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E_Ransom comments on Welcome to Less Wrong! (6th thread, July 2013) - Less Wrong
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Hi LW, My name's Olivier, I'm a 37-year-old Canadian currently living in Ottawa. My background is varied: I have a BA in Communication Studies and an MPhil in Japanese Studies but also a DEC (some special Quebec degree equivalent to the last year of high school and first of university in the rest of Canada and the USA) in Natural Sciences. I've owned a business, worked in cultural media and am now a public servant working in immigration.
I've been interested in AI, existential risks, intelligence explosion et al. for a number of years, probably since finding Bolstrom's paper on Simulated Reality.
I'm not 100% sure how I found LW, but it probably was while browsing for one of the topics above.
I've considered myself a rationalist for as long as I can remember, though I've long called it (rather naively?) "realist". Also being an existentialist, I try to bring these beliefs/convictions into practice in my work and how I raise my children (we'll see how that turns out!)
Through browsing here, I'm glad to find community that appears in between rigid academia and sensationalist media.
Anyhow, I'll most likely lurk a lot more than I post. Having three young kids leaves me with little time, and a sleep-addled, rather incoherent brain.
Thanks for reading!
Hello and welcome to LessWrong!
Wow! That's quite the background. Sounds like you enjoy to dip into each field. A useful virtue to have. You'll find plenty of people here whose interests extend to every field they can devour. I'm sure you'll have an interesting perspective to bring to the conversation!
AI, existential risks, and intelligence explosion are definitely bolded topics around LW. We're something of a sister organization to MIRI, the Machine Intelligence Research Institute. Don't know how familiar you are with them, but if AI interests you, I'd highly suggest giving them a look-see. Quite a few active LWers have worked with or at MIRI before, so cross-pollination is frequent.
Sounds like you've already started the work of trying to apply rational techniques in your life. Good on ya! Many of us here are always working to improve what some call "the martial arts of rationality" and make our own lives a little better planned, a little better exectued. We'd love to hear some of your experiences. Especially with kids! Now that's a problem that never gets solved!
We're certainly glad to have you, and if you feel like joining the conversation, hop right in! You might check out the latest Open Thread for some casual talk. It's a good place to start posting so you can get a feel for the community and its standards, and a great place to ask questions. Even though its an open thread, the conversation is serious and can even get pretty heated. If you're interested in a little (lie: a LOT) reading material, you can check out the Sequences, the main collection of LW posts covering and analyzing some of the most important topics on LW.
Whatever you do next, we're glad to have you!