Reminds me of a couple things: Nils van der Poel (Olympic speed skater record holder) and his How to Skate a 10k [0]:

> It is not the one who suffers the most during preseason who prospers when the winter comes, but he who gets the most aerobically fit.

and Tyler Cowen on Nervous Nellies [1]:

> Yes. Because ultimately the nervous Nellies, they're not philosophically sophisticated, they're overindulging in their own neuroticism when you get right down to it. So it's not like there's some brute 'let's be a builder' view and then in contrast there's some deeper wisdom that the real philosophers pursue. It's: you be a builder or you're a nervous Nelly. Take your pick. I say be a builder.

and the classic Teddy Roosevelt speech [2]:

> It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

The Cave is fine, but at some point you need to test the thing you're in there for. At some point, refusing to test an untested belief is just protecting a fantasy.

[0] https://www.howtoskate.se/

[1] https://x.com/JosephNWalker/status/1452772819792642054

[2] https://www.worldfuturefund.org/Documents/maninarena.htm

It reminds me of an old series of blog posts by Eliezer Yudkowsky[1] where he talked about how there's "doing your best" which is often more like just doing what's expected of you, and then there's really trying, like actually thinking hard about the best way to achieve something and carrying that out, and then even above that there are levels of effort that usually only come into play in extraordinary situations where you become willing to take desperate risks to achieve a goal.

[1] https://www.lesswrong.com/s/3szfzHZr7EYGSWt92

YUP.

>> you need to test the thing you're in there for. At some point, refusing to test an untested belief is just protecting a fantasy.

"One test is worth a thousand opinions"

Indeed, if the opinions are about yourself or your capabilities, not testing them soon is truly indulging in fantasy. (and nevermind how much you learn from the tests or competition itself)

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