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I suspect that many people who use such a phrase would endorse an interpretation such as "The most beautiful... to me."
Could you say more, especially about "non-verbal signs"? I can guess what you're gesturing out, but I'm interested to hear your thoughts.
A kind of contingency planning, but turning it into a habitual mental movement. That seems very valuable.
I think I'd like a different term for this profoundly important idea, something more immediately clear than "fabricated options", especially to people outside our own rationalist-leaning communities.
"Imaginary options" seems more immediately clear. Unfortunately it sounds like it carries a note of mockery, so I don't think it works.
I love the screenshot tool. Could that code be adapted to other platforms – Windows/Android/iOS – or would it need to be coded from scratch?
An archetypal example might be Richard Feynman:
Physics disgusts me a little bit now, but I used to enjoy doing physics. Why did I enjoy it? I used to play with it. I used to do whatever I felt like doing – it didn’t have to do with whether it was important for the development of nuclear physics, but whether it was interesting and amusing for me to play with.
Which led to looking at spinning plates, which led to him developing a diagram for analysing their movement, and ultimately led to his Nobel prize.
Also, I wasn't effusive enough: thank you so much. I love what you're doing with this site.
Feedback on the mobile site.
Using Chrome on a Nexus 6P running Android 8.1.
The suboptimal:
- The mobile view has no margin at all on the sides, which makes it unpleasant to read. [Screenshot](https://image.ibb.co/jwaHaR/Screenshot 20171215 223941.png)
- I had to write this comment in my text editor app then pasted it, because oh god, the editor is so slow (on my phone) that it's unusable. THEN, paste didn't work in the comment box. So I had to use the desktop site in Chrome (on Android), which allowed me to successfully paste.
- I can also enter text semi-successfully in desktop site mode (still on my phone) but it's still laggy and half the words disappear after I enter them - it's a lot like trying to comment on Facebook using the desktop site mode on my phone.
- If I've begun reading a page page and it reloads (e.g. I reopen the browser or I switch tabs and come back) I find myself back at the top of the page. I don't know any other site that does this. This also occasionally happens randomly – maybe I'm tapping something accidentally?
- Search: if I hit the little x, it doesn't delete my search text – it hides the search box.
The good:
- Pretty!
- Nicely organised, making it easier to delve into the good stuff. I'm currently reading the Codex.
- Gives me hope that the Less Wrong community has a bright future, because there is a desirable place to gather. Also because the Less Wrong 2.0 project itself seems to have brought people together and created common purpose.
Fair enough, and taking it that way, I think the reasoning does hold up.
Thanks - ahntharhapik seemed obvious but I missed khanfhighur. (Khanfhighur is much more obvious now when I imagine it with an American accent.)
Re my original question, I'm still curious whether there are any clues about the language itself (other than that there are obvious cognates with English and what those cognates are). Does it relate to other stories/worldbuilding
I'm probably overthinking it.
Out of curiosity, do we know anything about the native language of the hero? Ahntharhapik and khanfhighur don't seem to be from existing languages (Edit: by which I mean, using this or similar spelling).
Is there anything significant here for the story, or is Eliezer (say) just avoiding the assumption that the hero is an English speaker?
VENUE UPDATE:
Ross House, 247 Flinders Lane. Level 1, Room 1.
Dead link, FWIW.
Libertarianism secretly relies on most individuals being prosocial enough to tip at a restaurant they won't ever visit again.
I'm puzzled that you gave that specific example, given that it's obviously wrong. Most countries do not have a culture of tipping, and their economies don't implode. They just have less headaches at bill time. And in many cases (a long way from libertarianism) their wait staff get paid a living wage.
I'm also not sure what it means for libertarianism to rely on something, since libertarianism is not an actual functioning thing in existence. But if it did exist and function, it would not rely on tipping.
EDIT: Seeing this comment 5 years later, I see I was misunderstanding the point.
When you pick up a cup of water... the force exerted by your hand must be zero.
Unless you are holding the cup up, supporting it against the force of gravity.
Agreed - the article is remarkably rational for a mainstream media op-ed.
THESE DETAILS ARE INCORRECT. I'm trying to get this event deleted.
Thank you. (In hindsight I should have done a page search for "edit".)
Ah, thank you.
(Should have done a page search for "edit", now I think of it.)
Can I edit events that I created on Less Wrong?
It seems I can't. (I ask because I created this event, but when I pasted the details, I neglected to add the city (Melbourne). And now the map is wrong by about 3600km.
MELBOURNE! I forgot to write Melbourne, and the map incorrectly shows Perth. It seems I can't edit an event that I created.
The other writer who also does this extremely well is Vikram Seth, in A Suitable Boy.
As an experiment, a couple raised their child without telling them what colour the sky was. When they eventually asked, the child... thought about it. Eventually... "white". (I'd assumed it was a clear sky. Just realised it's a pointless story if it was cloudy.)
Why Isn't the Sky Blue? - starts with colours in Homer.
I can't answer your questions about / criticisms of my belief, but if you ask my guru (or read his book), he'll definitely have the answers to all your questions."
(Or "her book" etc - but the examples I've come across have all used men as their infallible guru.)
I found the last paragraph-sentence impossible to understand. I may just be not thinking straight, but it could be made clearer, and I'm posting about my confusion because I'm sure there'll be others who are also confused.
"actually does have a certain number of exemplars in real life" refers to the "honest people not being good at lying" theory, plus the risk of huge blow-ups from end of lies.
"though obvious selective reporting is at work in our hearing about this one" clearly refers to this sensational case of someone who was mostly good at lying, but left an entangled trace... Einfeld turned out to be a dishonest person (who was remarkably successful at lying, for a long time), so I'm not sure how that relates. The use of "though" was the first thing that confused me, but then I realised that the whole paragraph confuses me.
Sorry, I left an extra "not" and an extra "but" in. What a horrible sentence - I apologize.
Did you mean: "This version assumes that women are materialistic - worse than just materialistic, it assumes that women assess prospective mates solely on their net worth. It would be good to find a version that doesn't assume that."?
Yes - thank you.
I appreciate the value of the illustrations, but it would be good to find a version that doesn't assume that women are merely materialistic, assessing prospective mates solely on their net worth. Geek communities are often not friendly places for women - some readers will accept the assumptions for the sake of argument, but some are likely to take offence.
Edited when MixedNuts pointed out how confused the original version was. My apologies.
Is it our bias towards optimism? (And is that bias there because pessimists take fewer risks, and therefore don't succeed at much and therefore get eliminated from the gene pool?)
I heard (on a PRI podcast, I think) a brain scientist give an interpretation of the brain as a collection of agents, with consciousness as an interpreting layer that invents reasons for our actions after we've actually done them. There's evidence of this post-fact interpretation - and while I suspect this is only part of the story, it does give a hint that our conscious mind is limited in its ability to actually change our behavior.)
Still, people do sometimes give up alcohol and other drugs, and keep new resolutions. I've stuck to my daily exercise for 22 days straight. These feel like conscious decisions (though I may be fooling myself) but where my conscious will is battling different intentions, from different parts of my mind.
Apologies if that's rambling or nonsensical. I'm a bit tired (because every day I consciously decide to sleep early and every day I fail to do it) and I haven't done my 23rd day's exercise yet. Which I'll do now.
Open Thread doesn't quite do what the OP is looking for. Open Thread is: A. a bit hard to find (I didn't know it existed, and only found it through the site search) B. a single thread at any one time. Makes it hard to find or follow a particular topic.
Nothing original just now - I just want to go on record as saying that HP:MOR is amazing, brilliant work - I really enjoy it, as well as learning from it.
How did it go?
Btw, I'm in Canberra until ~23rd Jan, and would love to meet other LessWrongers.
I'll be busy at RecentChangesCamp on 20-22 Jan (great event if you're into wikis). So I'm really hoping for something between now and 19 Jan.
I'm 41, working on a wiki project for sustainability and development, which I love (and part-time on a related project which I like and actually get paid for). I use the same username everywhere, so if you're curious, you won't have trouble finding the wiki project.
I'm a one-time evangelical Christian. I think it was emotional damage from my upbringing that made me frightened to let go of that, and I stayed a believer for 9 years, starting in my late teens. I took it extremely seriously, and there were good things about that. But with hindsight, I would direct people to other places for their personal growth than becoming a believer. Later, just a few years ago, I did the Landmark Forum, which was very powerful and mostly very positive, though I wouldn't recommend that as a first step in working on personal development, unless you're already pretty successful and mature. I'm also a big fan of Nonviolent Communication, and I'd recommend that to anyone.
I learned about Less Wrong a year ago (from someone else on the wiki project) and loved it. I've been meaning to join, but the thing that prompted me now is that I need help, in the form of accountability, and this seems like a good place.
I do a lot of work, but I find myself distracted from the work I most need to do. The persistence of the problem leads me to carry out a "lifestyle experiment" for the next 3 weeks. I'm calling it my "3 week Serious Focus experiment", and the key ingredients are:
- Being sensible: doing stuff that I need to do, that will have a big positive effect on my life, before doing other stuff, no matter how good or enticing
- Being accountable: I'm posting here, and will do so on Facebook and G+, and will tell friends In Real Life.
- Regarding it as an experiment: I'm only committing myself to 10-30 Jan 2012, so I can play at being hardline with myself, like it's a bootcamp. I can extend or make new decisions at the end, but the time limit means it doesn't feel like a trap that I'm desperate to escape from.
- A focus on (a) livelihood - the stuff I'm already getting paid for, and (b) taking the wiki project to the next level, i.e. strategic work before maintenance or putting out fires.
The rules for the Serious Focus experiment are:
- Plan each night before bed - up to 6 items to work on the following day
- 3 hours solid work on the one or two top items (livelihood and strategy) before looking at email (except perhaps work related - I have email filters for that) or at work-related social media, or at messages I get on the wiki site. (Only exception is if it's so urgent that a colleague on the wiki project calls or IMs me - which is very rare.)
- Any work I'm tempted to do on secondary things (not among the 6 items, and taking more than 5 min) to be written down and put aside until the 3 solid hours are done.
- After the 3 hours are done, I loosen up a bit, but still focus on getting those items done.
- All items must be done before checking personal social media at all. (I'm allowed to post any time, but not look at replies or other people's statuses.) If I don't get all 6 items finished, that's ok - going without Facebook will do me good, even if I don't get a chance to check it for the whole 3 weeks!
I'm going to start now, but I'm making my official start date 2 days away, so there's time for feedback on the plan and to adjust it if needed, before I launch the experiment.
Glad to join you all at Less Wrong!
I used to trade the stock market, getting into Bollinger Bands and other kinds of chart analysis. Had some successes, but the times that losses came, they were sudden and brutal. In the end, I decided I didn't enjoy it enough to do it well. And I wasn't quite sure I had the ability - the charts seem to work in hindsight, but there were a lot of factors that made looking at patterns in old charts deceptive - the fact that bankrupt stocks were removed from the data history by my data supplier was one obvious problem. And almost every other trader I knew seemed to be hopeful of making a buck, rather than already making a buck - with only one exception, a guy who did brilliantly, but I could never work out his methods.
I'm now earning some money as a consultant, and when I've got enough to put in the market, I'll be doing it longer term, probably in some variation of the "Dogs of the Dow" methodology, with a basic ethical filter. Or if that's too much work, an index fund. Maybe I could have been richer if I'd dedicated myself to paper trading and then working hard on real life trading, or maybe I would have lost more money. Either way, I'm happier with my life now - but that's just me.
Good luck!