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Comment by Court_Merrigan on Rationalist Poetry Fans, Unite! · 2009-03-21T05:52:40.260Z · LW · GW

Sorry, Nazgul. That makes no sense.

Comment by Court_Merrigan on Why Our Kind Can't Cooperate · 2009-03-21T05:50:23.020Z · LW · GW

I don't know how long you've held the position, or much care - I don't think it's relevant. But it is signaling, I think, for 2 reasons:

  • Your public concern with saying it's not signaling is just a way of signaling;
  • Claiming a certain timespan of belief is just an old locker room way of saying "I got here first." Which surely is signaling.

This is the sort of thing that causes unnecessary splintering in groups. I have a very visceral reaction to this sort of signaling (which I would label preening, actually). Perhaps I should examine that.

Comment by Court_Merrigan on Why Our Kind Can't Cooperate · 2009-03-21T02:35:20.317Z · LW · GW

You didn't read Eliezer's post very carefully, did you? You need more practice in agreement and conformity. There are a limited number of "right" answers out there. It's alright to agree on them, when they are found.

Comment by Court_Merrigan on Why Our Kind Can't Cooperate · 2009-03-21T02:33:32.391Z · LW · GW

I don't believe you.

Comment by Court_Merrigan on Why Our Kind Can't Cooperate · 2009-03-21T02:32:19.855Z · LW · GW

That would be a great feature, I think. Ditto on on broad disagreements.

Comment by Court_Merrigan on Rationalist Poetry Fans, Unite! · 2009-03-21T01:12:41.258Z · LW · GW

How about some amusing 'beat' poetry? Storm, Tim Minchin

Comment by Court_Merrigan on Rationalist Poetry Fans, Unite! · 2009-03-20T06:24:32.095Z · LW · GW

Other than the misspelling, absolutely - Lucretius (Titus Lucretius Carus)

On the Nature of Things:

A highlight:

This terror, then, this darkness of the mind, Not sunrise with its flaring spokes of light, Nor glittering arrows of morning can disperse, But only Nature's aspect and her law, Which, teaching us, hath this exordium: Nothing from nothing ever yet was born.

Comment by Court_Merrigan on Rationalist Fiction · 2009-03-20T06:19:20.198Z · LW · GW

Did see Reading Rainbow, although I think this was later ... late 80s?. We had Where In The World Is Carmen San Diego as a computer game, late 80s, also, I believe. The game was boring as sin.

Comment by Court_Merrigan on Little Johny Bayesian · 2009-03-20T06:18:16.746Z · LW · GW

Nice work. Clean up the meter and I'll print it out to read to my daughter. You can never start 'em too young.

Comment by Court_Merrigan on Rationalist Fiction · 2009-03-20T04:18:03.814Z · LW · GW

3-2-1 Contact - that was the name of that show - not the Electric Company. That's the bad 80s hit, isn't it ...?

I don't remember seeing anything called Mathnet. My 3-2-1 Contact memories are roughly 1980-1984, somewhere thereabouts. Yours?

Comment by Court_Merrigan on Rationalist Fiction · 2009-03-20T03:54:29.736Z · LW · GW

I believe the segment on the Electric Company is where that group derived its name. Although I'm not sure. No taste for that sort of thing.

Comment by Court_Merrigan on Rationalist Fiction · 2009-03-20T02:39:43.100Z · LW · GW

How about The Hardy Boys? I read dozens of these as a young kid, and the thing that stands out in mind now is, there was always an answer to the mystery, one that could be arrived at via clues and deduction. Looking back now, I think they had a major impact on my manner of thinking, reading them as young as I did (kindergarten and 1st grade, I'm talking) such that years later I was inclined to look favorably upon a 'rationality technique' when I encountered the idea of one on OB.

Comment by Court_Merrigan on Rationalist Fiction · 2009-03-20T02:35:49.567Z · LW · GW

Agree that fiction that relies solely on spoilers isn't worth reading. Though I would not concur that textbooks are better than any fiction. Unless school has gotten waaaaaay better than I remember.

Comment by Court_Merrigan on Rationalist Fiction · 2009-03-20T02:34:00.849Z · LW · GW

Scooby Doo, absolutely. The mystery was always solved; the reason was always given.

How about The Bloodhound Gang on that PBS show Electric Company? Same formula as Scooby Doo.

Although admittedly this is not fiction, exactly.

Comment by Court_Merrigan on Rational Me or We? · 2009-03-18T02:15:45.230Z · LW · GW

Exactly. Descartes laid the foundation for future progress.

Comment by Court_Merrigan on Rational Me or We? · 2009-03-18T02:14:49.319Z · LW · GW

To take one example: Aristotle laid down the foundation of what became modern science. Modern science became modern science as we think of it by rebelling against Aristotle's a priori assumptions; without Aristotle, what science we have today would be very different, indeed.

I don't think you can so easily dismiss Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, et al: without them we we wouldn't be where we are today.

This is part of the problem I often detected at OB and see again here at LW: people with little respect for intellectual history.

Comment by Court_Merrigan on Rational Me or We? · 2009-03-18T02:09:48.006Z · LW · GW

Hear, hear. Practice and practical techniques. Isn't that what we're after here?

Comment by Court_Merrigan on Rational Me or We? · 2009-03-18T02:07:35.830Z · LW · GW

But there are simply far too many areas of life involving putative "orthonormally diagonalizable matrices" for any one individual to be able to rationally investigate. At some point you have to take someone's word for it; so rather than taking one expert's word, you're likely better off trusting a community of experts. A current example might be with global warming - most scientists seem to feel it's a major issue.

Unfortunately, though, radical changes in thinking come usually come from the margin, e.g., Galileo. The hard part, it seems to me, is to distinguish between mere status quo convention and genuine expert agreement.

Comment by Court_Merrigan on The Tragedy of the Anticommons · 2009-03-17T03:12:59.246Z · LW · GW

I wouldn't say you need to repeal patents entirely. Just limit them better, and enforce those limitations. Same with copyrights.

Comment by Court_Merrigan on The Tragedy of the Anticommons · 2009-03-17T03:10:55.455Z · LW · GW

Agreed. Discussions of dogmatisms such as libertarianism in any of its forms is boring, boring, boring and now what I'd like to read here.

Not that the original post here is an example of that, per se, although I think it comes close.

Comment by Court_Merrigan on In What Ways Have You Become Stronger? · 2009-03-17T03:04:04.400Z · LW · GW

Big one for me: cutting the Gordian knot of the philosophical antimonies, e.g., those philosophical dilemmas with no answers. Someone somewhere at Overcoming Bias commented that the "useful" parts of philosophy evolved into the natural sciences; the rest became the muted academic wordgames we see today (or something like that - the poster was much more incisive).

And just like that, my interest in those endless philosophical dilemmas dissolved. What a timesaver.

If anyone can locate that post / commenter, I'd be grateful.

Comment by Court_Merrigan on On the Care and Feeding of Young Rationalists · 2009-03-17T02:40:15.603Z · LW · GW

One hopes. I don't know if it's possible to generalize on this point though. With some education takes, with some, it doesn't.

Comment by Court_Merrigan on On the Care and Feeding of Young Rationalists · 2009-03-17T02:39:17.624Z · LW · GW

I've also found this very helpful in my initial surveys.

Comment by Court_Merrigan on Is Santa Real? · 2009-03-14T09:01:25.748Z · LW · GW

Saying you're "Fine" to a doctor, when you are not, would be a little foolish, would it not? As opposed to your standard workaday white lies.

Comment by Court_Merrigan on Is Santa Real? · 2009-03-14T08:56:56.951Z · LW · GW

Thanks.

I certainly will. She's only 18 months, though, so it's going to be a while before the reports start flowing.

Comment by Court_Merrigan on Is Santa Real? · 2009-03-14T07:28:02.796Z · LW · GW

Me neither. My daughter's going to be a test case, though.

Comment by Court_Merrigan on Is Santa Real? · 2009-03-14T05:30:29.546Z · LW · GW

That's great stuff. I feel like I should be taking notes.

Comment by Court_Merrigan on Is Santa Real? · 2009-03-14T05:28:55.985Z · LW · GW

I'm talking about from the perspective of a child, MBlume. We live in a society where lots of folks teach their kids lots of silly myths. It isn't your job to teach your kid to go around exposing them all the time. At least not unless you want to raise an intolerable pedant.

Comment by Court_Merrigan on Epistemic Viciousness · 2009-03-14T04:08:22.151Z · LW · GW

I also remember hearing of a community (wish I could remember which) in which it was absolutely forbidden to give negative feedback under certain circumstances

I am living (and about to leave) an Asian society very much like this. It yields some very odd results indeed: corruption, consumerism, lemming-like religious behavior, and vast - feudal - social gaps.

Comment by Court_Merrigan on Epistemic Viciousness · 2009-03-14T04:04:35.314Z · LW · GW

Me neither. Are the people around you really paying so much attention to you that they would go such effort? Ones who aren't related to you?

Comment by Court_Merrigan on Is Santa Real? · 2009-03-14T03:22:21.751Z · LW · GW

That is a good point.

Comment by Court_Merrigan on Is Santa Real? · 2009-03-14T03:11:22.970Z · LW · GW

Nice link - thanks. My daughter's going to be Santa Claus age soon enough. Maybe I'll print this out for future reference. Probably unbearably saccharine to the childless, but hey, they may have some crumbgobblers of their own someday, and then it will make more sense.

Seems to me (maybe I'll report back on this in, say, a decade) that the "Santa Claus shock" won't be as bad as a "God shock" because people who lie to their kids about Santa Claus know they are lying and every kid finds out the truth sooner or later; whereas theists don't think they are lying, and some people never come to believe they're wrong. So the "God shock" is a double whammy, finding out your parents are both wrong, and well, liars. In that sense, then the Santa Claus shock is going to be less harmful, as it were. But I think it sets a good precedent with your kids to be as honest as you can with them on the Big Questions while at the same time teaching them a lesson in consideration - don't go telling all the other kids at school that Santa Claus isn't real. Part of teaching them to be members of a tolerant free society.

Some 4th grader did that at school when I was a believing kindergartener - that was may more painful than finding out my parents knew Santa Claus isn't real.

Comment by Court_Merrigan on Is Santa Real? · 2009-03-14T03:03:16.022Z · LW · GW

This is ridiculous. A "truth twister"? This isn't hypocrisy. This is lying. To yourself, mostly. Unless you live in a cave, you tell white lies every day. Ever say Good Afternoon when you didn't feel like it?

This sort of moral highhorsing gets us nowhere. Stop it, please.