Comment by Phasmatis on Welcome to Less Wrong! · 2011-09-10T21:19:29.932Z · LW · GW

Salutations, Less Wrong.

I'm an undergraduate starting my third year at the University of Toronto (in Toronto, Ontario, Canada), taking the Software Engineer specialist program in Computer Science.

I found Less Wrong through a friend, who found it through Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, who found that through me, and I found HP: MoR through a third friend. I'm working my way through the archive of Less Wrong posts (currently in March of 2009).

On my rationalist origins: One of my parents has a not-insignificant mental problem that result in subtle psychoses. I learned to favor empirical evidence and rationality in order to cope with the incongruency of reality and some of said parent's beliefs. It has been an ongoing experience since then, including upbringing in both Protestant Anglicanism and Secular Humanistic Judaism; the dual religious background was a significant contributor towards both my rationalism and my atheism.

I eagerly anticipate interesting discussions here.