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Comment by Violet on Polyhacking · 2011-08-30T19:59:11.396Z · LW · GW

Not telling is mostly about wanting to avoid the other party getting angry.

I wouldn't mind disclosing the reasons to someone if I was given some confidence they wouldn't get angry at me.

Thus most of the time one ends up using polite safe generic to turn away people.

Comment by Violet on Polyhacking · 2011-08-30T14:42:02.720Z · LW · GW

This is a little bit more complex.

Sexual desires are not a constant for each invidual person.

It seems (in the poly community) that awesome sexual experiences with one partner make one want more sexual things with the other partners rather than less.

Comment by Violet on Intelligence Amplification Open Thread · 2010-09-16T13:38:14.746Z · LW · GW

Supplementing D-vitamin (D3 in my case) seems to add more energy and efficient hours in the day for me.

Comment by Violet on More art, less stink: Taking the PU out of PUA · 2010-09-12T13:29:38.874Z · LW · GW

If altering preferences is so easy then the men could alter themselves to be bisexual and solve the problem...

Not advocating that, but if we talk about altered preferences, that is the simplest solution.

Comment by Violet on More art, less stink: Taking the PU out of PUA · 2010-09-12T11:00:19.286Z · LW · GW

Let's see for a definition, first hit on 'venue change pua' is http://www.pualingo.com/pua-definitions/venue-change/

Does building "compliance" and "time distortion" sound ethical? Does it sound like it helps people make informed rational choices?

Everything social is shades of gray, and that is why motives are so important. If the art is so ethical why are description of it so often done in such a bad way?

Comment by Violet on More art, less stink: Taking the PU out of PUA · 2010-09-12T08:59:11.948Z · LW · GW

I think they go more into a "that person is more likely defect for his own win than cooperate" and "that person does not seem safe".

Also being somewhat sensitive to the system people doing a status competition just stink on a personal level.

Then again I prefer androgynous cooperative helpful people, rather than overtly masculine (or feminine) ones.

Others might find the same behaviors very hot.

Comment by Violet on More art, less stink: Taking the PU out of PUA · 2010-09-12T08:23:31.719Z · LW · GW

"there are many people to whom it doesn't apply".

Sorry for the confusion, english is not my first language so sometimes my sentence structures will be confusing.

If the site takes an implicit almost-every-of-us-is-a-single-het-man then it will probably self-select into that direction.

Comment by Violet on More art, less stink: Taking the PU out of PUA · 2010-09-12T08:17:07.324Z · LW · GW

This might be an artifact from my social circles and I don't doubt that nicer PUAs might exist on the internet. However people having negative PUA experiences in real life affects how the label is seen by different kinds of people.

And that can be relevant if the project wants to attract others than the single-hetero-male crowd.

But it seems like many men on the hinges of the social circle seem to get an "it is ok to lie to get sex because no harm done in that to the women, and it is their fault for not giving enough sex in the beginning." from various PUA sources.

Personally I am quite interested in ideas about open honest communication as good relationship practices and the whole "relationship management by white lies" is quite the opposite.

Then there are the ideas from Roissy etc that are directly misogynic

Comment by Violet on More art, less stink: Taking the PU out of PUA · 2010-09-12T07:52:04.098Z · LW · GW

Many "alpha" behaviours can be creepy.

Someone being submissive is not creepy.

This as a personal note, not as a general truth.

Comment by Violet on More art, less stink: Taking the PU out of PUA · 2010-09-11T06:29:17.444Z · LW · GW

Because some people are in happy long term relationships, where picking new people up or dating new people are not very important.

Comment by Violet on More art, less stink: Taking the PU out of PUA · 2010-09-11T06:23:21.920Z · LW · GW

In real life the most common exposure to PUA is sadly men thinking that it is ok to lie to get into bed.

So this has created a situation where "more exposure to PUA locally" -> "more exposure to lying men" -> "less trust" -> negative externalities.

This is not to imply that PUA is all dark arts, just a perspective from the other side of the fence. There are probably lots of more ethical PUAs, but this is sadly the most visible part.

Comment by Violet on Less Wrong: Open Thread, September 2010 · 2010-09-10T12:56:01.139Z · LW · GW

Do you really need a "theory of mind" for that?

Our partners are not a foreign species. Communicate lots in an open and honest manner with hir and try to understand what makes that particular person click.

Comment by Violet on More art, less stink: Taking the PU out of PUA · 2010-09-10T05:58:27.820Z · LW · GW

Maybe consider an another term, PUA as a term can drag many shitstorms and divide community even if you are trying to avoid dark arts.

The whole "happiness limited by shyness/social awkwardness which results in no dates" stereotype does not apply to many people here.

e.g. I consider job interviews much more terrifying than finding new people (which seems mostly limited by the amount of free time).

Comment by Violet on Problems in evolutionary psychology · 2010-08-16T09:08:12.480Z · LW · GW

A simple example is height. On average men are taller than women.

But most of the time making a men=tall, women=short simplification does not make sense. It makes more sense to provide multiple sizes for both women and men.

And if providing only a very limited selection of sizes (e.g. hospital clothing) it makes sense to provide different unisex sizes rather than one for men and one for women.

Comment by Violet on Problems in evolutionary psychology · 2010-08-15T07:31:15.879Z · LW · GW

If the rates are changing dramatically wouldn't this imply they are not mainly caused by genetic components?

Comment by Violet on What should I have for dinner? (A case study in decision making) · 2010-08-14T10:30:49.720Z · LW · GW

Sorry, misinterpreted the sweet tooth mentioned together with weight gain as a potential issue. My wrong.

Comment by Violet on Problems in evolutionary psychology · 2010-08-14T08:35:11.096Z · LW · GW

Given two groups there are probably mental differences.

More interesting is are the distributions bimodal and how much have they changed in e.g. last 100 years.

If the distributions are not bimodal or change relatively strong with time then a simplistic view of "women X, men Y" won't work.

Comment by Violet on What should I have for dinner? (A case study in decision making) · 2010-08-13T08:10:50.633Z · LW · GW

Have you considered Stevia (Rebaudioside A) as a solution?

Comment by Violet on Five-minute rationality techniques · 2010-08-11T07:12:44.069Z · LW · GW

I actually keep getting good ideas in some areas while sleeping.

E.g. when facing a difficult problem in programming sleeping a night seems to give the solution quite often.

Comment by Violet on Five-minute rationality techniques · 2010-08-10T05:23:40.511Z · LW · GW

Count to ten.

Learning one was wrong (and updating) is a good thing.

One should be more interested in obtaining information than winning debates.

Comment by Violet on Open Thread, August 2010 · 2010-08-03T06:34:15.955Z · LW · GW

If you want non-PC approaches there are two communities you could look into: sales-people and conning people. The second one actually has most of the how-to-hack-peoples minds. If you want a kinder version look at it titled "social engineering".

Comment by Violet on Against the standard narrative of human sexual evolution · 2010-07-24T19:26:13.780Z · LW · GW

Yes, unfortunately people do this.

Comment by Violet on Public Choice and the Altruist's Burden · 2010-07-23T13:52:54.103Z · LW · GW

Have you considered that some of us might have utility functions that do have terms for socially distant people? Thus the charity can give direct utility to us, which seems ignored by the analysis.

Second, end points rarely are optimal. E.g. eating only tuna and nothing else could be unhealthy and weird, but that does not imply that eating some tuna is unhealthy or weird. Thus your analysis seems to miss the obvious answer.

Comment by Violet on Against the standard narrative of human sexual evolution · 2010-07-23T08:36:09.741Z · LW · GW

The Sex at Dawn story is nice but the whole debate seems backwards.

Everyone picks their favorite modern social models and then molds citations and stories to support that it must be natural and even the ancient hunter gatherers...

Popularized evo-psych seems to be a lot like appealing that a certain way of life is "natural" and thus "good".

btw Is there a name to the "natural -> good" bias/fallacy?

Comment by Violet on Fight Zero-Sum Bias · 2010-07-19T20:54:19.255Z · LW · GW

I think the issue is whether to use "relative status" or "absolute status".

For example using the karma example, it is not very important what the karma numbers are absolutely but what their relative value is. Thus a couple of friends voting each other up raise the average (+mode + whatever statistical marker one prefers). Thus while their absolute status rises the relative status of other people sinks.

I think we may have different notions of status with me thinking of "relative inside a given group".

Comment by Violet on Fight Zero-Sum Bias · 2010-07-18T10:12:52.386Z · LW · GW

Could you elaborate or point to a link about status being positive sum?

Comment by Violet on Unknown knowns: Why did you choose to be monogamous? · 2010-06-29T20:16:35.730Z · LW · GW

Don't really care for the genders of partners. So any gender mix really. Female + bisexual with mostly female partners at the moment.

Comment by Violet on Unknown knowns: Why did you choose to be monogamous? · 2010-06-29T19:57:01.328Z · LW · GW

Actually the logistics is not so clear-cut.

Lets say Sarah has two partners Tom and Maria. Now Sarah has the wednesday afternoon free. The probablity that one of her partners has free time is higher than it would be in a monogamous arrangement.

The time needed is not necassary "everyone needed" but for "some suitable combination of people".

Comment by Violet on Unknown knowns: Why did you choose to be monogamous? · 2010-06-28T23:57:27.760Z · LW · GW

5:3 would be far more enjoyable in my experience from polyamoric relationships.

Comment by Violet on Abnormal Cryonics · 2010-05-27T08:58:20.004Z · LW · GW

I am not liking long term cryonics for the following reasons: 1) If an unmodified Violet would be revived she would not be happy in the far future 2) If a Violet modified enough would be revived she would not be me 3) I don't place a large value on there being a "Violet" in the far future 4) There is a risk of my values and the values of being waking Violet up being incompatible, and avoiding possible "fixing" of brain is very high priority 5) Thus I don't want to be revived by far-future and death without cryonics seems a safe way for that

Comment by Violet on On Enjoying Disagreeable Company · 2010-05-26T20:39:16.293Z · LW · GW

The whole affair smells quite a lot like harassment and someone not being content when asked to stop.

Comment by Violet on Taking the awkwardness out of a Prenup - A Game Theoretic solution · 2010-05-24T09:29:36.813Z · LW · GW

Of course this type of preprenup being common would create a market for the opposite preprenup "I will not agree to a prenup or I will pay max(my_net_worth,partners_net_worth)/2".

Actually it would make sense for the same company to market both of them. They could even pay something to get young people to agree to these contacts financed by the conflicts the preprenups would create later on.

Comment by Violet on Open Thread: March 2010 · 2010-03-02T09:50:56.799Z · LW · GW

There are rules for the game that are perceived as fair.

If one participant goes changing the rules in the middle of the game this 1) makes rule changing acceptable in the game, 2) forces other players to analyze the current (and future changes) to the game to ensure they are fair.

Cutting the deck probably doesn't affect the probability distribution (unless you shuffled the deck in a "funny" way). Allowing it makes a case for allowing the next changes in the rules too. Thus you can end up analyzing a new game rather than having fun playing poker.

Comment by Violet on Med Patient Social Networks Are Better Scientific Institutions · 2010-02-20T12:09:12.618Z · LW · GW

This depends on the situation.

With a rare diagnosed conditions it is kind of easy for the patient to have more knowledge than a typical doctor. The doctor has heard 15 minutes about it 20 years ago in med school while the patient has gone through all the recent research.

Self-diagnosing is typically problematic. Self-managing chronic conditions is many times quite rational.

Comment by Violet on A problem with Timeless Decision Theory (TDT) · 2010-02-05T20:10:09.801Z · LW · GW

So let's say I'm confronted with this scenario, and I see $1M in the large box.

So lets get the facts:
1) There is $1M in the large box and thus (D xor E)=true
2) I know that I am an one boxing agent
3) Thus D="one boxing"
4) Thus I know D/=E since the xor is true
5) I one-box and live happily with $1,000,000

When Omega simulates me with the same scenario and without lying there is no problem.

Seems like much of the mindgames are hindered by simply precommitting to choices.

For the red-and-green just toss a coin (or whatever choice of randomness you have).

Comment by Violet on The AI in a box boxes you · 2010-02-05T16:16:29.893Z · LW · GW

It seems like precommitting to destroy the AI in such a situation is the best approach.

If one has already decided to destroy it if it makes threats: 1) the AI must be suicidal or it cannot really simulate you 2) and it is not very Friendly in any case

So when the AI simulates you and will notice that you are very trigger happy, it won't start telling you tales about torturing your copies if it has any self-preservation instincts.