I live in a smaller city, and don't have easy access to a LessWrong meetup group. Are there any commonly-occurring social groups that attract rational (and interesting) people?
I do not have a good example to give (that's why I'm asking), but I will note that examples of "commonly-occurring social groups" would include things like the Unitarian Universalist Church (interesting people, open minded, not generally particularly rationalist) and the local game store game-play events (intelligent, diverse group, often with better than average critical thinking skills, but also includes a lot of people who are there mostly because they think that superheroes and zombies are cool).
One strategy I've seen recommended is to ramble a bit, including potential conversation starters on topics which are more interesting to you as part of the ramble.
For example, let's say you're talking with someone you just met in the laundry room of your apartment building. You're talking about the weather, or something similar. You want to see if this person is interested in cooking, so as you load some clothes you casually mention how you made a mess of your shirt last time you cooked to see if they bite.
I have not tried this myself, but it seems very general and subtle enough that it's not out of the ordinary.
I've noticed that people uphold a lot of social conventions about how conversations are supposed to work, and then they have to all get drunk in order to have interesting conversations, because those social conventions (like "don't make non-sequiturs" or "don't talk about impractical speculations") make interesting conversations difficult.
So... pretend to be drunk? Invite a drunk into the conversation? Probably not very good advice. But it seems people want to get past small talk, but need an excuse for breaking with convention.
Which country should software engineers emigrate to?
I'm going to research everything, build a big spreadsheet, weight the various factors, etc. over the next while, so any advice that saves me time or improves the accuracy of my analysis is much appreciated. Are there any non-obvious considerations here?
There are some lists of best countries for software developers, and for expats in general. These consider things like software dev pay, cost of living, taxes, crime, happiness index, etc. Those generally recommend Western Europe, the US, Canada, Israel, Aus...
Context: I am a software engineer living and working in the US. I am a US citizen and my wife is not, and we are working on getting her permanent residency.
It's definitely worth investigating the difficulty of immigrating to the various countries. Canada and Singapore both have reputations for being a lot easier for skilled workers to immigrate to than the US, but YMMV.
Note that if you do marry an American, be sure to start the process of getting your permanent residency while you're still in the country. My wife and I made the mistake of starting the process while she was temporarily abroad, and that has caused significant delays.
See if there are companies that are willing to hire you while you're on OPT. I think that buys you a couple years to try for an H1b or perhaps get married. If they're willing to hire you in the US and let you transfer internationally if immigration doesn't let you in, even better.
Also keep in mind that if you become a US citizen, the US will tax you on your worldwide income, not just your US income. That's not an issue if you plan on staying in one place, though.
Are there any nootropics that have decent evidence of nonnegligible effectiveness that aren't listed in Slate Star Codex's Nootropics Survey Results. Asking so I can use replies to this comment + survey as an exhaustive list of nootropics worth considering.
Are there any known interventions for increasing one's lifespan which are commonly overlooked by transhumanist folks on LW?
How can I trick myself into generally being more relaxed during activities that are not work/school-related like household chores, during workout, during commuting, before going to bed etc.? I have often mild fear of forgetting whatever important thing I was thinking about before. "If I don't clean up in 2.5 seconds, I'll forget what I was about to do!"
It seems to me that I'm either underestimating my ability to recall or I'm aiming too high, i.e. I would actually forget important things.
How should I use facebook, assuming I have a facebook but don't post anything, just message as of now?
Scott Adams tweeted that you can't be with someone less happy than you. I'm trying it anyway.
Does anyone have any experience with this? In particular, is there a way to not always sacrifice my happiness for theirs at rapidly diminishing rates of return until we are equally (un)happy?
For people who take CoQ10 for life extension purposes, how much do you take, and how often do you take it? A very brief search makes it seem like the range of plausibly reasonable doses of CoQ10 for this purpose span around an order of magnitude or so.
Looking back on when I have improved the most, I've noticed that I have tended to read a lot of self-help books around those times. I'm not sure about the causality, but it seems worthwhile to see if I get a similar effect again.
What books in the general category of self-help would people recommend?
I use two questions.
To myself - when stumped; "what do I want to know about this person?" then ask that; or find a way to ask that.
To others; "What is the most important thing you could be working on right now?" followed by, "What are you doing about that?" and "how can you do that better?" (also "have you tried X")
Traditionally - people would read paper or books and share that information with people they meet. i.e. "did you read the article about X" but people don't read papers any more.
Keeping a list (either written or mentally) of recent interesting things to chat about is good.
I tend to also ask, "what occupies most of your time?" Because it usually is something they are most interested in sharing.
Interestingly; those small-talk topics when you look at them carefully, are actually the important ones. "how are you?" when taken to steelman is practically the most important question I can ever ask someone. Its just too bad we automate to the default answers so often. (I have a theory that the weather actually affects 8% or so of people's moods. which is a small fraction; but big enough to be of significance for everyone. I don't know how to prove this; but its would explain why everyone defaults to the weather)
Often when people do the interview "how old are you, what do you do" type questions they are looking for common ground with which to share things with you. "Oh I also volunteer", "I also own a car that broke down today, how funny". If you try to broadly hit a few areas of your own interest with "hooks" for people to grab on - it will make it easier to connect.
i.e. "I like cooking" is not as good for hooking interest as, "I tried cooking X last week"... (this advice comes as dating profile advice as well)
Did this help?
I have a theory that the weather actually affects 8% or so of people's moods.
I remember reading somewhere that people who live in places with better weather aren't measurably happier for it. This doesn't disprove your theory, since people's mood could still swing with the weather even if their baseline happiness is invariant.
This thread is for asking the rationalist community for practical advice. It's inspired by the stupid questions series, but with an explicit focus on instrumental rationality.
Questions ranging from easy ("this is probably trivial for half the people on this site") to hard ("maybe someone here has a good answer, but probably not") are welcome. However, please stick to problems that you actually face or anticipate facing soon, not hypotheticals.
As with the stupid questions thread, don't be shy, everyone has holes in their knowledge, though the fewer and the smaller we can make them, the better, and please be respectful of other people's admitting ignorance and don't mock them for it, as they're doing a noble thing.
(See also the Boring Advice Repository)