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Yes, but I've got the complicated issue of taking your interjection entirely truthfully. I don't strongly believe you have any motivation to lie to me, but I may want to go through a few just to verify.
In any case, I'm not going to do it now, just when I have some spare time and am not browsing other comments.
This isn't even an interesting thread relative to other flame wars we've had!
I only really started posting comments in March of this year. Reading the comments at all about a month or so before then, and have been reading LW itself for a little over a year. I may still be a little green for any of the more interesting flame wars.
And yet crap, I'm already doing what I said I wouldn't. Shucks.
Can I take back what I said about being cool with you tazing me?
I think I'm just going to go read this thing in order and ignore any responses to my comments for a bit...
In the interest of full disclosure, I read the majority of this exchange in unordered chunks from the Recent Comments and mostly-backwards by going up context levels and trying to figure it out. And like I said to paper-machine I don't mean to say I'm exceptionally good at judging sanity violations, just being pithy.
I'll probably later on read them in some more-ordered fashion and see if I would taze luke too (even taking into account your claim you would).
Glad to know you'd be there to taze me if I started to go insane. It is appreciated. Not that I'm evaluating you as a fully superpowerful Confessor at the moment or anything. Here's a question though... who would you have tazed first?
If I were a Confessor I would have tazed you by now.
Thanks for pointing that out. Typing quickly on the go does not afford much spell/grammar checking.
And yes, by all means, I only meant that from reading (most of) the comments and discussion on this topic that I in my current state would have tazed him, had I the job description of a Confessor. I didn't mean to imply that I was exceptionally good at judging sanity violations in any way, just a reference and a pithy statement of my view.
What about the part where you ignored the things you were asking for, and kept pressing on slightly-modified issues?
I'd call that trolling, along with the tone of some of your comments.. Silas, frankly, this could have been executed much more diplomatically.
I agree. This makes a perfect end point to the discussion, and unless anything actually relevant comes up, not reiteration of the same points, ignoring their previous refutations, you should stop it here.
I've identified as that before, but I find it doesn't really apply well anymore.
Instead of slapping labels onto finer and finer grained levels of the fluid scale, I just have a clearly defined set of things that I will do with men, and a clearly defined set of things I will do with women, and that's sufficient for me.
I don't know many normal people and suspect they're dull.
Upvoted for this.
I think there's a reasonable middle ground between fire-and-forget posting that you're pushing, and the obsessive checking of posts that luke (very clearly) hyperbolized.
If I was a Confessor I would have tazed you by now.
I am alright with your original questions on this, but now you're stretching. You seem to be going to unnecessary extremes to find fault with anything and everything that Luke has said on this. I judge this a violation of sanity.
Hey there! Welcome to Less Wrong!
I'd say you should read the Sequences, but that's clearly what you're doing :D. I'd suggest going ahead and introducing yourself over here.
I agree with you that some people might come up with the rule, but with unnecessary additions. The point of looking into the dark is that people may tend to add on to those extensions, when they should really be shaving them down to their core. And they can only do so (Or at least do so more effectively.) by looking into the dark.
Also, that's not exactly the commonly accepted definition of "Belief" around here. For what most would think of when you refer to "belief" check out here, here, and the related The Simple Truth article, and really the entire Map and Territory sequence
Again, welcome!
Yeah, it does seem to be phrased such as to imply that.
I can easily imagine a little kid, or a grown adult, declaring a given food or smell or sight "disgusting" without having any objection to its existence. (I can, of course, also imagine a news article in which people interviewed describe someone's immoral behavior as disgusting.)
So the denotative meaning only very mildly indicates a potential for moral revulsion. But used in certain contexts, it does have heavy (heavier) connotations of moral revulsion. I think it's useful to have words for both the physical reaction side and for the moral reaction side, but I disagree with the UD definition in that "disgust" can be more of a generic umbrella term.
So... in other words, use "disgusted" when it's clear, or you mean both. Use "squicked" when it's unclear, and you want to only imply a physical reaction. And use "appalled" when you want to heavily imply moral reaction.
This is all just speculation and suggestion, but I do still hold that the word is useful.
Likewise, but I think I have a bit of an obsession with learning obscure jargon... to the point of reading through the provided dictionaries in SF&F books a half dozen times, then referring to it when the words come up. And reading through online lists of terminology for fictional universes and technical activities.
But yes, searching for "squick" on here, I have seen it used as "eww", but I'm not quite sure from the brief glance if it had that particular tag, at least not explicitly.
A small nitpick, and without having read the other comments, so please excuse me if this has been mentioned before.
The 5 actions listed under the heading "Emotion and Deontological Judgments" squick me. But they don't disgust me.
The concept of the "squick" differs from the concept of "disgust" in that "squick" refers purely to the physical sensation of repulsion, and does not imply a moral component.
Stating that something is "disgusting" implies a judgement that it is bad or wrong. Stating that something "squicks you" is merely an observation of your reaction to it, but does not imply a judgement that such a thing is universally wrong.
It may be useful to add this to our collective vocabulary. Some might argue it's adding unnecessary labels to too-similar a concept, but I think the distinction is useful.
Please, let me know if something like this has been explored already?
At around age 16, I thought, "My parents own a cabin cruiser sailboat. They go up the river alone on the weekends... Oh. Well then." And went on with my life.
I'm 19 now. Some point between then and now I learned my father had a vasectomy. So at least they're enjoying themselves.
I may be an outlier in this situation, however. It just didn't exactly faze me at all.
So it's not only strategic ignorance, but selective ignorance too. By which I mean to say it only applies highly selectively.
If you have enough knowledge about the situation to know it's going to be 6/1 and 5/5, or 5/1 and 6/5, then that's a pretty clear distinction. You have quite a bit of knowledge, enough to narrow it to only two situations.
But as you raised, it could be 6/1 & 5/5, or 6/1 & 5/1000 or 6/(.0001% increase of global existential risk) & 5/(.0001% increase of the singularity within your lifetime).
The implications of your point being, if you don't know what's at stake, it's better to learn what's at stake.
I'm a graduate of an IB school, and even took a few IB-level courses, just not the full course.
I also took a ToK class, but our school offered AP and IB varieties, and I went with AP, not having the full-IB prerequisites.
I find that what really matters is the teacher teaching the coursework, not the class itself. OTOH, having a class about ToK in the first place is at least a step in the right direction.
Regardless, as an alumni (and still friends with a few of the teachers there), I may have a bit of an in to do some sort of presentation. Likely based off of Liron's YAAB.
Oh. Cool! Less disbelief, more illusion of transparency.
If a randomly selected person says, "I know X (academically) famous people." I myself usually assume through impersonal means.
Update'd. Carry on :D
"Know" in the sense EY used it != have read, watched interviews, etc.
I took it to mean more personal interaction (even if through comments online).
To paraphrase, there's a difference between resenting someone for having freedoms that you do not, and disliking the concept of "freedom". And these get mixed up on occasion.
The HamletHenna(now) wants to be more patient, humble, energetic, experienced, diversely skilled, productive, motivated, dedicated, disciplined, courageous, self reliant, systematic, efficient, cautious, pragmatic, sociable, polite, forgiving, courteous, cooperative, uninhibited, consistent, generous, expressive, coherent, observant, imaginative, adaptable, witty, inquisitive, gracious, tranquil, impartial, and sincere.
If there were a HamletHenna(past) that did not want to be more patient, humble, energetic, ..., would HamletHenna(now) want to edit themselves into HamletHenna(past) to save the trouble of becoming more patient, humble, energetic, ...?
This comment is well below the threshold, but I will reply anyway...
This article is less about passing judgements, and more about understanding what happens in another person's mind.
You seem to be very new to the site, so I recommend reading some of the Sequences, or at the very least the one of which this article is a member to gain a little more context.
I am just trying to assist in further discussion, so if you respond negatively to this, I won't comment further. I won't assume you are a troll now, but a negative response to help would raise my probability that you are a troll.
Thanks, and welcome to LW.
Ah, shoot, my mistake for not searching first.
you're other-optimizing
less of this genre of writing
While I agree with the first, I don't see how the second follows. Would an adjustment in delivery to be more like "These are methods for solving problem X that worked for me, in case you hadn't considered attempting something similar in solving X for yourself." be more acceptable?
Unless you're against the personal-self-help-story sort of writing in its entirety for other reasons?
I guess I'm just asking for an elaboration on why you wouldn't want to see this sort of writing.
ETA: Or... exactly what jsalvatier just said.
Just to be pedantic: Enjoying being wrong probably not good.
Enjoying having been wrong, and now being (potentially) less wrong is good.
But the latter doesn't make as good a title :D.
I'd interpret "old age" as "(neurological [and therefore identity] breakdown as a result of common diseases from) old age".
Or is it, as I increasingly suspect as I edit and re-edit this comment, that I'm a total dick?
Upvoted for having a very good point, downvoted for being a dick, then upvoted again for having attempted to edit out dickishness :D
IE8 (work machine) and XP.
And yes, I see it too. Odd.
Note: assumption made that thought is in a particular language.
I can speak English and am learning Esperanto. When I think of the referent known by the English pointer "dog" my mind most strongly associates the pointer "dog" and much less strongly the pointer "hundo".
But as per internal narratives? I'd agree, yes, that articulating words, whether in an internal narrative or externally spoken, is separate from understanding.
I think what byrnema is saying is that they don't articulate their running internal narrative. They are developing an internal narrative along with the worldess-concept kind of thought that is already in place.
I don't know one way or the other if explicitly mentioning a group of rationalists is a good idea or not, so bear that in mind...
But I'm think of ways to spin it that might sound better than "club", while still being accurate: "Rationalist association" "rationalist society" "rationalist fellowship" "community" "fraternity" "(semi-official) group of rationalist individuals who meet regularly for discussion"
No guarantees to the accuracy of this data, but InformationIsBeautiful is TYPICALLY fairly reliable and will cite sources.
But you may want to rethink that.
ETA: And I don't know about you, but I have enough survival/first aid skills to survive without external medical care, electricity, or painkillers.
I think I'll start doing this.
And regarding #4, I think that a phone recording audio in a shirt pocket to aid later transcription wouldn't be amiss. Maybe putting the audio up online would, but in the news/reporting field it's pretty standard practice to have audio going while interviewing.
Also, if you [have/know somone with] a fairly "official-looking" camera with an externally attachable interview-style microphone, then you can go around and do some street spots with less awkwardness. When people see somone talking to a person on the street like that, they get the impression it's one-on-one. And if you approach someone, they'll be more likely to be comfortable with an interview-style conversation.
I believe we're already as smart as we need to be, so any efforts to try to increase intelligence are a waste of resources.
You'll find that this is a meme many on LW disagree with profusely.
This is receptive language versus productive language.
It's the same if you have ever tried to learn a new language. Typically you can understand much more people who are fluent speaking than you can actually say, even though when you recieve the words, you're processing them with the same brain that you produce the words with.
This is why learning to speed read is so difficult for me.
If I look at a word I've read and subvocalized it. I can't not read a word that I look at. I can try to ignore parsing full sentences and their relation to each other, with limited success, but not at the scale of individual words or letters.
Any Esperantists who are willing to be a conversational partner to someone just beginning to learn the language (myself)?
You've proably been in a skinner box though.
"Instant win" prizes on fast food and soft drinks.
WoW drop tables. Or basically any game where a prize or reward for victory is not guaranteed.
I took the specification of Portal to mean more highly visually disorienting games. It's why I didn't recommend Mirror's Edge. Maybe I parsed it incorrectly? If so, yes. Yes you do have a point there.
And I didn't really find it all that gripping, in the getting-addicted-to-it sense. I am generalizing from my own personal experiences here though, so I may be an outlier, where the majority of players do get sucked in?
My reasoning is more that there's no real plot. You don't need to "finish" the game, you can just play it whenever and it is just as satisfying from an entertainment standpoint.
shrugs I will take your dissent as evidence, however. I am quite new to the game.
For number 1, single-instance games. An RPG with 30 hours in the MAIN storyline and 100 more in optional sidequests would probably not be your ideal. But drop-in, drop-out type gaming might be better. TF2 is one I've started playing, especially since it's free. And the learning curve is fairly gentle, especially with tutorials. Find a class you like, play it until you're comfortable. Then find another. The only issue is that it would require a sufficient investment in hardware if you don't have it already.
Playing on (and joining, if you're so inclined) Kongregate.com is another option. Some "hardcore" gamers look down on flash gaming as a lesser form, but I've seen some wonderfully crafted games on Kong. They have a rating system and actual submission criteria. They don't accept any crap, so the quality of games are better.
There's also a lot of puzzle games, so the whole learning-something-gathering-skills-while-playing area is covered.
For number 4... it requires a larger number of people, but it's a decent party game: Liar's Dice. Yes, Liar's Dice as seen in Pirates of the Carribean. All you need is at least 5 dice per player (dollar store in bulk, you can probably spend only a dollar per player) and some dice cups (I cut down and taped up some paper cups.) Deception, strategy, all the elements of poker. Just with some added novelty.
Again, I agree... outside the bounds of this excercise.
I have absolutely no objection to any of your advice, whatsoever. It's all pretty good advice, if presented a little forcefully. But I get that sort of "tough titties, now do the work" methodology. Nor would I be making any noise if this was only an article about aspiring rationalists giving advice to other aspiring rationalists.
But it isn't.
The point is to figure out a strategy to AVOID the obstacles presented, not insist that the obstacles be removed. That way the obstacles can no longer be used as an EXCUSE not to do the thing. The point of the Rejection Challenge is to excise excuses not excise obstacles.
The one: "I can't get from point A to point B because there is a wall in the way." The other (1): "Walk around the wall. Get a ladder and climb over it. Get someone to boost you over. Etc., etc." The other (2): "Break the wall down, and walk straight from A to B."
We want to take path 1, not path 2.
ETA: If you disagree with the core point of the excercise, I don't think anyone would object to you commenting and saying so, while explaining precisely WHY.
That's the dymaxion. I've never tried it myself (School/work being inflexible in hours to the degree that I wouldn't be able to nap.), but of what I've read, it's one of the most difficult to acclimate to.
One of the easier ones (or at least easier than dymaxion, maybe not as easy as biphasic, but it gets more wake-hours) is the Everyman. It's a three-hour core nap with three evenly spaced 20-minute naps during the day, with some room for flexibility.
And the basic rule from that three-and-thre model (which can get you down to biphasic, or up to the uberman) is for every hour of core you add, remove one nap. And every hour of core you remove, add a nap.
What schedule did you use? Because "polyphasic" is a catchall term for sleeping in more than one interval over the course of a 24 hour period.
Uberman, everyman, and dymaxion are the most commonly spoken of, in my experience.
I can only really think of specific examples to specific cases, but things that take minimal effort, yet still give fairly high returns when compared to other low-effort strategies.
If the task is "eat vegetables" and the restrictions are money, proximity to store, spoils too quickly, and no freezer, then an example of something that is NOT a FOO strategy would be to sell your property, move to or purchase a farm, start growing your own vegetables and eat those ones, while selling the excess to buy a better freezer.
Clearly, I'm using hyperbole here, but you get the picture. You can't deny that that that IS a valid method to gain access to vegetables. But it's not first-order optimal. First order optimal would be to buy incrementally as you need the vegetables, when doing other activities in the same day that brings you close to the store.
A Non-FOO strategy for "excercise more" would be to drop work and all other activities and begin a olympic-level training regimen. A FOO strategy would be to incorporate excerse into regular daily activities (stairs, biking instead of driving, etc.)
Just as an aside and a note to all giving the recommendations and advice... focus on First Order Optimal Strategies.
Sure self-editing to not have your rejections be rejections anymore, by training the habit over the course of a few months to a year or more MAY work, and may work very well. But it's not the strategy that has the lowest skill/effort input to highest power/effect output ratio.
I agree with the "you shouldn't HAVE to worry about what people think about you" mode of thought, but the point of this excercise is to treat these things as if they were the person's true rejections.
And if they are their true rejections (which they very well may be), then how is it possible to still excecute X action that they desire to, while circumventing the previously stated rejection.
Assume the LCPW where I implanted a device inside Fergus' head, which will explode if he worries about what he's signalling/what others are thinking about him/getting criticism, when he runs. Then propose solutions that let him both run, and not have his head explode. Concrete advice, not just, "Well, if you didn't think that way, your head wouldn't explode. So don't think that way."
Benefits of playing games:
- Improved hand-eye coordination
- Strategic puzzle solving skills
- Decreased stress level
- By far, more mentally engaging than television or movies, which are passive entertainment
- introspection in choice-morality games
- by Playing Like a Designer you can learn how to use gamelike elements in non-game environments (like the classroom) to make them more fun
See also: http://www.tastyhuman.com/10-benefits-of-playing-video-games/
Role-playing games can also have some of the same benefits (albeit much less salient) as improv theater and rejection therapy. Which is more fun, getting rejected by a dozen people you don't know to have a conversation, or having your level eight human rogue get rejected a dozen times in a bar?
For all of the above, however, YMMV.
This doesn't address the "minimal effort" issue as much as I'd like (driving to stores and buying counts as much as preparing food, as well as searching online and doing online ordering), though it is admittedly very akratic. But you seem to be of the "just balls up and do it" persuasion, so I won't object there.
Having pre-prepared eggs in the morning (instead of at lunch as others suggested), along with better meals instead at lunch seems like, well, a better idea. I think I'll start a routine of that this Sunday.
Oh, and there's a Costco in town, so bulk purchases aren't that difficult.
As per the excercise: a year or two ago when I was sailing for 6 hours a day, every day of the week for 4-5 weeks of the sumer, I was the thinnest I've been in some time. But I was FIT. I'm not sure of the science of it all, but I'm not a weakling. I can do a dozen pullups... fairly successfully. Building an excessive amount of muscle mass isn't something I'm too into (being weightlifter-buff is unappealing, but being martial-artist strong is more ideal, if that makes any sense). I just want to eat healthier and not waste away entirely :/
Oh, but semi-related, my cardio is utter garbage. I can sprint faster than most people I know who run regularly, but I'm coughing and wheezing ten times quicker. And no, I don't smoke nor live with smokers.
I am learning Esperanto, from here for grammar and word-building rules, as well as using Anki cards to build vocabulary.
I'm re-reading the Sequences and using the Anki deck made for them to help internalize some of the concepts.
I'll propose an experiment:
Try falling asleep at different times, and recording your difficuly-to-get-up on some arbitrary scale. Record (approximately) how much time asleep you get along with this.
The "recommended" 8 hours may not be optimal for your physiology.
Disclaimer: Not a doctor, nor an expert in sleep, in any way... This is just from anecdotal evidence. (Girlfriend sleeps about 5-6 hours a night, and is functional. Friend can't function without sleeping 9.)
If you find an amount of sleep that is testably better than the alternatives, at least this might help.
without a bunch of borderline-crazy restrictions.
As a borderline crazyperson, I take offense to this.