Scott Alexander argues for the broader use of guidelines instead of simple recommendations in fields outside medicine, explaining their benefits and why they're underutilized.
Longer summary
Scott Alexander discusses the value of guidelines over simple recommendations, using medical guidelines as an example. He argues that guidelines are underappreciated in many fields outside medicine. Guidelines offer multiple recommendations, tailor advice to specific circumstances, acknowledge individual differences, provide criteria for success or failure, and show correlations between options. Scott suggests that experts in fields like nutrition and self-help should create similar guidelines, but notes that doing so might be seen as too strong a claim to authority. He expresses frustration at the lack of such guidelines in areas like dieting, nootropics, and self-help, where they could be particularly useful.
Shorter summary