“I also realized that if I had actually experienced the past—if I had lived through past scientific revolutions myself, rather than reading about them in history books—I probably would not have made the same mistake again. I would not have come up with another mysterious answer; the first thousand lessons would have hammered home the moral. So (I thought), to feel sufficiently the force of history, I should try to approximate the thoughts of an Eliezer who had lived through history—I should try to think as if everything I read about in history books had actually happened to me. (With appropriate reweighting for the availability bias of history books—I should remember being a thousand peasants for every ruler.) I should immerse myself in history, imagine living through eras I only saw as ink on paper.” (Eliezer Yudkowsky, Rationality)

Relevant to Mysterious Answer and Appreciate lessons of history by imagining you lived through them