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Honestly, whether you have aspergers or not a lot of alarm bells are ringing in my head right now.
You're not just set on joining the IDF, but rather any random army. Why?
And if you think aspergers is defined by "fluency" then you don't really understand what aspergers/autism is, honestly.
If someone would guide you through recalling a memory of a pastlife that feels as real as the memories that you recall from your present life how much would that cause you to update?
Knowing how easily manipulable the human mind is, I wouldn't weight that as very strong evidence, especially when it comes to subjective feelings. As an example, humans modify their memories all the time without really realizing it, as in the case of people who point fingers at the wrong crime suspect and decades later are proven wrong.
Beliefs have to pay rent.
Exactly. When has a belief in god payed rent?
Would you start believing in some greater force if someone demostrates to you that those experiences exist by guiding you through the experience?
This is very wishy-washy language. If there were enough evidence of a 'greater force' to make it worth believing, I would believe it. Naturally, that would have to be a lot of evidence.
How much different kind of spiritual experiences would you need to experience to drop your belief in materialism?
For future reference, you'd use "many" instead of "much" in your first sentence. Anyway, by materialism do you mean physicalism? As above, I would need an enormous amount of evidence to change my views in this case.
Oh, don't get me wrong (no pun intended) - I don't think it's a bad thing to be frequently wrong. It's only bad to a) refuse to change your opinion and b) not realize you're wrong.
Still, I could be wrong now and then.
If you think you're only wrong "every now and then", then you haven't really learned much from LW.
Wow, that's a lot of information. Thanks!
Definitely - there's a lot of concepts that seem rather obvious to me, while others take me a lot longer to wrap my head around, so I've been skipping the ones that are really obvious to me.
Obviously the actual number itself is completely arbitrary, although I think you did a pretty good job estimating and giving a relatively realistic range. The full impact of Google, of course, can't really be quantified; it's impacted the world culturally, technically, socially, economically, etc. When you think about it, things that we understand qualitatively but not quantitatively are usually massively complex.
Has anyone on LW compiled a list of books/subjects to read/learn that basically gives brings you through all the ideas discussed on LW?
The sequences are the obvious answer, but it's nice to go into subjects a little more in-depth, plus the sequences are somewhat frustrating to navigate (every article in the sequences has links to plenty of other articles, so it's hard to attack the sequences in linear fashion).
Well, yeah. The ability of humans to self-delude themselves is well-known, and of course mental illness exists as well.
It seems a little silly to say "I believe these experiences exist"; it almost sounds like you're trying to imply that some greater force exists. It's reminiscent of those people that say "well, I don't believe in God, but there has to be something" as if they'd just uttered a profound statement.
It'd be silly to doubt that at least a small portion of the people reporting experiences believe they experienced whatever they said.
Huh? Diets are on a spectrum, from shitty to healthy.
just professing a desire to X
Doesn't this, to a large extent, describe LW?
Facing the front of the elevator seems to be the better choice - you can press buttons, watch the floor numbers tick up, and exit the elevator more quickly.
Facing backwards also sort of cuts out human interaction in cases where, say, somebody new enters the elevator.
Either way, the guy's a moron. He's basically a much better packaged snake oil salesman.
So, simple is a type of equation?
Jokes aside, that's an excellent answer.
There's a clear difference between interacting with foreigners in your own country, and being a foreigner in another country, which is basically that when you're a foreigner, it's your beliefs/customs/mannerism that are being questioned. If everybody faces the back of the elevator, you're going to start pondering why in the U.S. you face the front of the elevator, whereas those facing the back wouldn't stop and think about why a foreigner might be facing the opposite direction.
Also, obviously, the immersion factor is there. Speaking to foreigners in your own country is not nearly as new/scary an environment as being in a completely foreign country.
Dietary cholesterol and lipid cholesterol aren't the same thing either, and just as your body can compensate for an intake of 0 cholesterol, it can likewise compensate for an intake of excess cholesterol.
"Can produce" doesn't mean optimal intake is 0.
We know a lot less about hunter-gatherers than most people think, and hunter-gatherer tribes fluctuate a lot in terms of their diets/lifestyles, as one would expect with the diversity of the world.
Vegetables tend to be low calorie, so you wouldn't expect tribes to expend a lot of effort getting them. That doesn't really apply to a modern environment where getting enough calories isn't a concern and vegetables can be bought at your local supermarket.
I think it goes without saying what I mean. Healthy diet > soylent > shit diet
Yes, it's better than a shit diet. Pretty much anything is better than shitty diet, though.
My point is that Soylent will be suboptimal. Also, most of the claims they make can't be substantiated.
Total meal replacement shakes exist, although I have no idea about pricing. However, going down this route is basically ensuring sub-optimal nutrition. We know a ton about nutrition, but not enough to have an optimal diet without food.
I would strongly recommend against doing this; a meal replacement shake designed by one guy simply won't cover every possible nutrient/compound you'd need from food.
It'll be healthier and more enjoyable just to eat actual food. Our understanding of nutrition is growing, but we're not at the point where we can apply reductionism to food. Supplements are extremely effective as part of a diet, but we don't know enough to make a diet completely based upon supplements.
If you're going to go for meal replacement anyway, don't choose soylent. His understanding of nutrition is mediocre at best; as an example, he put no cholesterol at all in his original formula (I have no idea if he's updated it or not).