Welcome to LessWrong (10th Thread, January 2017) (Thread A)

Hello folks!

I think to accurately trace my development as a rationalist I'd have to ramble about my formative years for about fifteen paragraphs and it would bore the bejeezus out of anyone who isn't my mother, so I'll spare you, as Holden put it, the David Copperfield crap.

I value reason, logic and the search for truth - but also compassion, patience for human error and a sense of humour. (Hey, I'm Irish, flippancy is written in my genes just as humour with a "u" is written in my dictionary.)

I don't like irrationality or ignorance, but I detest "shrug" or "let's agree to disagree" or, worst of all, "who can really say what truth is anyway?". I believe that someone passionately wrong is closer to being right that someone who doesn't care. Believing that the truth matters is the sine qua non.

I promise I don't go around sprinkling Latin into all my arguments, by the way. "Sine qua non" and "semper ubi sub ubi" are about all I've got.

I've read a great many posts on this site and others like it, and I've often constructed chains of reasoning in response to them, in order to work out whether I agree, partially agree, agree with the conclusion but not the steps leading to it or disagree entirely. Thing is, all of that is taking place in an empty room, literally and figuratively.

Talking to the walls in my flat about religion and morality and logic is unsatisfying and may be causing my neighbours some concern. I tried talking to my pot plant but it died, probably of boredom although possibly because I forgot to water it. Either way I'm reluctant to repeat the experiment with a hamster.

My problem is that I often feel awkward and diffident about participating in group discussions. I want to respond to everyone and then I get caught up in etiquette anxiety about what constitutes spamming or whether it'll look like I'm trying to dominate the discussion, or I get embarrassed about replying to a five-year-old comment on a ten-year-old post, or I go into conflict-resolution mode and end up trying to moderate between two disputants instead of just participating on my own behalf. And I sometimes find being one voice among many competing for attention a bit dispiriting. I don't just want to (ugh) "express my opinion", and I certainly don't want the last word - I can get that by talking to my poor dead pot-plant. I want to convince someone or be convinced myself.

Group discussion is usually not my bag, is what I'm saying, even in such a generally sensible community as LW - but I'll try to give it a shot.

What I'd really like, though, (and please tell me if this is not an appropriate request or the appropriate place to make it - see etiquette anxiety, supra) is some good old-fashioned one-on-one conversation. So if you're reading this and you're at all like me, or you'd just like to do your kind deed for the day, PM me something - anything! - and let's have a discussion or a debate or an argument. Religion, morality, trolley problems, the Great Santa Question, whatever - I'm down. I could perhaps be of some use to Advanced Rationalist Types who want to assess their ability to explain something clearly to someone with no background in formal logic or probability theory without ruining a dinner party, or to fellow newbs who want to test-drive a line of reasoning before taking it out in public. Try it on the dog, so to speak.

Looking forward to participating one way or another. My username, by the way, is the name of a Terry Pratchett character, and if anyone just wants to talk Pratchett I am so there.

Hello world!

I'm Lin, Junior Ancient Studies and Information Systems major at UMBC. I found LessWrong through HPMOR, fell into the sequences, and generally found the strategies for improving my thoughts and overcoming bias incredibly satisfying.

I'm taking over for Aryeh for the Baltimore meetup group, and am also a SSCer.

My online presence is at lin.noblejury.com.

Been lurking for a while and figured I’d go ahead and jump into the mix.

I studied philosophy (and foreign languages) in undergrad. Went to Duke for law school. Worked at one of the biggest and most hardcore law firms in the world for six years, and now I run my own shop with another lawyer in Denver. We focus on startups and tech legal work.

I only recently discovered LW through Kevin Simler’s blog Melting Asphalt and Slate Star Codex. Figured I’d come here to see if it was worthwhile to participate. I’m working my way through the Sequences.

I’m in the process of writing a law review article on automation, AI, and legal ethics.

I’ve been to a couple of Less Wrong meetups in Denver, but now I live in a remote mountain town 2.5 hours southwest of Front Range. It’s a beautiful town, and I love it. But it’s not large enough to foster a LW community.

I have a blog(!) where I post every couple of weeks or so. It’s called Joyous and Swift. Not a very LW-ish name, I suppose. But I like it.

I don’t spend a lot of time surfing online, and I’m not in the habit of frequenting comment threads. But I’ll do my best to respond to any comments directed at me (if any) in the coming weeks.

The decorum and community code here sounds entrenched and complex. I apologize in advance for any missteps. Feel free to chide me when necessary. I'd much appreciate warm guidance on how to be a good LW citizen. I will respect your norms as soon as I learn them.

Tatafornow.

Hi! I'm Diana. I've considered myself to be rational since middle school and could bore you with my thoughts that support that. But clearly, after doing a little reading here, even if I am already a "rationalist," I'm probably not very good at it. I just got to this website today, because I was humming along following different links on wikipedia, starting this morning with gambling cheats and ending up on decision theory. Somewhere along the way I read an example I didn't get, and I really wanted to ask someone else about it, but I'm not in school anymore and don't know who I'd ask. So I did a search for decision theory and got here.

I have never been able to grasp probability, so I have always avoided studying it or thinking about it or caring about it. But after a little more reading this morning I might have figured out what part of my problem is. If I have questions about something I read, I assume I can ask in the discussions threads?

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