognitively costly to other people than for me. Still, you may find it an attractive option until you have better ones.
If you find commenting on the Forum or LW during times when you’re very tired/low-energy unappealing or scary, consider commenting in other communities with reasonably high epistemic quality (eg analytic blogs about your day job, Q&A sites like StackExchange, strategy articles if you play a competitive game).
I’ve also heard good things about podcasts like 80k, though I have not gained as much from them myself relative to (inter)active participation. I’ve enjoyed the relatively few documentaries I’ve finished watching though I have not found them to be too useful.
Forecasting on platforms like Metaculus and GJO is another option.