Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: The Best Tacit Knowledge Videos on Every Subject, published by Parker Conley on March 31, 2024 on LessWrong.
TL;DR
Tacit knowledge is extremely valuable. Unfortunately, developing tacit knowledge is usually bottlenecked by apprentice-master relationships.
Tacit
Knowledge
Videos could widen this bottleneck. This post is a Schelling point for aggregating these videos - aiming to be
The Best Textbooks on Every Subject for Tacit Knowledge Videos. Scroll down to the list if that's what you're here for. Post videos that highlight tacit knowledge in the comments and I'll add them to the post. Experts in the videos include Stephen Wolfram, Holden Karnofsky, Andy Matuschak, Jonathan Blow, George Hotz, and others.
What are Tacit Knowledge Videos?
Samo Burja claims YouTube has opened the gates for a
revolution in tacit knowledge transfer. Burja defines tacit knowledge as follows:
Tacit knowledge is knowledge that can't properly be transmitted via verbal or written instruction, like the ability to create great art or assess a startup. This tacit knowledge is a form of
intellectual dark matter, pervading society in a million ways, some of them trivial, some of them vital. Examples include woodworking, metalworking, housekeeping, cooking, dancing, amateur public speaking, assembly line oversight, rapid problem-solving, and heart surgery.
In my observation, domains like housekeeping and cooking have already seen many benefits from this revolution. Could tacit knowledge in domains like
research,
programming,
mathematics, and
business be next? I'm not sure, but maybe this post will help push the needle forward.
For the purpose of this post, Tacit Knowledge Videos are any video that communicates "knowledge that can't properly be transmitted via verbal or written instruction". Here are some examples:
Neel Nanda, who leads the Google DeepMind mechanistic interpretability team, has a
playlist of "Research Walkthroughs". AI Safety research is discussed a lot around here. Watching research videos could help instantiate what AI research really looks and feels like.
GiveWell has
public audio recordings of its Board Meetings from 2007-2020. Participants include Elie Hassenfeld, Holden Karnofsky, Timothy Ogden, Rob Reich, Tom Rutledge, Brigid Slipka, Cari Tuna, Julia Wise, and others. Influential business meetings are not usually made public. I feel I have learned some about business communication and business operations, among other things, by listening to these recordings.
Andy Matuschak recorded himself
studying Quantum Mechanics with Dwarkesh Patel and
doing
research. Andy Matushak "helped build iOS at Apple and led R&D at Khan Academy". I found it interesting to have a peek into Matushak's spaced repetition practice and various studying heuristics and habits, as well as his process of digesting and taking notes on papers.
Call to Action
Share links to Tacit Knowledge Videos below! Share them frivolously! These videos are uncommon - the bottleneck to the YouTube knowledge transfer revolution is quantity, not quality. I will add the shared videos to the post. Here are the loose rules:
Recall a video that you've seen that communicates tacit knowledge - "knowledge that can't properly be transmitted via verbal or written instruction". A rule of thumb for sharing: could a reader find this video through one or two YouTube searches? If not, share it.
Post the title and the URL of the video.
Provide information indicating why the expert in the video is credible. (However, don't let this last rule stop you from sharing a video! Again - quantity, not quality.)[1]
For information on how to best use these videos,
Cedric Chin and
Jacob Steinhardt have some potentially relevant practical advice. Andy Matushak also has some
working notes about this idea generally.
Additionally, DM or email me (email in L...

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