"I don't know any other way to live";
I mean whether you're familiar with the feeling, the state-of-mind that would generate such a phrase, not the phrase itself.
I thought you didn't mean my sexual orientation, I just wished to point out that "being a woman" was far less important than "being a sapient being with whom I can satisfy my values". I honestly don't care if it's a woman, a man, a robot, an alien, or an uplifted banana (well, unless they're very unpleasant in to the senses).
I also contest the notion that my "ideal" women don't exist. I happen to know at least three such women, possibly seven (eleven people if I count the males), they just happened to be taken or live very, very far away from me at the moment, or unable or unwilling to be in a romantic relationship with someone of the same sex, chaste though it may be.
It's just a game they're playing against women, and they "win" when they get control.
That's the Dark Side of the Arts you're describing. Non LW could also be under the impression that being a "rationalist" is about winning arguments and uplifting oneself by telling other people how stupid they are. They'd be mistaken. I hope. Doesn't stop some posters here to act like insufferable smug pricks, including our boss here (the fact that that piece is funny, for a certain value of funny, is beside the point XD).
Why don't you set them aside for a second, look at the world, and see what it has going for it in an unought way?
Oh, but I do that all the time. I'm not too unhappy with the material world, as such. It's people that confuse me, including myself. What I approve of, what I want, and what I like, don't correlate very well, and it creates a lot of conflict and suffering, and I don't know how to deal with that.
This is my first attempt at starting a casual conversation on LW where people don't have to worry about winning or losing points, and can just relax and have social fun together.
So, Big Bang Theory. That series got me wondering. It seems to be about "geeks", and not the basement-dwelling variety either; they're highly successful and accomplished professionals, each in their own field. One of them has been an astronaut, even. And yet, everything they ever accomplish amounts to absolutely nothing in terms of social recognition or even in terms of personal happiness. And the thing is, it doesn't even get better for their "normal" counterparts, who are just as miserable and petty.
Consider, then; how would being rationalists would affect the characters on this show? The writing of the show relies a lot on laughing at people rather than with them; would rationalist characters subvert that? And how would that rationalist outlook express itself given their personalities? (After all, notice how amazingly different from each other Yudkowsky, Hanson, and Alicorn are, just to name a few; they emphasize rather different things, and take different approaches to both truth-testing and problem-solving).
Note: this discussion does not need to be about rationalism. It can be a casual, normal discussion about the series. Relax and enjoy yourselves.
But the reason I brought up that series is that its characters are excellent examples of high intelligence hampered by immense irrationality. The apex of this is represented by Dr. Sheldon Cooper, who is, essentially, a complete fundamentalist over every single thing in his life; he applies this attitude to everything, right down to people's favorite flavor of pudding: Raj is "axiomatically wrong" to prefer tapioca, because the best pudding is chocolate. Period. This attitude makes him a far, far worse scientist than he thinks, as he refuses to even consider any criticism of his methods or results.