Rationality materials

To read Less Wrong systematically, read the Sequences. The Core Sequences are a collection of posts that focus on fundamental rationality skills, and they are the foundation for most of the concepts discussed on Less Wrong. The Core Sequences were written by Eliezer Yudkowsky between 2006 and 2009 on economist Robin Hanson's blog Overcoming Bias.

The best way to read through the Sequences is via the Sequence index, which lists Yudkowsky's posts in logical order.

There is also a dependency tree of all of Eliezer Yudkowsky's posts from November 2006 to December 2008 that can be used as a more thorough index of the material. In addition, Less Wrong users have created several alternative indexes of the Sequences: 1 2

How to Run a Successful Less Wrong Meetup is a booklet that helps readers organize better meetups, available in nicely formatted pdf and Google Docs version (plain formatting, without images).

Here is a short sample of posts from the Sequences:

Core Sequences
Map and Territory What Do We Mean By "Rationality"? What is Evidence? An Intuitive Explanation of Bayes' Theorem (at yudkowsky.net) Mysterious Answers to Mysterious Questions Making Beliefs Pay Rent Applause lights Hindsight Devalues Science Mysterious Answers to Mysterious Questions A Human's Guide to Words Taboo Your Words Disguised Queries How An Algorithm Feels From Inside	How To Actually Change Your Mind A Fable of Science and Politics The Fallacy of Gray Politics is the Mind-Killer Knowing About Biases Can Hurt People The Bottom Line The Proper Use of Humility No One Can Exempt You From Rationality's Laws Reductionism Mind Projection Fallacy Righting a Wrong Question Explaining vs. Explaining Away Reductionism

Other Sequences

Positivism, Self Deception, and Neuroscience The Apologist and the Revolutionary How Not to Lost an Argument The Mystery of the Haunted Rationalist Decision Theory of Newcomblike Problems Confusion About Newcomb is Confusion About Counterfactuals The Science of Winning at Life Scientific Self-Help: The State of Our Knowledge How to Beat Procrastination How to Be Happy Metaethics sequence Where Recursive Justification Hits Bottom No Universally Compelling Arguments Sorting Pebbles Into Correct Heaps Priming and Implicit Association Never Leave Your Room Fun theory Eutopia is Scary Complex Novelty

Living Luminously Seven Shiny Stories Ureshiku Naritai You Are Likely To Be Eaten By A Grue Challenging the Difficult Tsuyoku Naritai! (I Want To Become Stronger) Something to Protect Decision Analysis Value of Information: Four Examples 5 Axioms of Decision Making Rationality and Philosophy Philosophy: A Diseased Discipline Philosophy by Humans, 1 The Craft and the Community Why Our Kind Can't Cooperate Raising the Sanity Waterline Quantum Physics Quantum Explanations Can You Prove Two Particles Are Identical?

In addition to the Sequences, Less Wrong contributors blog about cognitive science, statistics, philosophy, and other topics related to epistemic and instrumental rationality. An archive of all of Less Wrong's articles, dating back to 2006, can be found here. Here is a sampling of content from the main blog:

Heuristics and biases The Cognitive Science of Rationality Conjunction Fallacy Anchoring and Adjustment The Bias You Didn't Expect Epistemology Epistemic Luck The Power of Positivist Thinking Identity and signalling A Theory of Identity Cached Selves The Curse of Identity Have no Heroes, and no Villains Don't Revere The Bearer of Good Info Intellectual Hipsters and Meta-Contrarianism Keep Your Identity Small Scholarship and learning Understanding Your Understanding The Neglected Virtue of Scholarship Some Heuristics for Evaluating the Soundness of the Academic Mainstream in Unfamiliar Fields Moral philosophy Torture vs. Dust Specks A Much Better Life? Doing your good deed for the day Statistics What is Bayesianism? Simpson's Paradox Frequentist Statistics are Frequently Subjective

Charity Money: The Unit of Caring Efficient Charity: Do Unto Others... Optimizing Fuzzies And Utilons: The Altruism Chip Jar Belief calibration Confidence levels inside and outside an argument Self-fulfilling correlations 1001 PredictionBook Nights Privileging the hypothesis Decision theory Decision Theories: A Less Wrong Primer Newcomb's Problem and Regret of Rationality Eight Short Studies on Excuses If a tree falls on Sleeping Beauty... Akrasia, motivation, and self-improvement Ugh fields Humans are not automatically strategic Levels of Action Action and habit Compartmentalization in epistemic and instrumental rationality A Suite of Pragmatic Considerations in Favor of Niceness Existential risk and risks from artificial intelligence So You Want To Save The World That Alien Message The Hanson-Yudkowsky AI-Foom Debate