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Comment author:sanddbox
02 June 2013 04:26:00AM
3 points
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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).
Comment author:wedrifid
02 June 2013 06:21:57AM
10 points
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The most linear way to read Eliezer's Sequences is in chronological order by date of original posting, although it might not be the best way.
Mind you it will be a good approximation of the best way. His posting order was dominated by needing to explain requisite knowledge before explaining later concepts. Perhaps the most obvious optimisation when it comes to reading is just skipping the parts that aren't interesting.
Comment author:sanddbox
02 June 2013 10:29:15PM
1 point
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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.
Comment author:ZankerH
02 June 2013 02:31:15PM
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I'm interested. If you plan on posting semi-regularly or irregularly, please consider adding an RSS feed. It's the only way to follow sites that don't have a regular update schedule.
Comment author:Thomas
03 June 2013 07:31:03AM
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2 points
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Good point. To avoid being wrong, one may restrict himself to write about common accepted things, like 2+2=4. What is boring.
But I will say something very controversial. Like "faster rotating planets are warmer than slowly rotating, everything else equal". Most people "know" it is the other way around. Then I will try to decompose this statement to some well known and thus boring facts.
Comment author:sanddbox
03 June 2013 10:04:30PM
0 points
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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.
Oxytocin is known to dampen amygdala's 'fight, flight or freeze' responses.
Oxytocin production is increased during bonding behaviors (e.g. parent-child, pets, snuggling / Karezza).
If 1, 2 and 3 are true, we could reduce the effect of an ugh field by petting a dog, hugging a baby or snuggling (but not orgasming) with a lover -- before confronting the task that induces the ugh field.
Disclaimer: I am not a brain scientist, so the terminology, logic and the entire idea may be wrong.
Alas, oxytocin supplements (there is a nasal spray, if I remember correctly) don't seem to work. When released naturally, it's released where it matters and in precise amounts, while the shotgun approach of the nasal spray makes it easy to miss the correct dosage and delivery location, which may cause various adverse effects.
Warning: my source on the above is a popular book, Cupid's Poisoned Arrow -- but, to their credit, they do cite their scientific sources. If Kindle had a way of copying / quoting text from its books, I'd look up the relevant paragraph for you.
Edit: The sources (had to type them manually):
M. Ansseau, et al., "Intranasal Oxytocin in Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder", 1987: 231-236.
G. Paolisso, et al., "Pharmacological Doses of Oxytocin Affect Plasma Hormone Levels Modulating Glucose Homeostasis in Normal Man", 1988: 10-16.
Edit 2: Here's the relevant part on the nasal spray (had to post it via a screenshot because Kindle does not allow copy/pasting text): http://imgur.com/kyysmbo
Comment author:wedrifid
03 June 2013 05:36:01AM
3 points
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Edit 2: Here's the relevant part on the nasal spray (had to post it via a screenshot because Kindle does not allow copy/pasting text): http://imgur.com/kyysmbo
For this reason (and in particular for the purpose of text-to-speech) I use calibre and the Kindle plugin to convert my kindle books to a less artificially restricted format.
I've found a way to copy/paste from Kindle! Their software reader, at least the Windows version, allows copying:
You may wonder how researchers did most of the oxytocin experiments related to bonding. They piped it (or drugs that neutralized it) directly into rodents’ brains— onto spots no larger than peppercorns. However, even if you could pipe it into an unloving mate’s brain, you’d have to squirt it in every time you were together. Bonds are only created when oxytocin is consistently released in response to a particular person.
Next time you read about the wonders of oxytocin, keep in mind that the only feasible way to deliver it to anyone’s brain today is by way of a nasal spray— and that is not such a good idea. Such sprays have been used for a long time to induce milk letdown, but the oxytocin ends up all over the brain and circulating in the blood.
In contrast , your body delivers neurochemicals in just the right amount, precisely to the places they are needed, for as long as they are needed, and then quickly disposes of them. A shotgun approach can cause unintended consequences and alter the brain itself. A rise in oxytocin in a minuscule part of a mother rat’s brain causes her to guard her young fiercely. The same rise one-tenth of an inch away makes her passive. 277 Manipulating humans with oxytocin is also dodgy. When scientists tried to relieve symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder long-term, using oxytocin nasal spray, it caused severe memory disturbances, psychotic symptoms, and marked changes in blood sodium levels. 278 In another experiment it brought on high blood sugar (diabetes). 279
At present researchers only use oxytocin nasal sprays for short-term experiments— to learn the kinds of behaviors it influences. In this way it became evident that oxytocin increases trust— by calming the amygdala. 280 Spraying your brain is a fine tactic if you want to trust everyone, including Wall Street bankers, used car salesmen, and politicians. For example, in one experiment, those who took the placebo did not reinvest
Comment author:MixedNuts
04 June 2013 09:25:06PM
2 points
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Do you have a source on oxytocin and sex with vs without orgasm? My understanding was that sex increased oxytocin secretion pretty much the same whether you orgasmed or not.
Here's the closest one I could find: Specificity of the neuroendocrine response to orgasm during sexual
arousal in men. Also, Wikipedia article on oxytocin says that "The relationship between oxytocin and human sexual response is unclear" and cites multiple studies on oxytocin and orgasm, but none of them seem to show any major effect.
So my impression is that oxytocin secretion per se is not heavily affected by orgasm (there is a short-term rise, but that's about it.) However, orgasm significantly affects two other hormones, dopamine and prolactin (also shown in the study I linked above). After an orgasm, dopamine drops and prolactin rises and keeps surging, supposedly for about two weeks (which seems established, but I don't have a source handy.)
This series of studies clearly demonstrated that plasma prolactin (PRL) concentrations are substantially increased for over 1h following orgasm (masturbation and coitus conditions) in both men and women, but unchanged following sexual arousal without orgasm.
My current crude thinking is as follows:
Orgasm leads to low dopamine and high prolactin (oxytocin release is negligible).
Low dopamine means low motivation (is the Coolidge effect a hard-coded exception?).
High prolactin means satiation.
When confronting an ugh field, one needs oxytocin and dopamine, but not prolactin.
Therefore it's better to avoid the post-orgasmic dopamine and prolactin changes.
Comment author:MixedNuts
05 June 2013 11:38:12AM
0 points
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Thanks!
Moving back from the biological basis to the introspective level, I'd expect the high-prolactin afterglow state to reduce anxiety enough to compensate for decreased motivation. (This might be related to whether one gets wired up or sleepy after sex, which has surprisingly large individual variation.) Easy enough to set up a randomised trial.
Comment author:MixedNuts
06 June 2013 10:36:36AM
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No. High oxytocin is present whether you orgasm or not, as we just established. I expect this to help productivity. I also expect that orgasm would
Hurt productivity, because "so sleepy and satisfied, why do anything?" (from low dopamine, possibly from high prolactin)
Help productivity, because "feeling so relaxed, doing things that normally make me so anxious and icky is so easy right now" (from high prolactin; sex without orgasm (high-oxytocin, low-prolactin) does provide some pleasant feelings but not this specific effect)
Help productivity overall, relative to sex without orgasm
Comment author:[deleted]
06 June 2013 05:46:04AM
0 points
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I think that common-sense reasoning states that if the idea of doing something makes you uncomfortable, then perhaps you should make yourself comfortable before doing it. To me, this "using oxytocin to counteract ugh fields" idea isn't obviously more credible or more useful than this common-sense idea.
If an ugh field is indeed a form of an amygdala hijack, one will have a hard time consciously making oneself comfortable with the task, because the amygdala responds faster than the rational brain. A neurochemical hack might work better.
Comment author:[deleted]
06 June 2013 06:38:41AM
0 points
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What I said was "make yourself comfortable", and it seems to me like petting a dog, hugging a baby, and snuggling are all ways of making oneself comfortable. Maybe I was unclear, though.
Comment author:maia
02 June 2013 12:42:52PM
3 points
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Anyone have a good idea of where to park an "emergency fund" type account, and especially resources that talk about this? Most of my money is sitting in a checking account right now, which I have realized is not so good, but I want to keep most of it liquid (and the remainder might not be enough to start an index fund account with Vanguard).
Comment author:wmorgan
02 June 2013 05:53:26PM
4 points
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I was on the subway the other day and Sovereign Bank had bought up all the ad spots advertising in big print "MONEY MARKET ACCOUNT. 0.6% APY. $100,000 MINIMUM." The interest rate offered on a smaller deposit is presumably less than that, and yet the bank thought this deal would be appealing enough to advertise. This makes a year of "emergency fund" holdings in a money market account approximately worth the change in the couch. I don't see how that's enough of a difference from a checking account to worry about.
Comment author:huh
02 June 2013 06:51:28PM
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4 points
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Capitol One offers savings accounts yielding 0.75% APY with no minimum deposit. I've used them for over 10 years with no hassles. Your general point about low yields still applies, though.
I would estimate an opportunity cost of 3 hours per year to set up the account, shuffle money around, periodically monitor the balance, and pay taxes on the interest. This opportunity cost will vary depending on how efficient one is with paperwork. Whether this is worthwhile depends on the size of the emergency fund and the alternative options for increasing marginal income via an equivalent time investment.
Comment author:[deleted]
06 June 2013 06:22:18AM
0 points
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For what it's worth, a money market fund might also be a good idea. It looks like historically, it has been extremely rare for a money market fund to decrease in value.
You only need an emergency fund if you do not have access to credit at reasonable terms. Investments you don't touch outside of emergencies coupled with open lines of credit should outperform excessive "emergency" savings. After all, lines of credit are typically free when you don't use or need them, while not getting the best rate of return on your savings isn't.
I don't really see many emergencies that can be handled by cash but not by a loan for cash. If you're solvent and people want dollars later, then they will lend you money. If you're not solvent, then whether your immediate liquidity is in credit or cash doesn't make a big difference since you're still not solvent. If nobody wants dollars later (say, asteroid), then it's unlikely that having dollars now is going to fix any emergencies.
That's fair. I'd been thinking about the general class of "people who need money now for an emergency," many of whom find it difficult to secure credit, rather than the class of "people who have a lot of wealth in non-liquid forms who need money now for an emergency," who presumably don't.
I was thinking more in terms of "there's an expenses function e(t), and a cash availability function s(t), and a cost function f( e(t) - s(t) ), and this cost function is zero at e(t)-s(t) = 0, but is a lot softer at e(t) > s(t) than people fear due to credit cards and lines of credit, and can be quite costly at s(t) >> e(t)"
Except that e(t) and s(t) really should be probability distributions, but that just hurts my head to try and explain coherently. This is literally my fourth attempt at writing up a better description of the reasoning behind my posts.
If e(t) is slightly bigger than s(t), you borrow money from credit cards or other lines of credit at poor interest rates, then pay off those debts in the however many days it takes to get liquid cash from other sources (say, stocks). If e(t) is much bigger than s(t), then you negotiate a payment plan or suffer the consequences of not being able to pay expenses right now.
And of course there's the time costs in optimizing this sort of thing. A percentage point for a thousand dollars over a year comes out to ten dollars, which I roughly approximate as an hour of time. Which means that you probably ought to spend your optimization power on minimizing the amount of work you need to put into your finances. Which, in turn, means automatic bill payment, and regular transfers of excess cash from your checking account into your preferred investment account.
Comment author:Lumifer
03 June 2013 07:59:27PM
3 points
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If you're solvent and people want dollars later, then they will lend you money.
I don't find that obvious. There is a whole host of issues here, starting with time constraints (e.g. you need money within 24 hours and you can get a loan in five business days) and ending with information asymmetry issues of which lenders are acutely cognizant ("you say you're solvent, but can you prove it?").
If your "access to credit" is a couple of credit cards, yeah, you can get cash fast enough but the terms are rarely what I'd call "reasonable". If you'd actually need a new loan or a line of credit... I don't think I would want to rely on that in an emergency.
How often do you really need money within 24 hours? If you can't get the cash within a day, what bad consequences are going to happen?
If it's a purchase under $5000, then you can handle it with a credit card. You then have 21 days to come up with the money or else pay 20% APR. That's plenty of time if you have, say, stocks you can sell. For larger purchases, you can either save for it with an explicit plan, or negotiate a payment plan.
How many times have you needed money immediately in your life, and how much money have you needed for those incidents? Personally, I do not recall ever spending more than a hundred dollars without at least a day's warning. Then again, I don't own a car, which is a big cause for emergency spending - but really that ought to have it's own fund treated as self-insurance.
Comment author:Lumifer
04 June 2013 08:18:05PM
2 points
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How many times have you needed money immediately in your life, and how much money have you needed for those incidents?
Well, if you want to approach this properly... :-)
...then you'll need to evaluate the probability density of situations in your life where not having a certain amount of cash on hand will lead to severely negative outcomes (aka high costs). I expect that you'll have much difficulty in trying to form a reasonable estimate (see Nassim Taleb and the general Black Swan concept). Notably, limited amount of historical data (as in, e.g. your personal experience) is not all that good a basis for estimations.
There is also a whole bunch of other factors in play -- do you have kids? do you travel much? outside of the US? etc. etc.
Comment author:maia
02 June 2013 06:47:17PM
0 points
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A very good point, and I've considered that. So far I have a very short credit history (I am young and haven't had much time to establish one), so the interest on the credit card I have is quite high and the limit is (relatively) low. There's some possibility I could borrow from my parents, but I'd prefer not to depend on that too much.
The particular advice I gave is less relevant to young people, since they have less savings and tend to have better investment opportunities in terms of paying off student loan and other long-term debt. Paying off student loans is effectively an investment that you can never sell back for ready cash, so you'd need savings in something that's actually somewhat liquid.
More on point, if you don't have access to enough emergency credit, that is the perfect reason to essentially have a self-insurance fund. That fund should cover perhaps a couple thousand dollars - anything more than that and you can typically work out a payment plan or tap your less-liquid investments.
Comment author:Lumifer
03 June 2013 08:05:13PM
1 point
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if you never have to borrow money for emergencies, your investments are too liquid
That assumes there is price for liquidity which you are paying. I am not sure this is the case for most normal people (as opposed to, say, those who invest into private equity) now because other than real estate most other available investments are quite liquid.
Essentially, most of people's investments are bank accounts and market securities (again, real estate is the big exception). Liquidity shouldn't be an issue here.
For recent college graduates, their best investment opportunity is early repayment of their student loans. It's essentially guaranteed 4-5% return (whatever their loan rate happens to be). Note that this "investment" is completely illiquid.
Comment author:gwern
04 June 2013 08:16:07AM
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Note that this "investment" is completely illiquid.
Hm, is it really? If you're paying back your loans early, couldn't you then, in case of need, cease paying for a time equivalent to how much you paid and then resume paying? You'd just be right back on schedule.
Comment author:elharo
04 June 2013 09:46:25AM
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3 points
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It depends on the terms of the loan. Some loans may allow you to skip payments if you're ahead. Most I've seen don't though. But either way, if you need $5000 cash right now because your significant other ran their car into someone's living room and you need to pay bail and a lawyer, or the levees are collapsing and you have to split town, you can't get the $5000 back from an early repaid loan.
Comment author:Lumifer
04 June 2013 08:01:11PM
1 point
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For recent college graduates, their best investment opportunity is early repayment of their student loans.
That's often but not necessarily true, especially on a post-tax basis (and especially if your alternative is putting money into tax-advantaged vehicle like 401(k) or IRA).
Comment author:elharo
04 June 2013 09:29:26AM
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Eric Tyson's Personal Finances for Dummies discusses this. He recommends putting your emergency fund into a tax-free money market with check writing privileges. I keep about 2-3% of my liquid assets in such an account, and maybe another 2% in checking and savings accounts at regular banks (one online, plus two local banks in locations where I live and work.) However the percentages aren't as important as the absolute numbers. You need a local account (or a fire-resistant safe that's rated for at least 60 minutes against tools and torch) for when you need a lot of cash right away, and enough cash across your cash accounts for maybe six months of living expenses.
Lines of credit can be useful, but banks do have an annoying habit of cancelling them at the worst possible times; e.g. when the whole economy is imploding as it did in 2008 and clients aren't paying their bills either.
Comment author:letter7
02 June 2013 02:02:12PM
7 points
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I have been constantly thinking recently: Your voice impacts a lot in your presentation, and it's one of those things that people generally take for granted. And it's not just your speak pattern and filler words that I'm referring to, but also intonation, fluency and so on. I would maybe risk saying that it can be as important as your appearance, or even more. (If you stumble every five or ten words, you can't really convey your ideas, can you?)
In this vein, is there a viable alternative for someone who wants to improve his own voice? I already thought about a voice acting tutor, but I generally prefer ways in which I could improve without having to pay a tutor.
I have wanted to do some sort of speech training for a few years, but can't seem to find an appropriate avenue to investigate. The closest I've found is media training, but it tends to only cater towards corporate clients.
Comment author:bbleeker
03 June 2013 10:55:24AM
0 points
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You could practice by yourself by reading out loud. I really should do that again myself, too - I have the tendency to speak too fast, and not pause enough for breath, which leads to me *gasp*ing for air a lot. Try to relax and pay attention to your breath. It's a bit weird speaking aloud by yourself, but I think it helps. If you're braver than me, you could even record yourself and listen back, to hear how you'd sound to others.
Comment author:sediment
02 June 2013 03:20:31PM
2 points
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I'd like to put out a call for anecdata, if I may:
Lately I've been wondering how much of a causal connection there is between happiness/fulfillment and willpower (or, conversely, akrasia) levels. I feel like I'm not especially fulfilled or happy in my life right now, and I can't help but feel intuitively that this is one cause of the difficulty I seem to have in focusing, concentrating, and putting effort into what I want to. However, I've no idea whether there's actually anything in this.
So: I guess I wondered if anyone has any personal accounts of (medium- to long-term) mood affecting akrasia levels in their own lives? I invite you to share here. (Also welcomed: advice; discussion; pointers to actual, nonanecdotal, study-type data.)
Well, I certainly find that the two are correlated... when my mood is low, I don't get much done compared to when my mood is elevated.
Whether that's because getting things done influences my mood (and something else influences my productivity), or whether my mood influences my productivity (and something else influences my mood), or whether neither is true (and something else influences both), or various combinations, is harder to tease out.
My impression is that all three are true at different times.
Comment author:sediment
02 June 2013 04:17:28PM
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Right. It figures that causation would go the other way, at least - that the presence of akrasia would cause bad mood. Indeed, akrasia is pretty much defined as that which makes you unhappy, right?
This is definitely the case according to my experiences and pretty much every self-help text I've ever read. You might want to check out this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broaden-and-build
Comment author:[deleted]
06 June 2013 06:25:26AM
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I've noticed the converse seems to be true in me, at least to a degree: getting useful work done causes me to feel happier. I have not noticed happiness causing me to get more useful work done.
Comment author:CAE_Jones
06 June 2013 07:10:00AM
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I have noticed both, but happiness does seem to improve more after the start of useful work than useful work improves after an increase in happiness. I might describe it as certain types of work requiring a threshold level of happiness to initiate, among other requirements.
I've been noticing this tendency for years and trying to use it to my advantage (much to the annoyance of all the mainstream types who only inquire into my methods when they fail). A particular anecdote that comes to mind is how, after weeks of not managing to care enough to complete any assignments for a course that I like so little as to have since given up on, I discovered HPMoR, which I read in one sitting, other than the ten minutes in the middle where I stopped to complete one of these assignments.
Happiness in / Happiness out, so to speak, except that happiness is obviously not the only activation condition, so attempting to use it without the others present just wastes happiness. (The trouble is how one goes about recognizing the necessary activation conditions for useful work and their presence/absence so as to avoid wasting happiness unnecessarily.)
Comment author:Vaniver
02 June 2013 05:37:43PM
2 points
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Based on guidelines I've come across, I would be surprised if it were much more than $50, and that's generally the estimate without taking into account the costs of not renting out the property if you can't find tenants.
Comment author:gwern
02 June 2013 05:38:59PM
2 points
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In a competitive and efficient market, he'll profit on average to the tune of the risk-free interest rate (~2% or so now) but higher since renting is not risk-free. So you could start by figuring out his risks in renting out to you.
There's also a non-obvious positive risk, too. Specifically, the appreciation of real estate prices. If the landlord owns a $120k house that they expect to increase in value 1%/year over their mortgage rate, then that's another $100/month that the landlord doesn't have to get in rent.
In other words, the landlord is holding an equity position in the real estate they are leasing to you. This equity position can appreciate, giving a non-rent-collection profit source that increases the price they are willing to pay for the real estate in the first place, lowering their profit as a percentage of capital invested.
Comment author:gwern
02 June 2013 08:17:27PM
1 point
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But it can also fall, as we witnessed not too many years ago... Any speculation on real estate will already have been priced in and the expected profit from buying a house minimal.
To borrow your phrasing - in a competitive and efficient market, the expected profit from buying a house is equal to the risk-free interest rate. So my math actually was rather bogus - I should have talked about how the landlord should expect his $20k equity stake to appreciate at the risk-free interest rate (~2%), which would shave $400/year off the amount of collected rent needed to justify the house price in the first place.
The real estate market is far from efficient. Transaction costs are very high and good data is hard to come by. I think a bottom-up approach would be far more accurate than an economics-based approach that uses assumptions that are extremely inaccurate for this situation.
Hang on, his return on his capital may be the risk-free rate plus risk compensation, but Omid's $1000/month is not the landlord's capital, it's his revenue! Unless you have a good way of mapping rent payments onto the amount of capital tied up in the building, I don't see how your answer is useful.
Comment author:gwern
05 June 2013 12:38:50AM
-1 points
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Revenue from a renter is simply investment income, and we'd expect the income from an apartment-bond to, like any other investment, be squeezed down to equal other investments after adjusting for risk and diversification and taxes etc.
Yes. I do not see how this answers my objection. You still have not provided a way of dividing up the $1000 into money used for maintenance and money taken out as profit, which was the original question. All you've said is that the second component should be equal to 3% or so of the investment; since we have no idea what the investment was, this is unhelpful.
The investment income is the revenue from the renter less expenses in running the building.
Improving my social skills is going to be my number one priority for a while. I don't see this subject discussed too much on LW, which is strange because it's one of the biggest correlates with happiness and I think we could benefit a lot from a rational discussion in this area. So I was wondering if anyone has any ideas, musings, relevant links, recommendations, etc. that could be useful for this. Stuff that breaks from the traditional narrative of "just be nicer and more confident" is particularly appreciated. (Unless maybe that is all it takes.)
Optional background regarding my personal situation: I am a 19 yo male (as of tomorrow) who is going to enter college in the fall. I'm not atrociously socially inadept, e.g. I can carry on conversations, can be very bold and confident in short bursts sometimes, I have some friends, I've had girlfriends in the past. However, I also find it very hard to make close friends that I can hang out with one on one, I sometimes find myself feeling like I'm taking a very submissive role socially, and I feel nervous or "in my head" a lot in social interactions, among other things. Not to be melodramatic, but I find myself wishing a decent amount that I had more friends and was more popular.
Comment author:jooyous
02 June 2013 08:22:08PM
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It might help to precise-ify some of the language around what you mean by "more friends" and "more popular"? What kind of friends? What kind of popularity? Are there types of friends or popularity you don't want? Also, what kind of people can you usually hang out with one-on-one?
I think a decent litmus test for a "friend" is someone who you enjoy spending time with, and who you can reliably invite to hang out with you. You could rephrase this I suppose as someone who you enjoy spending time with, who enjoys spending time with you, where this knowledge is mutually available. Right now I only have one friend who clearly meets the criteria for this definition, though I have a few that come close. My tentative goal is to have five such friends, maybe by Thanksgiving break or so in college.
I'll admit that it's hard for me to find people who I genuinely relate to, enjoy spending time with and can feel comfortable "being myself" around, and I'm not sure if this has something to do with my own social strategies or if this is an unchangeable thing.
Popularity is a little more hard to pin down. I think what I want includes a mix of these qualities:
In general, people like me
In general, people respect me
I have a wide range of acquaintances that I can talk to on friendly terms
To the extent that my social group resembles a tribe, I have a relatively high level of tribal status. (I'm not sure if college social groups will resemble a tribal hierarchy to the same extent that high school does or this is something people leave behind.)
I am seen as high-status, i.e. someone who it is desirable to be friends with.
My friends value me - i.e. people will invite me to parties and the like because they will enjoy my presence there.
Obviously some of this is kind of unrealistic and selfish but it's an ideal, I guess.
Comment author:falenas108
02 June 2013 09:31:26PM
3 points
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These goals are not as hard as you'd think to achieve. I've basically gotten all of these by being active in several organizations on campus.
Just doing that gave more opportunities to talk to people, which as drethelin said, is very useful. If you take charge in organizing things, it helps a huge amount with social respect/status. The wide range of acquaintances happens by default.
You do have to make the effort to start hanging out with people outside the regular meetings though. It's pretty easy to do that if the meeting is just before a meal time, because then there's the convenient suggestion of eating together. In other cases, invite them to a party, along with several other people. Being known as the one who organizes groups is very useful for your goals.
These goals are not as hard as you'd think to achieve. I've basically gotten all of these by being active in several organizations on campus.
This is comforting.
Out of curiosity, what kind of organizations are you active in? I'm trying to think of stereotypical campus organizations and isolate ones that I would enjoy, and I can't come up with too many. I like chess, so I guess if there's a chess club on campus I'll at least check it out, but that's all I can think of.
Comment author:BrassLion
03 June 2013 12:46:06AM
4 points
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I speak from experience: Go to something new every week, or every day early when classes are light. As much as you can stand. You figure out what you like by trying things and not going back to lame events.
I am an introvert, and I found it easy to make friends in college in the right clubs. When everyone shares an interest, it's easy repeatedly meet people and interact.
Comment author:falenas108
04 June 2013 01:40:58AM
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I'm in Secular Alliance, Queers and Associates, my school's circus club, massage, and our BDSM club. There are a few others that I go to when I can, but those are the main ones.
I second BrassLion's advice. Also, look at all the clubs ones that seem interesting, and sign up for their listhost as a reminder to go to them.
The best advice I've ever received along these lines is "treat people as though they were already close friends." In my case, that mostly means having conversations with them about topics I actually care about, as opposed to conventional topics.
IME, this weirds a number of people out, who subsequently don't interact with me much, but that's not necessarily a problem.
It also causes people to think I'm coming on to them, which is sometimes a problem, but was less of one when I was in the dating pool.
The best advice I've ever received along these lines is "treat people as though they were already close friends." In my case, that mostly means having conversations with them about topics I actually care about, as opposed to conventional topics.
I always interpreted that piece of advice as meaning something more along the lines of "Be as enthusiastic and casual when you're hanging out with a relatively new acquaintance as you would be when you're hanging out with an old friend." This seems like decent advice, but it's very difficult for me to actually put into action, and it also seems like it would make some people very uncomfortable.
But your take on it is interesting. I'm not 100% sure I can picture it, however. Could you maybe give some sort of example of this strategy in use?
If "enthusiastic and casual" characterizes how you differentially treat your close friends, then sure, I'd say go for that. It doesn't for me, especially.
What I find differentially characterizes my relationships with close friends is that I can start a conversation with whatever has recently been on my mind, however unconventional an opening gambit, and we will mutually engage at a fairly high-bandwidth level. (And vice-versa)
E.g., I recently started a conversation (or, well, replied to "So what's up?") with "I've been thinking a lot lately about how to tell the difference between a lack of motivation that signals lack of genuine interest in doing something, versus a lack of motivation that doesn't, and one thing I'm noticing is that if I ask myself 'Self, are you looking forward to getting out of this slump and being enthused for that project again?' myself sometimes says 'yes!' and sometimes says 'meh.' and I wonder if that's correlated."
And, yes, I agree that it makes some people uncomfortable. I generally operate on the principle that my goal is not to make close friends out of everyone, nor even to make as many close friends as possible, merely to make close friends without wasting a lot of time. If 19 people respond "Oh look I must be going" and the 20th engages with me and we find each other mutually interesting, I generally consider that a win.
Do you think by any chance you could give a percentage estimation on how many people respond well, poorly, and neutrally to this strategy? (Or something along those lines.) This is interesting to me.
It's most relevant at parties and large social gatherings where I don't know anyone, and I don't really think in terms of percentages-of-people in such situations so much as how quickly I find someone worth talking to.
Over 95% of the time, I'd say the result is a little bit of chitchat followed by the person and I both talking to someone else. Whether that's responding well, poorly, or neutrally I don't know; that seems to be the default condition at parties.
Less than 1% of the time, the result is the other person's eyes lighting up in what I've come to label the "oh look, one of my people!" expression, and I make a new friend. Probably not much less than 1%, though.
(By way of establishing scale, I'd say I try this ~50 times in a given year... I'm not a terribly outgoing guy, and generally prefer to hang out in smaller groups or just stay home with my husband, but I'm reasonably socially ept when I do go out.)
That said, I also have a reputation in my social circle for being kind of intense and a little out there, but interesting to talk to if you're interested in, well, talking. Which also creates a second-order effect, where friends introduce me to friends of theirs who share this trait because we'd really enjoy each other, and more generally where my social environment self-selects.
Comment author:drethelin
02 June 2013 09:20:54PM
5 points
[-]
Practice Practice Practice Practice Practice. You have to go out of your way to hang out with people to get any good at being fun to hang out with. WARNING: This does not mean you have to spend time at loud parties or bars or clubs. While they pretend to be areas for socializing, they're not really. It's one thing if you enjoy dancing or drinking, but places that are less loud and crowded are a lot better for conversation.
Practice Practice Practice Practice Practice. You have to go out of your way to hang out with people to get any good at being fun to hang out with.
I've done this and it didn't really work. Maybe it worked a little, but not at a very fast rate. To be honest, I think reading a small amount of social skills stuff and thinking about how to solve the problem a little helped much more than all the "practice" I've done in the last year or so.
Obviously you can't take this to the extreme and expect that you can instantly go from Michael Cera to Casanova just by sitting alone reading stuff and watching videos in your room, but I don't think the statement "If you spend enough time in social interactions, you will inevitably develop good social skills" is at all true either.
It's one thing if you enjoy dancing or drinking
I kind of despise the former and love the latter. :\
Comment author:Viliam_Bur
03 June 2013 08:20:37AM
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5 points
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I kind of despise the former and love the latter.
Did you try dancing lessons?
I hated dancing before I learned it, but I love it now. I am very bad at "learning by copying others", but with good explicit education I became a decent dancer.
(Note: Almost everyone adviced me against explicit learning, because they said it wouldn't be "natural" or "romantic". I ignored all this advice, and now no one complains about the result. Contrary to predictions, learning the steps explicitly helped me to improvise later. Seems like people just have a strong taboo about applying reductionism to romantic activities like dancing.)
Comment author:Viliam_Bur
03 June 2013 10:52:45AM
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4 points
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I don't have much experience with club dancing, but at the few occasions, I was there with a girl who I previously danced ballroom-style with, and we mostly danced jive or quickstep or cha-cha, just with shorter steps to take less space and not move across the room. We had fun, and the feedback from other people was positive.
But even with the club-type dancing, somehow it got much easier for me once I became good at ballroom dances. Maybe I got more confident, maybe I learned to follow the rhythm, maybe I started to understand some movement patterns; probably all of that together.
Comment author:drethelin
03 June 2013 07:49:48PM
0 points
[-]
club dancing is basically doing whatever you feel like to the beat. This is a lot easier if you have a repertoire of moves from other styles of dance or activity that you can instantiate. Also what Villiam_Bur said.
A big problem I have with club dancing is that I am 6'6", and I feel (probably at least somewhat accurately) that I am unusually visible and that any move I do is being judged by at least a few people. So I end up just standing there, then immediately realizing "this is much more awkward than dancing really poorly is", then concluding "Oh my god, no matter what I do I am doomed, I have to get out of here right now", then leaving, then sitting alone feeling like there is something very flawed about me.
I will get over this someday by applying a dedicated effort, but right now there are more important self-improvement projects. Until then I just will stay far away from any dance where I can't get drunk beforehand.
Comment author:sediment
04 June 2013 07:56:57AM
0 points
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Well, I agree that it needn't be at the top of your to-do list. In fact, I'm not sure you need worry about getting over it at all, really. Not enjoying hanging out/dancing in clubs is no serious character defect, and plenty of people share your preference. By the way, happy birthday (or was that yesterday?)
Comment author:Nisan
03 June 2013 02:45:06PM
1 point
[-]
Interesting; no one has ever told me that dancing lessons are a bad idea. I think we live in very different cultures. (Other things you have said in the past have also given me his impression.)
Comment author:Viliam_Bur
03 June 2013 03:39:18PM
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13 points
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No, no, no, this was a bad explanation on my part. No one told me that dancing lessons are bad idea per se... only that my specific learning style is.
This is what works best for me: Show me the moves. Now show me those moves again very slowly, beat by beat. Show me separately what feet do; then what hands and head do. Tell me at which moment which leg supports the weight (I don't see it, and it is important). When and how exactly do I signal to my girl what is expected from her. (In some rare situations, to get it, I need to try her movements, too.) I still don't get it, but be patient with me. Let me repeat the first beat, and tell me what was wrong. Again, until it is right. Then the second beat. Etc. Then the whole thing together. Now let's do the same thing again, and again, and again, exactly the same way. Then something "clicks" in my head, and I get the move... and since that moment I can lead, improvise, talk during dance, whatever. -- As a beginner I was blessed with a partner who didn't run away screaming somewhere in the middle of this. Later my learning became faster, partially because I learned to ask the proper questions. And I had a good luck to dancing teacher who was a former engineer, so he was able to comply with my strange demands.
In contrast, this is what seems to me a typical learning process, at the dancing lessons: Teacher shows the steps quickly. Then shows the steps quickly again. And again. At this moment people in the room start getting it, and they do it halfway correctly. And the more they do it, the better they get.
This absolutely does not work for me. I can learn to do things slowly; but I can't learn then quickly, not even approximately. I can progress from "slowly but correctly" to "quickly but correctly", but I can't progress from "incorrectly" to "correctly" at any speed by mere repetition and observation. Most people seem to have this ability to copy each other. I don't. I need to be explained the mechanism, step by step. (And this is not just in dancing. Sorry for touching an irrelevant taboo topic, but the PUA literature did exactly the same thing for me about human relations. Despite all the biases et cetera, that was the only source that told me explicitly what most humans learn by copying and probably never bother to explain in a way comprehensive to me.)
Now, after seeing my learning style, the typical reaction was that I should stop doing that, because my dancing style will be ugly and "robotic", and my partners will feel uncomfotable. Instead I should just do what other people are doing, for a very long time. Wrong in both aspects. First, doing what other people do, just for a longer time, sometimes does not work for me. My head just works differently, or something. Second, after the moment the moves "click" in my head, my dancing becomes okay. If you didn't see me at the beginning, you would not expect I had so much trouble learning that. Actually, I got feedback from new partners that I dance better than average, and that I am very good at leading. I can teach a girl a new dance in 5 minutes and then lead her so that no one expects she is doing this for the first time. -- This is the other side of how my head works: It takes me a lot of time to understand something, but then I can explain it extremely quickly. (Again, this is not just in dancing. I used to teach maths privately, and the results were good. Many people can do math, but can't teach it. Although I didn't have the same kind of problem learning maths, probably because it already is pretty explicit.)
Sorry for touching an irrelevant taboo topic, but the PUA literature did exactly the same thing for me about human relations. Despite all the biases et cetera, that was the only source that told me explicitly what most humans learn by copying and probably never bother to explain in a way comprehensive to me.
Sorry for only commenting on the irrelevant taboo topic you touched on, but this is interesting to me. I have been reading some PUA stuff lately and it seems to me that the whole point is that it is not describing something that ordinary humans learn naturally, but instead prescribing something extraordinary that you can do to set yourself apart from the crowd in order to attract the hottest girl in the club that every other guy in there is hitting on. And even then it only works via the law of averages, and requires one to override one's natural intense aversion to rejection in order to pursue a more rational strategy adapted for a modern world in which you can talk to someone once and never see them again.
A woman's mostly negative take on PUA, though she thinks that a little PUA can be useful for men who are afraid to talk to women. Getting into the PUA sub-culture can leave men worse off.
Both have put a lot of thought into it.
My take is that PUA seems to be set in a universe where no one likes anyone else.
Comment author:Viliam_Bur
04 June 2013 01:11:00PM
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4 points
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Funny thing is that I agree with the first article, I just have completely different connotations to that.
Yes, the stuff Mystery teaches really is dumbed down. Which is good, because some guys start so dumb that they need this; sometimes they have problems to understand even this. I was there once. And the stuff helped me to get out of there.
It feels to me like saying: "The elementary schools are so dumb, I learned much more at university!" -- Sure, good for you! Also, well-played sir; you gently reminded us of your higher status. The competition among PUA bloggers is strong these days; many authors have to market themself as beyond-PUA to be able to sell their PUA products. (Nothing wrong about that, I would probably do the same thing if I weren't too lazy to blog.)
I also agree with the rest of the article. If you take a mentally unstable person and teach them PUA, you will get a mentally unstable person with some PUA skills. And therefore... I mean, if you take a mentally unstable person and teach them Java programming, you will get a mentally unstable person with some Java skills. Perhaps it is socially unresponsible to teach mentally unstable people anything that increases their powers without fixing their problems first. But that is not a problem specific to PUA industry.
My take is that PUA seems to be set in a universe where no one likes anyone else.
Men helping low-status men to overcome their lack of social skills... is an evidence that no one likes anyone else? (Ten years ago, the help was provided online for free, only later it developed into a profitable industry.)
But they don't focus on liking women, do they? Well, they often don't. To make a fair comparison, how often do seduction (sorry, relationship) articles, magazines, and books for women talk about liking men, respecting their agency, et cetera?
And maybe the people criticizing PUAs just focus too much on the bad parts, and ignore the nicer parts. But I admit the bad parts may be majority of the stuff.
The first link said that PUA could leave people in worse shape than it found them-- and Clarisse Thorn (second link) said the same.
Good point about PUA cultivating friendships between men. I'd missed that part. Still, it doesn't do a good job of encouraging friendliness between romantic/sexual partners.
Thank you for the links! I will most likely read the first link at some point, and maybe the second one eventually.
(From the about page of the blog linked to:)
This is a site dedicated to observing and analyzing human behavior and the nature of social interactions. Theories about why we do the things we do in relationships, the workplace, with strangers, in nightclubs and bars or anywhere people socialize and try to get along.
WOW, I have been looking for a website like this for a few months now. Again, thank you!
Comment author:sediment
04 June 2013 08:02:36AM
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2 points
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My impression is that there are many different shades with respect to this, ranging from 'explicitly learning social skills which others may learn implicitly' to 'behaviour intended to trick, force, pressure, or otherwise outright manipulate girls into bed with you' - with a great deal in between.
Comment author:Viliam_Bur
04 June 2013 11:58:11AM
9 points
[-]
These days PUA refers to so many things that I need to be more specific. The sources that helped me were "The Mystery Method" by Mystery, "How To Become An Alpha Male" by Carlos Xuma, "Married Man Sex Life" by Athol Kay. I would also recommend "The Blueprint Decoded" by RSD.
Yes, there are many sources that only tell you "do this, do that, and if it does not work, just do it again". I guess this is what most customers want: "Don't bother me with explanations, just give me a quick fix!" This is how most people approach everything. Well, if there is a demand for something, the market will provide a product. And these days it is a huge business. Ten years ago, it was more like geeks experimenting and sharing their results and opinions... a bit similar to Quantified Self today, just less scientific, and sometimes more narrowly focused.
Overcoming aversion to rejection, doing many approaches to convert given rates of success into greater absolute numbers, doing something extraordinary to stand out of the crowd... those are the fixes. Applied incorrectly they could be even harmful. (Receiving a lot of rejection can make you more resistant, but can also break you. Standing out of the crowd is costly signalling, you need to pay the costs. Doing many approaches may cost you socially.) But there is a theory behind that, and maybe it is not clearly explained, maybe it is not emphasised enough, or maybe it is already obvious to many people, and only a relevation for the most clueless guys like me. (Actually, maybe the explanations are not in the books, but in the related blogs. I don't remember the exact sources of information. I am only sure that "Married Man Sex Life" contains the theory explicitly.) And I guess for a LW reader familiar with status and reductionism, another part is already known.
Here are a few useful ideas; the essence I got from the books and blogs, but the result may be a compilation of various sources, with a bit of LW lingo --
Humans are biological creatures. Attraction is a causal mechanism, not an unexplainable mystery. That does not mean there are no individual preferences. But the shared preferences are also important, and hugely underestimated.
Sometimes the society gives you wrong explanations, for various reasons: People fail at introspection. People optimize their answers for status, not for truth. The inferential distances between socially savvy and socially clueless is too big, so even a honest and good advice gets misunderstood and misapplied. To some degree, sexual mate selection is a zero-sum game, so there is an incentive to spread bad advice. The social advice is optimized for the needs of society (e.g. preserving the social order), which may be misaligned with your needs (e.g. getting from the bottom of the pecking order to the top). -- Of course, if we go more meta, the PUAs also have incentive (status, money) to give you bad advice. Caveat emptor; just don't make this a fully general counterargument.
Reproduction strategies of males and females are different. Some things are universally attractive (health, intelligence), but some things are sex-specific, or at least have different weight for each sex. (Yeah, the mandatory disclaimer: Not all people are heterosexual, even the heterosexual people are not all the same, etc. Just don't miss the forest because some trees are outside of it.) The specifically male preferences are widely known (all those half-naked ladies on the covers of magazines didn't get there by accident). The specifically female preferences are somewhat less known. Why? Consider the incentives: Women prefer to keep this mysterious, because mysterious means higher status. (This is why any attempt to explain the mystery feels like a status attack.) Men who understand them have no incentive to teach it to their competitors. And the men who want to learn, must first get a huge status hit by admitting that they need to learn. (Even worse, the status hit is guaranteed, but the good advice in return is not, and most likely one will not get good advice.) This changed with the internet subculture of low-status males, where admitting to strangers to be low-status does not cost one socially, and thus the usually taboo topics may be freely explored. (With the commercialization of PUA, the status games are back again.)
Specifically: to most heterosexual women, high status men are attractive. A lot of advice is about getting higher status, or about faking some signals that high-status men send. (Actually, getting higher status or faking it, is not a dichotomy. Sometimes status is in the eyes of the beholder: if you convince people that you have high status, you have it. Also, faking the high status can make you more confident, and when you learn to be confident, you will get high status naturally.) Wise people will remind you that becoming a high-status male will also help you in other areas of life, unrelated to seduction, so perhaps instead of becoming better at seduction you should frame it as becoming better at life. -- Add some specific tricks and fixes here, and you have a typical PUA material.
Problem is that the typical PUA material is optimized for short-term relationships. For someone starting from "no relationships" position, that is a huge improvement. But to get a long-term relationship, another lesson has to be learned. Some male traits are attractive for short-term relationships, some male traits are attractive for long-term relationship. The official story says they are the same, which is wrong (but socially useful). Reversing this stupidity, a typical PUA in a valley of bad rationality says they are opposites to each other, which is also wrong. In reality, they are approximately orthogonal. For short-term relationship you need "alpha" traits: to be strong, successful, healthy; in other words, to show you have good genes. For long-term relationships you need "beta" traits: to be kind, reasonable, faithful; in other words, to show you would be a good father. These are not the same, and these are not opposites -- when you fully understand this, everything else is just a commentary. Statistically, young women will put more emphasis on "alpha" traits (which is why PUAs focus on that), but as they get older, they realize the importance of "beta" traits. Men are socially pressed to develop "beta" traits, because that is the part society needs; but having only "beta" traits without "alpha" traits does not make a man attractive.
This is the root of most misunderstandings: When a man asks: "How to become attractive?" he often means that he starts from zero and cannot get even a short-term relationship; which means he needs to work on his "alpha" traits. However, a women hearing this question will typically interpret it as: "How can an already attractive man become even more attractive?", she imagines a typical attractive bad boy, and recommends adding some "beta" traits to that. This is why this kind of communication predictably fails, and then it leads to endless flamewars about whether women really want or don't want "nice guys". The answer is: Women want attractive men to develop "beta" traits; but there is a silent assumption that those men already have "alpha" traits. Women don't want men with zero "alpha" traits, regardless of how much "beta" traits they have.
Comment author:Viliam_Bur
04 June 2013 04:40:00PM
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2 points
[-]
To be fair, I have filtered the reasonable parts of PUA. There is also a lot of crap. And most of the focus is on the short-term relationship -- the ending part is based solely on "Married Man Sex Life". (I guess that reflects the needs of a typical customer -- and perhaps even a typical PUA guru. Also, the society does give rather decent advice on "beta" traits; the "alpha" is the missing part, so teaching it is more popular and profitable.)
you seem to be arguing that the core tenet of PUA is "women are attracted to status". The problem is that this isn't a secret at all.
Yeah, this is difficult to explain (so outside view suggests I am prone to rationalization here). I agree with the examples you gave. And yet... the society gives contradictory and incomplete information on this. Consider saying: "If you have an expensive foreign car, you are more likely to get pretty girls." Say it at one place, and you will get: "Duh, news at 11." Say it at another place, and you will get: "You sexist! How dare you! Not all women are like that. Bringing an expensive car would never impress me."
So we have two separate magisteria here. In one universe, you only get girls by being bold and rich. In other universe, you only get girls by being polite and patient. Both messages are given by the society, none of them is literally a secret. Yet they seem contradictory, and how to successfully put them together, that is kind of a secret. Because people living in one universe typically deny the existence of the other universe.
Perhaps the information is all out there, in pieces, but you need some level of social skills to put it all correctly together. Judging by the popularity of PUAs, many people lack this skill. I certainly did.
Everyone knows that the cool jocks get the girls and the nerds don't.
I guess the nerds would appreciate a more precise advice; which parts of jocks' behavior are necessary for the desired effect, and which can be left out. Which is the 20% that brings 80% of the result. Otherwise, the price is too high. PUA explains how to get some of what jocks get, without having to become a full-time jock.
Perhaps the key is to be rational enough to take the next step and actually decide to either become or fake becoming higher status ... Or just deciding that it's not worth the effort.
If you map says that higher status is not actually important, that it is mostly sought by insecure or evil people, and is not really worth sacrificing your life to get it... then the rational choice is to ignore it. If your map says that higher status will improve your life in almost all aspects, and that the first steps to improve it are rather easy... then the rational choice is to go for it. So you need to get your map right to make the right decision.
The problem with PUA is that it all seems very clearly designed for attracting strangers, and consequently uses a high-risk, high-reward strategy.
There is no need to go high-risk all the time. In some situations (a disco with a hundred pretty girls, you don't care about any one in particular, you don't mind dozens of rejections), high-risk, high-reward strategy is the best one. In other situations, tone down appropriately. There will always be some risk, because willingness to risk is an important "alpha" trait. (But keeping the risk reasonably low is an important "beta" trait.)
Basically I wish someone could just tell me the socially acceptable, standard strategy that the people around me use, and then after I gain a better understanding of it, maybe I can tweak it as I see fit.
A new strategy is better tested on strangers. The people who already know you, will not react to your new strategy per se, but to your change. And people usually perceive change negatively; it disrupts social order. The stranger sees your new strategy and thinks this is what you are -- so you get a better response on what your future relationships would be if you became that.
And yes, you have to tweak all the advice to fit your personality. Also, while experimenting, you may discover traits you didn't know you had. Some of them good, some of them bad. You will have to deal with it too.
I would recommend you to find a torrent of "The Blueprint Decoded", watch it, go meet some new people, and do the experiments you feel (emotionally and ethically) comfortable with. Be just a little more courageous than you usually are, and notice how other people react to you, and how you feel inside once you become comfortable with it. Don't try too much at once. For example, if you have problem starting a conversation with a stranger, then during the first week consider successfully starting a conversation a victory. Don't push too far on the first try; you would sabotage yourself by converting every victory to a defeat.
EDIT: As a new environment with lot of girls, may I recommend dancing lessons? ;)
Comment author:wedrifid
03 June 2013 05:50:38AM
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15 points
[-]
Improving my social skills is going to be my number one priority for a while. I don't see this subject discussed too much on LW, which is strange because it's one of the biggest correlates with happiness and I think we could benefit a lot from a rational discussion in this area.
Discussion on lesswrong on that subject would most likely not be rational. Various forms of idealism result in mind killed advice giving which most decidedly is not optimized for the benefit of the recipient.
Stuff that breaks from the traditional narrative of "just be nicer and more confident" is particularly appreciated. (Unless maybe that is all it takes.)
Get out of your house, go where the people are and interact with them. Do this for 4 hours per day for a year (on top of whatever other incidental interactions your other activities entail). If "number one priority" was not hyperbole that level of exertion is easily justifiable and nearly certain to produce dramatic results. (Obviously supplementing this with a little theory and tweaking the environment chosen and tactics used are potential optimisations. But the active practice part is the key.)
Discussion on lesswrong on that subject would most likely not be rational. Various forms of idealism result in mind killed advice giving which most decidedly is not optimized for the benefit of the recipient.
I agree that when social skills are usually discussed, various forms of idealism tend to result in mind killed advice. The standard set of advice in particular seems to mostly ignore the fact that a) status exists, i.e. it is very possible to be liked and not respected, and sometimes the latter overpowers the former and b) some people genuinely have large personality flaws that make them unpleasant to be around.
I was hoping LessWrong would be able to avoid this idealism, as they do in most other areas, which is why I posted here. Do you think that LessWrong would be worse than average in this regard? Why? And do you think there is anywhere I could have a rational discussion about this stuff?
Get out of your house, go where the people are and interact with them. Do this for 4 hours per day for a year (on top of whatever other incidental interactions your other activities entail)
Like I said in another post in this thread, I don't think it's at all a given that if you socialize enough, you will eventually develop good social skills, and I think that reading a bit of stuff on the subject in the last month helped me about as much as all the social experiences I've had in the last year.
But something about the idea of making it a priority to spend x amount of time a day specifically seeking out social interactions makes sense and is appealing to me. I don't know if four hours a day is the right amount - I will have to experiment, but I can very much see myself implementing something like this.
One problem with widely recommending this is that it seems to me like many, if not most people are not at all in a position to reliably be able to follow this advice. But I imagine someone with low to moderate social skills on a college campus probably can.
Comment author:syllogism
03 June 2013 07:48:55AM
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0 points
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am a 19 yo male (as of tomorrow)
So, are you trans?
If so, the queer clubs are a slam dunk, if you get along okay with that "type". One thing to bear in mind is, a lot of the opening chatter will be about gender and sexuality issues, which gets a little tiresome. Just accept that this is the new smalltalk for these spaces --- instead of talking about sports or what your major is, young queer kids often ask each other about coming out stories, etc. People are also trying on the role --- it's all new and unfamiliar to them, too. Many are unused to having an in-group, and overdo "tribe signalling".
I guess I'm just advising you to be wary of the fundamental attribution error in these spaces, which can make people seem very narrow.
You can also turn this around and realise that there are ways you can help people avoid making the fundamental attribution error with you, too. For instance, if you're recently transitioning, I imagine that will feel really weird for a while. It's okay to talk about that! You can excuse some of your awkwardness this way, and I expect most of the folks in these spaces will find that quite endearing.
Comment author:Emile
03 June 2013 08:58:24AM
4 points
[-]
I'm pretty sure he meant "19 yo as of tomorrow" and not "male as of tomorrow", though I did consider teasing him about that (which may be what you are doing! Those things can be hard to tell online).
I likely committed some level of base-rate fallacy though (regardless of what the truth turns out to be). Trans* is more available to me because I hang out in queer communities, and know multiple transgender people.
This is a nice Bayes learning opportunity. It's reasonable to infer that a female-looking username makes someone more likely to be female, maybe twice as likely (not much more than that; this is the internet and people give themselves weird usernames all the time, and actual women may avoid using female-looking usernames in male-dominated forums to avoid drawing attention to their gender). However, the base rate of transsexualism, even within a community as unusual as LW, is still incredibly low and requires a lot of evidence to overcome (e.g. someone telling you they're transsexual).
Comment author:Emile
03 June 2013 12:26:20PM
4 points
[-]
(for what it's worth, I didn't reason using base rates, I just remember an early comment by gothgirl420666 saying he was male and only took that name for the lulz)
Comment author:Desrtopa
03 June 2013 02:46:55PM
3 points
[-]
On Less Wrong in particular, I would assign a high likelihood to various permutations of "gothgirl" being ironic, rather than sincere self expression of the user.
Comment author:Zaine
03 June 2013 05:56:13AM
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-1 points
[-]
I have a question. Assume that non-profit MIRI develops a fAGI (I like the acronym this way). They realise they can use the fAGI to generate profit. Taking for granted they only wish to make enough profit to sustain the institution free of donor-support, would they then be able to switch to a for-profit institution, despite having created the fAGI while non-profit?
Everyone has found a way around the question; I asked it poorly, so I'll be clearer: if a piece of technology is developed at an institution dependent upon donations from private individuals to operate yet has no obligations to repay those individuals any form of equity - an institution that until this point has been called a 'non-profit' - can that institution then legally start profiting from their technology sans any obligation to their former donors? This may require country-specific answers.
This does not seem obvious to me. Humans have a strong competitive drive; I do not see why profit should necessarily drop out of a post-Friendly Singularity society, even if what we buy with our Shiny Future Moniez are perhaps status goods. Moreover, considerations of acausal trade to increase the probability of AI being Friendly seem to suggest that its inventors should get some sort of reward. This said, it is of course not clear that such a profit would be taken out in US dollars.
Comment author:wedrifid
03 June 2013 06:51:53AM
10 points
[-]
I have a question. Assume that non-profit MIRI develops a fAGI (I like the acronym this way). They realise they can use the fAGI to generate profit. Taking for granted they only wish to make enough profit to sustain the institution free of donor-support, would they then be able to switch to a for-profit institution, despite having created the fAGI while non-profit?
If MIRI (or anyone else) create an AGI that is friendly to them they can do whatever they goddamn please.
Comment author:Larks
03 June 2013 11:49:27AM
1 point
[-]
Nitpick:
they can do whatever they goddamn please
They might not be able to do some things they want to do, but wouldn't want to want to do. But I agree that "making a profit" would no longer be a concern.
Comment author:TimS
03 June 2013 11:52:51AM
-1 points
[-]
Let's taboo "nonprofit." If a tax deductible charity starts making more than de minimis business profit, the charity is no longer eligible to offer tax deductions. But the purpose and mission of any charity is not tied to its tax status. In fact, there are many charities that haven't procedurally qualified to give tax deduction for donations.
But as others have said, I'm not sure why this would be a problem if MIRI had a foom fAGI.
Comment author:[deleted]
03 June 2013 09:04:08PM
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12 points
[-]
I am confused. This Washington Post article appears to describe a preliminary study which suggests that politics is less of a mindkiller if you ask people to bet money on their beliefs.
And I am confused because what appear to be my attempts to find the paper resulted in two papers with entirely different abstracts. And papers. Example:
Abstract 1:
"Our conclusion is that the apparent gulf in factual beliefs between members of different parties may be more illusory than real."
Abstract 2:
"Partisan gaps in correct responding are reduced only moderately when incentives are offered, which constitutes some of the strongest evidence to date that such patterns reflect sincere differences in factual beliefs."
Comment author:Fhyve
04 June 2013 03:17:16AM
3 points
[-]
I want to improve my exposition and writing skills, but whenever I think "what do I know that I can explain to people that isn't explained well elsewhere?" not much comes to mind. I think that happens because it is hard to just do a search of everything that I know. The main topics that I know are math and rationality (mostly LW epistemic rationality, but also a little instrumental and LW moral philosophy). So I ask:
What is a topic in math or rationality that you wish were explained better or explained at a different level (casual, technical, etc.) than what already exists? Like, something that you know now but wish had been explained to you better, something that you don't know but wish you did, or something that you wish you could explain to other people but don't know of any sources to send them to.
Comment author:Kaj_Sotala
04 June 2013 04:28:51AM
8 points
[-]
I want to improve my exposition and writing skills, but whenever I think "what do I know that I can explain to people that isn't explained well elsewhere?" not much comes to mind
If improving your skills is your main goal, you should just write, regardless of whether better explanations already exist elsewhere. Actually, such explanations already existing could even be an advantage, as it provides you with feedback: after writing your own, you can look up existing ones and compare what you did better and what you did worse.
Comment author:Fhyve
04 June 2013 05:17:18AM
0 points
[-]
I see what you are saying, but I would be more motivated if it felt like I was doing useful work, and I don't really know what to write about. So I kind of am looking for inspiration/motivation and ideas.
Comment author:Fhyve
04 June 2013 07:07:15PM
0 points
[-]
The two things that come to mind are things that I am still learning. General category theory (rather than category theory for the purpose of x), and a higher level structural and general viewpoint on Bayes (rather than basic articles on how to compute Bayes theorem and what it means). Also something on what actually happens when you extend mathematical logic using Bayesian probability. I could probably start on the second one right now...
Comment author:[deleted]
06 June 2013 06:12:54AM
1 point
[+]
(0
children)
Comment author:[deleted]
06 June 2013 06:12:54AM
1 point
[-]
If you want to practice writing, but you can't think of any fun (or... fun-like) ways to practice writing, it may be a good idea to practice in a way that isn't fun, instead of waiting for something fun to come along. If lack of motivation turns out to be actually problematic, then searching for a more motivating topic is a potential solution, but there are lots of other, potentially better solutions.
I want to improve my exposition and writing skills, but whenever I think "what do I know that I can explain to people that isn't explained well elsewhere?" not much comes to mind.
That seems like the wrong question to start with for casual writing. Some version of it might make sense for academic publishing.
Is there some math you're having fun with that you'd like to try explaining?
If you'd like a great big project, how about rationality for people of average intelligence?
Comment author:Fhyve
04 June 2013 07:36:08PM
0 points
[-]
Why do you think that is a wrong question? I am mostly asking because I want something interesting to write about, that I would be motivated to write.
The math that I am having fun with I don't know thoroughly enough to explain (and I am learning it from a really good piece of exposition).
The rationality one looks like fun, I will see if I can do some of it. First step, hack it into pieces so I am not working on a massive supergoal project, but a small project instead.
My guess was that it was a wrong question because it seems to stop you very early.
If having your writing be useful is a primary motivation, then maybe "what do I know well that I can explain to people which they aren't likely to have seen already?" would be better.
Another might be "what's something interesting that I know well that a good many people haven't heard of?".
Comment author:JoshuaZ
04 June 2013 04:20:40AM
*
3 points
[-]
This suggests that studies about partisan confusion about truth are overblown. I haven't had a chance to look at the actual paper yet, but the upshot is that this study suggests that while there is a lot of prior evidence that people are likely to state strong factual errors supporting their own partisan positions, they are substantially less likely to occur when people are told they will be given money for correct statements. The suggestion is that people know (at some level) that their answers are false and are saying them more as signaling than anything else.
Alternative explanation: They're shutting up and multiplying.
Most people have gone through the education system. Most people know how to guess the teacher's password. Most people have learned better than to assume their answers will be counted correct just because they have (in their opinions) good reasons for holding those answers.
Does putting an incentive on getting the answers "right" lead to "right" answers, or does it lead to people answering the way they expect you to treat as being right? My own educational history suggests the latter.
Comment author:[deleted]
06 June 2013 06:09:19AM
0 points
[-]
I can't parse this bit:
that this study suggests that all the studies about where people are likely to make strong factual errors supporting their own partisan positions are less likely to occur when people are given money for correct answers
Going by the syntax, it seems like you're saying "that this study suggests that all the studies [about certain things] are less likely to occur [under certain circumstances]", i.e. the study you're talking about was about the frequency of other types of studies. This doesn't seem to make sense.
Comment author:Kawoomba
04 June 2013 01:15:32PM
1 point
[-]
(Usual informational hazard warning to attract attention. Warning before compulsory dedicating your attention: it's only the usual hazard. (Collective disappointed sigh))
Interesting smackd..., ah, discussion, between XiXiDu and Aris Kats Aris. If the link doesn't work, it's the Google+ discussion also linked to from the top of this blog post.
Comment author:Kawoomba
04 June 2013 02:17:20PM
*
4 points
[-]
Your name is an anagram goldmine ripe for a bonanza. From the litany "as a Sir Tarski" to my "sis, Aria Stark" (works just phonetically), your name implies a role "as AI Risk tsar".
I scraped the last few hundred pages of comments on Main and Discussion, and made a simple application for pulling the highest TF-IDF-scoring words for any given user.
I'll provide these values for the first ten respondents who want them. [Edit: that's ten]
EDIT: some meta-information - the corpus comprises 23.8 MB, and spans the past 400 comment pages on Main and Discussion (around six months and two and a half months respectively). The most prolific contributor is gwern with ~780kB. Eliezer clocks in at ~280kB.
Your contribution to the corpus amount to ~47kB of plain text. For reference, Eliezer is ~190kB and gwern is ~515kB. The scores are unadjusted for document size and not amazingly meaningful outside of this specific context.
I've just fixed a bug in my scraper that was causing it to abandon 25% of the corpus. This has ended up tripling your contribution. Some new values for you:
This retains a similar "flavour" to the previous set, (AGI and ev-psych). The best way I've found to interpret it is "what sort of words describe what I use Less Wrong to talk about?"
As an interesting side-note, rot13 really messes with TF-IDF.
The word 'who' seems to come up a lot for the contributors at the more prolific end of the scale. I don't have a satisfactory answer why this should be the case. Your contribution comprises ~170kB of plain text.
The desire to employ your Stoicism on a higher difficulty setting, coupled with the habit of seeing other people as obstacles can make you care less about other people. You root for them to be worse then they are. I used to wish that a girl who had only insulted me might try to hit me, so I could maintain my equanimity in the face of a bigger provocation. If a middle school bully mellowed with age, I would be a little disappointed, as my short bus ride was now wasted time, instead of a training opportunity.
You can't control whether or not the girl will hit or insult you. As a result hoping that she would do one of those things goes against stoicist ideals.
It's much better to seek out-of-comfort zone experiences where you can control that you have the experience. Instead of depending on the bully in the bus to provide an experience in which you can grow you can go and have fun dancing in the bus.
A year ago I was in a personal development seminar that's partly about improving one's charisma and finding the courage to do what one likes.
At the end of the day there's live music and most people just sit there listening and watching the musicians. I went and danced in alone in front of >200 people because I felt like dancing. I got a bunch of positive social feedback for it.
Stoicism doesn't have to be about having no fun and doing nothing. It's rather about reducing negative emotions.
It's a bit of a truism that you can't do micropayments to cover the true marginal cost of serving a webpage, adding a user to your service, or other Internet activities, because the gap between free and epsilon is psychologically larger than the gap between epsilon and a dollar. It occurs to me that this curious psychology seems to map onto a logarithmic utility in money: Clearly the difference between lim(x to zero)[log(x)] and log(epsilon) is larger than the difference between log(epsilon) and log(1) for any finite value of epsilon. I'm not sure if this actually explains anything, but I thought it was kind of neat.
The interesting thing about that observation is that it's very much about how the internet get's used in the West.
In China where a lot of internet use happens in internet cafés where uses pay the internet café by the hour micropayments for virtual goods are used more frequently than in the West.
Additionally transaction costs are a big deal when it comes to micropayments. Paypal's micromayment fee is 5% + $0.05 per transaction.
If we would have cheap micropayment there a chance that a greater ecosystem of services that need micropayments can grow.
Bitcoin did promise being cheap but still have some substantial transaction costs. On the other hand Ripple (https://ripple.com/) provides the opportunity of a cost of $0.0001 per transaction.
Comment author:[deleted]
06 June 2013 06:05:16AM
0 points
[-]
Regarding Ripple, I thought that in the United States, financial institutions were required to know their users' identities. I don't see how this isn't blatantly illegal.
Comment author:Kaj_Sotala
06 June 2013 09:01:19AM
*
4 points
[-]
Incidentally, I'm confused over the fact that so few sites or people seem to use Flattr, despite it basically solving this problem. (Well, it's microdonations rather than micropayments, so you can't really require your users to pay anything, but still.)
On BBC Radio 4 this morning I heard of a government initiative, "Books on Prescription". It's a list of self-help books drawn up by some committee as actually having evidence of usefulness, and which are to be made available in all public libraries. They give a list of evidence-based references.
The evidence, a list of scientific studies in the literature.
I have not read any of the books (which is why I'm not posting this in the Media Thread), but I notice from the titles that a lot of them are based on Cognitive Behavioural Techniques, which are generally well thought of on LessWrong.
The site also mentions a set of Mood-boosting Books, "uplifting novels, non-fiction and poetry". These are selected from recommendations made by the general public, so I would say, without having read any of them, of lesser expected value. FWIW, here's the list for 2012 (of which, again, I have read none).
Comment author:[deleted]
06 June 2013 05:56:46AM
1 point
[+]
(0
children)
Comment author:[deleted]
06 June 2013 05:56:46AM
1 point
[-]
I notice that almost all of those books are about things that are considered "mental problems" (the exceptions being chronic fatigue, chronic pain, and relationship problems, which are nevertheless specific problems). So if a self-help book isn't about a particular problem (like How to Win Friends and Influence People and The Seven Habits), or the problem it talks about isn't primarily psychological (like Getting Things Done), then it won't appear on that list regardless of how good it is.
(Stating my opinions here so that you won't have to guess: My brother, who seems quite sensible and whom I admire very much, states that all three of the books mentioned here are very good. Getting Things Done taught me one extremely useful lesson, probably among the top five most useful things I have ever learned. I have little evidence, apart from this stuff, that any of these books are useful.)
the thought experiment goes: 'Hey, suppose we have a radioactive particle that enters a superposition of decaying and not decaying. Then the particle interacts with a sensor, and the sensor goes into a superposition of going off and not going off. The sensor interacts with an explosive, that goes into a superposition of exploding and not exploding; which interacts with the cat, so the cat goes into a superposition of being alive and dead. Then a human looks at the cat,' and at this point Schrödinger stops, and goes, 'gee, I just can't imagine what could happen next.' So Schrödinger shows this to everyone else, and they're also like 'Wow, I got no idea what could happen at this point, what an amazing paradox'. Until finally you hear about it, and you're like, 'hey, maybe at that point half of the superposition just vanishes, at random, faster than light', and everyone else is like, 'Wow, what a great idea!'"
Obviously this is a parody and Eliezer is making an argument for many worlds. However, this isn't that far from how the thought experiment is presented in introductory books and even popularizations. Why, then, don't more people realize that many worlds is correct? Why aren't tons of bright middle-school children who read science fiction and popular science spontaneously rediscovering many worlds?
For those who believe that the US is a democracy in the sense that public policy is an aggregate of public opinion, how do you deal with the fact that 42% of the US population don't know that Obamacare is actually law?
If the population doesn't even know about the easy facts, how do you expect a democracy in which public policy is driven by public discourse to work?
I'm currently in a weeklong design meeting. On Monday, the guy leading the meeting proposed a schedule for what we were doing when, in which my presentation was Monday, a likely followup for my presentation was Friday, and various other things were true. Some people objected, and he changed some stuff, though not those two things. Nobody objected to it, and it's the schedule we're using.
I have no idea what we're going to do this afternoon or tomorrow, and I was surprised by what we did yesterday and this morning. At no time have I ever known, I didn't bother to listen when it was announced. I don't care what we discuss when, as long as I know when my topics are so I can prep.
Still, I'm happy to say that our schedule is an aggregate of public opinion.
Would you disagree?
I approach public policy in a democracy similarly. Sure, most of us don't know anything about anything, but I'm not sure how much that really matters.
That being said, I'm also not sure how much I endorse public policy driven by public discourse. "Worst system in the world except for everything else we've ever tried" comes to mind.
Comment author:smk
05 June 2013 09:13:26PM
0 points
[-]
I'd really like it if someone could explain to me what Aaronson is saying here:
I've often heard the argument which says that not only is there no free will, but the very concept of free will is incoherent. Why? Because either our actions are determined by something, or else they're not determined by anything, in which case they're random. In neither case can we ascribe them to "free will."
For me, the glaring fallacy in the argument lies in the implication Not Determined ⇒ Random. If that was correct, then we couldn't have complexity classes like NP---we could only have BPP. The word "random" means something specific: it means you have a probability distribution over the possible choices. In computer science, we're able to talk perfectly coherently about things that are non-deterministic, but not random.
Look, in computer science we have many different sources of non-determinism. Arguably the most basic source is that we have some algorithm, and we don't know in advance what input it's going to get. If it were always determined in advance what input it was going to get, then we'd just hardwire the answer. Even talking about algorithms in the first place, we've sort of inherently assumed the idea that there's some agent that can freely choose what input to give the algorithm.
Comment author:smk
06 June 2013 10:35:34AM
3 points
[-]
I was confused by the way he was using the term "non-determinism". Then I read this:
It's important to understand that computer scientists use the term "nondeterministic" differently from how it's typically used in other sciences. A nondeterministic TM is actually deterministic in the physics sense
Assuming that person was correct, then it seems like Aaronson is responding to an argument that uses the physics sense of "non-determined", but replying with the CS sense--which I'm thinking makes a difference in this case. But that's just what it seems like to me--I must be misunderstanding something (probably a lot of things).
Max Tegmark will be giving a talk, "The future of life: a cosmic perspective”, on June 10 at 12:30pm. The event is open to the public and free of charge, and will take place on the Martin Wood Lecture Theatre, Department of Physics, 20 Parks
Road, Oxford OX1 3PU (Google maps). More details here.
Comment author:Prismattic
05 June 2013 11:09:11PM
1 point
[-]
I think this Noah Smith disquisition on "derp" might be a useful thing to refer people to when one gets tired of referring them to PITMK. It crystalizes for me why I find a lot of political commentary unbearable to read/listen to.
Comment author:[deleted]
06 June 2013 05:41:24AM
1 point
[+]
(1
child)
Comment author:[deleted]
06 June 2013 05:41:24AM
1 point
[-]
I'm wondering if the following statement is true: The word "ought" means whatever we ought to believe that it means.
Now, certainly, that statement could be false. There could be a society whose code of ethics states that you must disagree with the code of ethics. But I'm asking whether or not it is false, for us actual humans. And it might be false if you take "we" to mean someone like Adolf Hitler: perhaps Hitler professed his actual beliefs about ethics, and people nowadays think Hitler was so horrible that if Hitler believed something was right, it was probably wrong, and vice versa; and so it would have been best for Hitler's ethical beliefs to be as wrong as possible, so that people who think Hitler was wrong most of the time will come to the correct conclusions. But by "we", I don't mean "each individual human being who has ever lived and ever will live"; I just mean "human society as a whole".
In theory, if this statement were true, we would be able to take sentences like "we ought to believe that murder is wrong" and use them to conclude sentences like "murder is wrong". In practice, this seems like it would only be rarely useful, because it's hard to determine whether or not we ought to believe that a conduct is wrong unless we already know whether or not it is wrong.
Comment author:cousin_it
06 June 2013 12:44:38PM
*
2 points
[-]
Naive evo-psych seems to imply that having a big family should make me more attractive, for two reasons: 1) it's evidence that my genes cause many surviving kids, 2) more people will share resources to help my kids survive. But that doesn't seem to work in real life. Why?
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Comments (433)
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).
The most linear way to read Eliezer's Sequences is in chronological order by date of original posting, although it might not be the best way.
Mind you it will be a good approximation of the best way. His posting order was dominated by needing to explain requisite knowledge before explaining later concepts. Perhaps the most obvious optimisation when it comes to reading is just skipping the parts that aren't interesting.
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.
this might resemble the kind of list you were looking for:
http://lesswrong.com/lw/2un/references_resources_for_lesswrong/
Wow, that's a lot of information. Thanks!
I've started a blog, yesterday.
http://protokol2020.wordpress.com
Please add it to the list of blogs by LWers in the wiki.
Thank you, I did.
I'm interested. If you plan on posting semi-regularly or irregularly, please consider adding an RSS feed. It's the only way to follow sites that don't have a regular update schedule.
I did it, hope it works.
Nope, it seems you've added the RSS feed of http://hexahost.com/blogs , http://hexahost.com/blogs/?feed=rss2
True, it's a mess right now...
I've see only a math post. Do you plan to write in what kind of topics?
Math, physics, coding, strategy games, conflicts, the (near) future as I see it, promoting some contrarian views.
I don't approve many common views, I think I can see through several established misconceptions. 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.
Good point. To avoid being wrong, one may restrict himself to write about common accepted things, like 2+2=4. What is boring.
But I will say something very controversial. Like "faster rotating planets are warmer than slowly rotating, everything else equal". Most people "know" it is the other way around. Then I will try to decompose this statement to some well known and thus boring facts.
Risky strategy I know.
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.
A lifehack idea: using oxytocin to counteract ugh fields:
Ugh fields might be a form of an amygdala hijack.
Oxytocin is known to dampen amygdala's 'fight, flight or freeze' responses.
Oxytocin production is increased during bonding behaviors (e.g. parent-child, pets, snuggling / Karezza).
If 1, 2 and 3 are true, we could reduce the effect of an ugh field by petting a dog, hugging a baby or snuggling (but not orgasming) with a lover -- before confronting the task that induces the ugh field.
Disclaimer: I am not a brain scientist, so the terminology, logic and the entire idea may be wrong.
I wonder if taking oxytocin supplements might work even better for this.
I'll definitely be trying it in one way or another, though.
Alas, oxytocin supplements (there is a nasal spray, if I remember correctly) don't seem to work. When released naturally, it's released where it matters and in precise amounts, while the shotgun approach of the nasal spray makes it easy to miss the correct dosage and delivery location, which may cause various adverse effects.
Warning: my source on the above is a popular book, Cupid's Poisoned Arrow -- but, to their credit, they do cite their scientific sources. If Kindle had a way of copying / quoting text from its books, I'd look up the relevant paragraph for you.
Edit: The sources (had to type them manually):
M. Ansseau, et al., "Intranasal Oxytocin in Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder", 1987: 231-236.
G. Paolisso, et al., "Pharmacological Doses of Oxytocin Affect Plasma Hormone Levels Modulating Glucose Homeostasis in Normal Man", 1988: 10-16.
Edit 2: Here's the relevant part on the nasal spray (had to post it via a screenshot because Kindle does not allow copy/pasting text): http://imgur.com/kyysmbo
For this reason (and in particular for the purpose of text-to-speech) I use calibre and the Kindle plugin to convert my kindle books to a less artificially restricted format.
I've found a way to copy/paste from Kindle! Their software reader, at least the Windows version, allows copying:
Do you have a source on oxytocin and sex with vs without orgasm? My understanding was that sex increased oxytocin secretion pretty much the same whether you orgasmed or not.
Here's the closest one I could find: Specificity of the neuroendocrine response to orgasm during sexual arousal in men. Also, Wikipedia article on oxytocin says that "The relationship between oxytocin and human sexual response is unclear" and cites multiple studies on oxytocin and orgasm, but none of them seem to show any major effect.
So my impression is that oxytocin secretion per se is not heavily affected by orgasm (there is a short-term rise, but that's about it.) However, orgasm significantly affects two other hormones, dopamine and prolactin (also shown in the study I linked above). After an orgasm, dopamine drops and prolactin rises and keeps surging, supposedly for about two weeks (which seems established, but I don't have a source handy.)
Here's a study that shows that prolactin rises after an orgasm in men and women but sex without orgasm doesn't affect prolactin levels: Orgasm-induced prolactin secretion: feedback control of sexual drive?:
My current crude thinking is as follows:
Thanks!
Moving back from the biological basis to the introspective level, I'd expect the high-prolactin afterglow state to reduce anxiety enough to compensate for decreased motivation. (This might be related to whether one gets wired up or sleepy after sex, which has surprisingly large individual variation.) Easy enough to set up a randomised trial.
You probably meant high-oxytocin afterglow.
No. High oxytocin is present whether you orgasm or not, as we just established. I expect this to help productivity. I also expect that orgasm would
I think that common-sense reasoning states that if the idea of doing something makes you uncomfortable, then perhaps you should make yourself comfortable before doing it. To me, this "using oxytocin to counteract ugh fields" idea isn't obviously more credible or more useful than this common-sense idea.
If an ugh field is indeed a form of an amygdala hijack, one will have a hard time consciously making oneself comfortable with the task, because the amygdala responds faster than the rational brain. A neurochemical hack might work better.
What I said was "make yourself comfortable", and it seems to me like petting a dog, hugging a baby, and snuggling are all ways of making oneself comfortable. Maybe I was unclear, though.
It is the Capitalism Day today. As every first Sunday in June.
I wish you all a nice profit!
Why is Capitalism Day on a weekend? Monday would seem more appropriate...
It would be too costly to spoil another business day. Sunday is all right.
Thanks, you too!
Anyone have a good idea of where to park an "emergency fund" type account, and especially resources that talk about this? Most of my money is sitting in a checking account right now, which I have realized is not so good, but I want to keep most of it liquid (and the remainder might not be enough to start an index fund account with Vanguard).
Some banks offer money market accounts, or even a savings account might be a good idea.
I was on the subway the other day and Sovereign Bank had bought up all the ad spots advertising in big print "MONEY MARKET ACCOUNT. 0.6% APY. $100,000 MINIMUM." The interest rate offered on a smaller deposit is presumably less than that, and yet the bank thought this deal would be appealing enough to advertise. This makes a year of "emergency fund" holdings in a money market account approximately worth the change in the couch. I don't see how that's enough of a difference from a checking account to worry about.
Capitol One offers savings accounts yielding 0.75% APY with no minimum deposit. I've used them for over 10 years with no hassles. Your general point about low yields still applies, though.
I would estimate an opportunity cost of 3 hours per year to set up the account, shuffle money around, periodically monitor the balance, and pay taxes on the interest. This opportunity cost will vary depending on how efficient one is with paperwork. Whether this is worthwhile depends on the size of the emergency fund and the alternative options for increasing marginal income via an equivalent time investment.
For what it's worth, a money market fund might also be a good idea. It looks like historically, it has been extremely rare for a money market fund to decrease in value.
You only need an emergency fund if you do not have access to credit at reasonable terms. Investments you don't touch outside of emergencies coupled with open lines of credit should outperform excessive "emergency" savings. After all, lines of credit are typically free when you don't use or need them, while not getting the best rate of return on your savings isn't.
EDIT: I was reminded of a relevant saying: If you’ve never missed a flight, you’re spending too much time in airports.. Similarly, if you never have to borrow money for emergencies, your investments are too liquid.
Surely the relevant question is whether I'm likely to not have access to credit at reasonable terms during an emergency, no?
I don't really see many emergencies that can be handled by cash but not by a loan for cash. If you're solvent and people want dollars later, then they will lend you money. If you're not solvent, then whether your immediate liquidity is in credit or cash doesn't make a big difference since you're still not solvent. If nobody wants dollars later (say, asteroid), then it's unlikely that having dollars now is going to fix any emergencies.
That's fair. I'd been thinking about the general class of "people who need money now for an emergency," many of whom find it difficult to secure credit, rather than the class of "people who have a lot of wealth in non-liquid forms who need money now for an emergency," who presumably don't.
I was thinking more in terms of "there's an expenses function e(t), and a cash availability function s(t), and a cost function f( e(t) - s(t) ), and this cost function is zero at e(t)-s(t) = 0, but is a lot softer at e(t) > s(t) than people fear due to credit cards and lines of credit, and can be quite costly at s(t) >> e(t)"
Except that e(t) and s(t) really should be probability distributions, but that just hurts my head to try and explain coherently. This is literally my fourth attempt at writing up a better description of the reasoning behind my posts.
If e(t) is slightly bigger than s(t), you borrow money from credit cards or other lines of credit at poor interest rates, then pay off those debts in the however many days it takes to get liquid cash from other sources (say, stocks). If e(t) is much bigger than s(t), then you negotiate a payment plan or suffer the consequences of not being able to pay expenses right now.
And of course there's the time costs in optimizing this sort of thing. A percentage point for a thousand dollars over a year comes out to ten dollars, which I roughly approximate as an hour of time. Which means that you probably ought to spend your optimization power on minimizing the amount of work you need to put into your finances. Which, in turn, means automatic bill payment, and regular transfers of excess cash from your checking account into your preferred investment account.
I don't find that obvious. There is a whole host of issues here, starting with time constraints (e.g. you need money within 24 hours and you can get a loan in five business days) and ending with information asymmetry issues of which lenders are acutely cognizant ("you say you're solvent, but can you prove it?").
If your "access to credit" is a couple of credit cards, yeah, you can get cash fast enough but the terms are rarely what I'd call "reasonable". If you'd actually need a new loan or a line of credit... I don't think I would want to rely on that in an emergency.
How often do you really need money within 24 hours? If you can't get the cash within a day, what bad consequences are going to happen?
If it's a purchase under $5000, then you can handle it with a credit card. You then have 21 days to come up with the money or else pay 20% APR. That's plenty of time if you have, say, stocks you can sell. For larger purchases, you can either save for it with an explicit plan, or negotiate a payment plan.
In an emergency I expect to need money right now, on the time scale of hours.
How many times have you needed money immediately in your life, and how much money have you needed for those incidents? Personally, I do not recall ever spending more than a hundred dollars without at least a day's warning. Then again, I don't own a car, which is a big cause for emergency spending - but really that ought to have it's own fund treated as self-insurance.
Well, if you want to approach this properly... :-)
...then you'll need to evaluate the probability density of situations in your life where not having a certain amount of cash on hand will lead to severely negative outcomes (aka high costs). I expect that you'll have much difficulty in trying to form a reasonable estimate (see Nassim Taleb and the general Black Swan concept). Notably, limited amount of historical data (as in, e.g. your personal experience) is not all that good a basis for estimations.
There is also a whole bunch of other factors in play -- do you have kids? do you travel much? outside of the US? etc. etc.
What sort of emergency do you have in mind?
A very good point, and I've considered that. So far I have a very short credit history (I am young and haven't had much time to establish one), so the interest on the credit card I have is quite high and the limit is (relatively) low. There's some possibility I could borrow from my parents, but I'd prefer not to depend on that too much.
The particular advice I gave is less relevant to young people, since they have less savings and tend to have better investment opportunities in terms of paying off student loan and other long-term debt. Paying off student loans is effectively an investment that you can never sell back for ready cash, so you'd need savings in something that's actually somewhat liquid.
More on point, if you don't have access to enough emergency credit, that is the perfect reason to essentially have a self-insurance fund. That fund should cover perhaps a couple thousand dollars - anything more than that and you can typically work out a payment plan or tap your less-liquid investments.
This is a really good point that I can't believe I never thought of before.
That assumes there is price for liquidity which you are paying. I am not sure this is the case for most normal people (as opposed to, say, those who invest into private equity) now because other than real estate most other available investments are quite liquid.
Essentially, most of people's investments are bank accounts and market securities (again, real estate is the big exception). Liquidity shouldn't be an issue here.
For recent college graduates, their best investment opportunity is early repayment of their student loans. It's essentially guaranteed 4-5% return (whatever their loan rate happens to be). Note that this "investment" is completely illiquid.
Hm, is it really? If you're paying back your loans early, couldn't you then, in case of need, cease paying for a time equivalent to how much you paid and then resume paying? You'd just be right back on schedule.
It depends on the terms of the loan. Some loans may allow you to skip payments if you're ahead. Most I've seen don't though. But either way, if you need $5000 cash right now because your significant other ran their car into someone's living room and you need to pay bail and a lawyer, or the levees are collapsing and you have to split town, you can't get the $5000 back from an early repaid loan.
Your loan may vary. For me, all it does is give me a few extra dollars a month.
That's often but not necessarily true, especially on a post-tax basis (and especially if your alternative is putting money into tax-advantaged vehicle like 401(k) or IRA).
I have a partly irrational aversion to owing money, which I maybe should edit out of myself.
I've been doing this wrong, and this advice will likely save me a few thousand dollars. Thanks.
Eric Tyson's Personal Finances for Dummies discusses this. He recommends putting your emergency fund into a tax-free money market with check writing privileges. I keep about 2-3% of my liquid assets in such an account, and maybe another 2% in checking and savings accounts at regular banks (one online, plus two local banks in locations where I live and work.) However the percentages aren't as important as the absolute numbers. You need a local account (or a fire-resistant safe that's rated for at least 60 minutes against tools and torch) for when you need a lot of cash right away, and enough cash across your cash accounts for maybe six months of living expenses.
Lines of credit can be useful, but banks do have an annoying habit of cancelling them at the worst possible times; e.g. when the whole economy is imploding as it did in 2008 and clients aren't paying their bills either.
Typo: the link doesn't work, and the link title should be "Personal Finance for Dummies".
fixed. Thanks.
I have been constantly thinking recently: Your voice impacts a lot in your presentation, and it's one of those things that people generally take for granted. And it's not just your speak pattern and filler words that I'm referring to, but also intonation, fluency and so on. I would maybe risk saying that it can be as important as your appearance, or even more. (If you stumble every five or ten words, you can't really convey your ideas, can you?)
In this vein, is there a viable alternative for someone who wants to improve his own voice? I already thought about a voice acting tutor, but I generally prefer ways in which I could improve without having to pay a tutor.
I suggest practice in groups. Does Toastmasters charge money, and do they have any meetings near you?
Sadly, no. I'm from Brazil, there are a few Toastmasters in my country, but all of them are a plane travelling distance away.
I have wanted to do some sort of speech training for a few years, but can't seem to find an appropriate avenue to investigate. The closest I've found is media training, but it tends to only cater towards corporate clients.
You could practice by yourself by reading out loud. I really should do that again myself, too - I have the tendency to speak too fast, and not pause enough for breath, which leads to me *gasp*ing for air a lot. Try to relax and pay attention to your breath. It's a bit weird speaking aloud by yourself, but I think it helps. If you're braver than me, you could even record yourself and listen back, to hear how you'd sound to others.
Advice from the Less Wrong archives.
I'd like to put out a call for anecdata, if I may:
Lately I've been wondering how much of a causal connection there is between happiness/fulfillment and willpower (or, conversely, akrasia) levels. I feel like I'm not especially fulfilled or happy in my life right now, and I can't help but feel intuitively that this is one cause of the difficulty I seem to have in focusing, concentrating, and putting effort into what I want to. However, I've no idea whether there's actually anything in this.
So: I guess I wondered if anyone has any personal accounts of (medium- to long-term) mood affecting akrasia levels in their own lives? I invite you to share here. (Also welcomed: advice; discussion; pointers to actual, nonanecdotal, study-type data.)
When I have above usual levels of productivity, I'm moderately happier than the norm. When I have below usual levels, I'm much unhappier than normal.
Well, I certainly find that the two are correlated... when my mood is low, I don't get much done compared to when my mood is elevated.
Whether that's because getting things done influences my mood (and something else influences my productivity), or whether my mood influences my productivity (and something else influences my mood), or whether neither is true (and something else influences both), or various combinations, is harder to tease out.
My impression is that all three are true at different times.
Right. It figures that causation would go the other way, at least - that the presence of akrasia would cause bad mood. Indeed, akrasia is pretty much defined as that which makes you unhappy, right?
Interesting. My correlations go in the opposite direction.
This is definitely the case according to my experiences and pretty much every self-help text I've ever read. You might want to check out this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broaden-and-build
I'll take a look; thanks pal.
I've noticed the converse seems to be true in me, at least to a degree: getting useful work done causes me to feel happier. I have not noticed happiness causing me to get more useful work done.
I have noticed both, but happiness does seem to improve more after the start of useful work than useful work improves after an increase in happiness. I might describe it as certain types of work requiring a threshold level of happiness to initiate, among other requirements.
I've been noticing this tendency for years and trying to use it to my advantage (much to the annoyance of all the mainstream types who only inquire into my methods when they fail). A particular anecdote that comes to mind is how, after weeks of not managing to care enough to complete any assignments for a course that I like so little as to have since given up on, I discovered HPMoR, which I read in one sitting, other than the ten minutes in the middle where I stopped to complete one of these assignments.
Happiness in / Happiness out, so to speak, except that happiness is obviously not the only activation condition, so attempting to use it without the others present just wastes happiness. (The trouble is how one goes about recognizing the necessary activation conditions for useful work and their presence/absence so as to avoid wasting happiness unnecessarily.)
If I pay $1000 in rent, about how much does my landlord profit after accounting for taxes and the costs of property management?
Based on guidelines I've come across, I would be surprised if it were much more than $50, and that's generally the estimate without taking into account the costs of not renting out the property if you can't find tenants.
In a competitive and efficient market, he'll profit on average to the tune of the risk-free interest rate (~2% or so now) but higher since renting is not risk-free. So you could start by figuring out his risks in renting out to you.
There's also a non-obvious positive risk, too. Specifically, the appreciation of real estate prices. If the landlord owns a $120k house that they expect to increase in value 1%/year over their mortgage rate, then that's another $100/month that the landlord doesn't have to get in rent.
In other words, the landlord is holding an equity position in the real estate they are leasing to you. This equity position can appreciate, giving a non-rent-collection profit source that increases the price they are willing to pay for the real estate in the first place, lowering their profit as a percentage of capital invested.
But it can also fall, as we witnessed not too many years ago... Any speculation on real estate will already have been priced in and the expected profit from buying a house minimal.
To borrow your phrasing - in a competitive and efficient market, the expected profit from buying a house is equal to the risk-free interest rate. So my math actually was rather bogus - I should have talked about how the landlord should expect his $20k equity stake to appreciate at the risk-free interest rate (~2%), which would shave $400/year off the amount of collected rent needed to justify the house price in the first place.
The real estate market is far from efficient. Transaction costs are very high and good data is hard to come by. I think a bottom-up approach would be far more accurate than an economics-based approach that uses assumptions that are extremely inaccurate for this situation.
Hang on, his return on his capital may be the risk-free rate plus risk compensation, but Omid's $1000/month is not the landlord's capital, it's his revenue! Unless you have a good way of mapping rent payments onto the amount of capital tied up in the building, I don't see how your answer is useful.
Revenue from a renter is simply investment income, and we'd expect the income from an apartment-bond to, like any other investment, be squeezed down to equal other investments after adjusting for risk and diversification and taxes etc.
Yes. I do not see how this answers my objection. You still have not provided a way of dividing up the $1000 into money used for maintenance and money taken out as profit, which was the original question. All you've said is that the second component should be equal to 3% or so of the investment; since we have no idea what the investment was, this is unhelpful.
The investment income is the revenue from the renter less expenses in running the building.
Improving my social skills is going to be my number one priority for a while. I don't see this subject discussed too much on LW, which is strange because it's one of the biggest correlates with happiness and I think we could benefit a lot from a rational discussion in this area. So I was wondering if anyone has any ideas, musings, relevant links, recommendations, etc. that could be useful for this. Stuff that breaks from the traditional narrative of "just be nicer and more confident" is particularly appreciated. (Unless maybe that is all it takes.)
Optional background regarding my personal situation: I am a 19 yo male (as of tomorrow) who is going to enter college in the fall. I'm not atrociously socially inadept, e.g. I can carry on conversations, can be very bold and confident in short bursts sometimes, I have some friends, I've had girlfriends in the past. However, I also find it very hard to make close friends that I can hang out with one on one, I sometimes find myself feeling like I'm taking a very submissive role socially, and I feel nervous or "in my head" a lot in social interactions, among other things. Not to be melodramatic, but I find myself wishing a decent amount that I had more friends and was more popular.
It might help to precise-ify some of the language around what you mean by "more friends" and "more popular"? What kind of friends? What kind of popularity? Are there types of friends or popularity you don't want? Also, what kind of people can you usually hang out with one-on-one?
I think a decent litmus test for a "friend" is someone who you enjoy spending time with, and who you can reliably invite to hang out with you. You could rephrase this I suppose as someone who you enjoy spending time with, who enjoys spending time with you, where this knowledge is mutually available. Right now I only have one friend who clearly meets the criteria for this definition, though I have a few that come close. My tentative goal is to have five such friends, maybe by Thanksgiving break or so in college.
I'll admit that it's hard for me to find people who I genuinely relate to, enjoy spending time with and can feel comfortable "being myself" around, and I'm not sure if this has something to do with my own social strategies or if this is an unchangeable thing.
Popularity is a little more hard to pin down. I think what I want includes a mix of these qualities:
Obviously some of this is kind of unrealistic and selfish but it's an ideal, I guess.
These goals are not as hard as you'd think to achieve. I've basically gotten all of these by being active in several organizations on campus.
Just doing that gave more opportunities to talk to people, which as drethelin said, is very useful. If you take charge in organizing things, it helps a huge amount with social respect/status. The wide range of acquaintances happens by default.
You do have to make the effort to start hanging out with people outside the regular meetings though. It's pretty easy to do that if the meeting is just before a meal time, because then there's the convenient suggestion of eating together. In other cases, invite them to a party, along with several other people. Being known as the one who organizes groups is very useful for your goals.
Thank you for the advice!
This is comforting.
Out of curiosity, what kind of organizations are you active in? I'm trying to think of stereotypical campus organizations and isolate ones that I would enjoy, and I can't come up with too many. I like chess, so I guess if there's a chess club on campus I'll at least check it out, but that's all I can think of.
I speak from experience: Go to something new every week, or every day early when classes are light. As much as you can stand. You figure out what you like by trying things and not going back to lame events.
I am an introvert, and I found it easy to make friends in college in the right clubs. When everyone shares an interest, it's easy repeatedly meet people and interact.
I will strongly consider doing this. Thank you.
I'm in Secular Alliance, Queers and Associates, my school's circus club, massage, and our BDSM club. There are a few others that I go to when I can, but those are the main ones.
I second BrassLion's advice. Also, look at all the clubs ones that seem interesting, and sign up for their listhost as a reminder to go to them.
Wow, that must be interesting.
Yep, I enjoy it a lot. Came my first year in college because I was vaguely curious, and it ended up becoming a pretty big part of my life!
The best advice I've ever received along these lines is "treat people as though they were already close friends." In my case, that mostly means having conversations with them about topics I actually care about, as opposed to conventional topics.
IME, this weirds a number of people out, who subsequently don't interact with me much, but that's not necessarily a problem.
It also causes people to think I'm coming on to them, which is sometimes a problem, but was less of one when I was in the dating pool.
I always interpreted that piece of advice as meaning something more along the lines of "Be as enthusiastic and casual when you're hanging out with a relatively new acquaintance as you would be when you're hanging out with an old friend." This seems like decent advice, but it's very difficult for me to actually put into action, and it also seems like it would make some people very uncomfortable.
But your take on it is interesting. I'm not 100% sure I can picture it, however. Could you maybe give some sort of example of this strategy in use?
If "enthusiastic and casual" characterizes how you differentially treat your close friends, then sure, I'd say go for that. It doesn't for me, especially.
What I find differentially characterizes my relationships with close friends is that I can start a conversation with whatever has recently been on my mind, however unconventional an opening gambit, and we will mutually engage at a fairly high-bandwidth level. (And vice-versa)
E.g., I recently started a conversation (or, well, replied to "So what's up?") with "I've been thinking a lot lately about how to tell the difference between a lack of motivation that signals lack of genuine interest in doing something, versus a lack of motivation that doesn't, and one thing I'm noticing is that if I ask myself 'Self, are you looking forward to getting out of this slump and being enthused for that project again?' myself sometimes says 'yes!' and sometimes says 'meh.' and I wonder if that's correlated."
And, yes, I agree that it makes some people uncomfortable. I generally operate on the principle that my goal is not to make close friends out of everyone, nor even to make as many close friends as possible, merely to make close friends without wasting a lot of time. If 19 people respond "Oh look I must be going" and the 20th engages with me and we find each other mutually interesting, I generally consider that a win.
Do you think by any chance you could give a percentage estimation on how many people respond well, poorly, and neutrally to this strategy? (Or something along those lines.) This is interesting to me.
Offhand, I don't know.
It's most relevant at parties and large social gatherings where I don't know anyone, and I don't really think in terms of percentages-of-people in such situations so much as how quickly I find someone worth talking to.
Over 95% of the time, I'd say the result is a little bit of chitchat followed by the person and I both talking to someone else. Whether that's responding well, poorly, or neutrally I don't know; that seems to be the default condition at parties.
Less than 1% of the time, the result is the other person's eyes lighting up in what I've come to label the "oh look, one of my people!" expression, and I make a new friend. Probably not much less than 1%, though.
(By way of establishing scale, I'd say I try this ~50 times in a given year... I'm not a terribly outgoing guy, and generally prefer to hang out in smaller groups or just stay home with my husband, but I'm reasonably socially ept when I do go out.)
That said, I also have a reputation in my social circle for being kind of intense and a little out there, but interesting to talk to if you're interested in, well, talking. Which also creates a second-order effect, where friends introduce me to friends of theirs who share this trait because we'd really enjoy each other, and more generally where my social environment self-selects.
Practice Practice Practice Practice Practice. You have to go out of your way to hang out with people to get any good at being fun to hang out with. WARNING: This does not mean you have to spend time at loud parties or bars or clubs. While they pretend to be areas for socializing, they're not really. It's one thing if you enjoy dancing or drinking, but places that are less loud and crowded are a lot better for conversation.
I've done this and it didn't really work. Maybe it worked a little, but not at a very fast rate. To be honest, I think reading a small amount of social skills stuff and thinking about how to solve the problem a little helped much more than all the "practice" I've done in the last year or so.
Obviously you can't take this to the extreme and expect that you can instantly go from Michael Cera to Casanova just by sitting alone reading stuff and watching videos in your room, but I don't think the statement "If you spend enough time in social interactions, you will inevitably develop good social skills" is at all true either.
I kind of despise the former and love the latter. :\
Did you try dancing lessons?
I hated dancing before I learned it, but I love it now. I am very bad at "learning by copying others", but with good explicit education I became a decent dancer.
(Note: Almost everyone adviced me against explicit learning, because they said it wouldn't be "natural" or "romantic". I ignored all this advice, and now no one complains about the result. Contrary to predictions, learning the steps explicitly helped me to improvise later. Seems like people just have a strong taboo about applying reductionism to romantic activities like dancing.)
I don't think the overlap between club-type dancing and the type of dancing that one takes lessons to learn is very large, though.
I don't have much experience with club dancing, but at the few occasions, I was there with a girl who I previously danced ballroom-style with, and we mostly danced jive or quickstep or cha-cha, just with shorter steps to take less space and not move across the room. We had fun, and the feedback from other people was positive.
But even with the club-type dancing, somehow it got much easier for me once I became good at ballroom dances. Maybe I got more confident, maybe I learned to follow the rhythm, maybe I started to understand some movement patterns; probably all of that together.
club dancing is basically doing whatever you feel like to the beat. This is a lot easier if you have a repertoire of moves from other styles of dance or activity that you can instantiate. Also what Villiam_Bur said.
Yeah, this is what I'm thinking.
A big problem I have with club dancing is that I am 6'6", and I feel (probably at least somewhat accurately) that I am unusually visible and that any move I do is being judged by at least a few people. So I end up just standing there, then immediately realizing "this is much more awkward than dancing really poorly is", then concluding "Oh my god, no matter what I do I am doomed, I have to get out of here right now", then leaving, then sitting alone feeling like there is something very flawed about me.
I will get over this someday by applying a dedicated effort, but right now there are more important self-improvement projects. Until then I just will stay far away from any dance where I can't get drunk beforehand.
Well, I agree that it needn't be at the top of your to-do list. In fact, I'm not sure you need worry about getting over it at all, really. Not enjoying hanging out/dancing in clubs is no serious character defect, and plenty of people share your preference. By the way, happy birthday (or was that yesterday?)
Interesting; no one has ever told me that dancing lessons are a bad idea. I think we live in very different cultures. (Other things you have said in the past have also given me his impression.)
No, no, no, this was a bad explanation on my part. No one told me that dancing lessons are bad idea per se... only that my specific learning style is.
This is what works best for me: Show me the moves. Now show me those moves again very slowly, beat by beat. Show me separately what feet do; then what hands and head do. Tell me at which moment which leg supports the weight (I don't see it, and it is important). When and how exactly do I signal to my girl what is expected from her. (In some rare situations, to get it, I need to try her movements, too.) I still don't get it, but be patient with me. Let me repeat the first beat, and tell me what was wrong. Again, until it is right. Then the second beat. Etc. Then the whole thing together. Now let's do the same thing again, and again, and again, exactly the same way. Then something "clicks" in my head, and I get the move... and since that moment I can lead, improvise, talk during dance, whatever. -- As a beginner I was blessed with a partner who didn't run away screaming somewhere in the middle of this. Later my learning became faster, partially because I learned to ask the proper questions. And I had a good luck to dancing teacher who was a former engineer, so he was able to comply with my strange demands.
In contrast, this is what seems to me a typical learning process, at the dancing lessons: Teacher shows the steps quickly. Then shows the steps quickly again. And again. At this moment people in the room start getting it, and they do it halfway correctly. And the more they do it, the better they get.
This absolutely does not work for me. I can learn to do things slowly; but I can't learn then quickly, not even approximately. I can progress from "slowly but correctly" to "quickly but correctly", but I can't progress from "incorrectly" to "correctly" at any speed by mere repetition and observation. Most people seem to have this ability to copy each other. I don't. I need to be explained the mechanism, step by step. (And this is not just in dancing. Sorry for touching an irrelevant taboo topic, but the PUA literature did exactly the same thing for me about human relations. Despite all the biases et cetera, that was the only source that told me explicitly what most humans learn by copying and probably never bother to explain in a way comprehensive to me.)
Now, after seeing my learning style, the typical reaction was that I should stop doing that, because my dancing style will be ugly and "robotic", and my partners will feel uncomfotable. Instead I should just do what other people are doing, for a very long time. Wrong in both aspects. First, doing what other people do, just for a longer time, sometimes does not work for me. My head just works differently, or something. Second, after the moment the moves "click" in my head, my dancing becomes okay. If you didn't see me at the beginning, you would not expect I had so much trouble learning that. Actually, I got feedback from new partners that I dance better than average, and that I am very good at leading. I can teach a girl a new dance in 5 minutes and then lead her so that no one expects she is doing this for the first time. -- This is the other side of how my head works: It takes me a lot of time to understand something, but then I can explain it extremely quickly. (Again, this is not just in dancing. I used to teach maths privately, and the results were good. Many people can do math, but can't teach it. Although I didn't have the same kind of problem learning maths, probably because it already is pretty explicit.)
Sorry for only commenting on the irrelevant taboo topic you touched on, but this is interesting to me. I have been reading some PUA stuff lately and it seems to me that the whole point is that it is not describing something that ordinary humans learn naturally, but instead prescribing something extraordinary that you can do to set yourself apart from the crowd in order to attract the hottest girl in the club that every other guy in there is hitting on. And even then it only works via the law of averages, and requires one to override one's natural intense aversion to rejection in order to pursue a more rational strategy adapted for a modern world in which you can talk to someone once and never see them again.
Am I wrong about this?
A man's negative take on PUA.
A woman's mostly negative take on PUA, though she thinks that a little PUA can be useful for men who are afraid to talk to women. Getting into the PUA sub-culture can leave men worse off.
Both have put a lot of thought into it.
My take is that PUA seems to be set in a universe where no one likes anyone else.
Funny thing is that I agree with the first article, I just have completely different connotations to that.
Yes, the stuff Mystery teaches really is dumbed down. Which is good, because some guys start so dumb that they need this; sometimes they have problems to understand even this. I was there once. And the stuff helped me to get out of there.
It feels to me like saying: "The elementary schools are so dumb, I learned much more at university!" -- Sure, good for you! Also, well-played sir; you gently reminded us of your higher status. The competition among PUA bloggers is strong these days; many authors have to market themself as beyond-PUA to be able to sell their PUA products. (Nothing wrong about that, I would probably do the same thing if I weren't too lazy to blog.)
I also agree with the rest of the article. If you take a mentally unstable person and teach them PUA, you will get a mentally unstable person with some PUA skills. And therefore... I mean, if you take a mentally unstable person and teach them Java programming, you will get a mentally unstable person with some Java skills. Perhaps it is socially unresponsible to teach mentally unstable people anything that increases their powers without fixing their problems first. But that is not a problem specific to PUA industry.
EDIT: Changed my mind about this.
Men helping low-status men to overcome their lack of social skills... is an evidence that no one likes anyone else? (Ten years ago, the help was provided online for free, only later it developed into a profitable industry.)
But they don't focus on liking women, do they? Well, they often don't. To make a fair comparison, how often do seduction (sorry, relationship) articles, magazines, and books for women talk about liking men, respecting their agency, et cetera?
And maybe the people criticizing PUAs just focus too much on the bad parts, and ignore the nicer parts. But I admit the bad parts may be majority of the stuff.
The first link said that PUA could leave people in worse shape than it found them-- and Clarisse Thorn (second link) said the same.
Good point about PUA cultivating friendships between men. I'd missed that part. Still, it doesn't do a good job of encouraging friendliness between romantic/sexual partners.
Thank you for the links! I will most likely read the first link at some point, and maybe the second one eventually.
(From the about page of the blog linked to:)
WOW, I have been looking for a website like this for a few months now. Again, thank you!
My impression is that there are many different shades with respect to this, ranging from 'explicitly learning social skills which others may learn implicitly' to 'behaviour intended to trick, force, pressure, or otherwise outright manipulate girls into bed with you' - with a great deal in between.
These days PUA refers to so many things that I need to be more specific. The sources that helped me were "The Mystery Method" by Mystery, "How To Become An Alpha Male" by Carlos Xuma, "Married Man Sex Life" by Athol Kay. I would also recommend "The Blueprint Decoded" by RSD.
Yes, there are many sources that only tell you "do this, do that, and if it does not work, just do it again". I guess this is what most customers want: "Don't bother me with explanations, just give me a quick fix!" This is how most people approach everything. Well, if there is a demand for something, the market will provide a product. And these days it is a huge business. Ten years ago, it was more like geeks experimenting and sharing their results and opinions... a bit similar to Quantified Self today, just less scientific, and sometimes more narrowly focused.
Overcoming aversion to rejection, doing many approaches to convert given rates of success into greater absolute numbers, doing something extraordinary to stand out of the crowd... those are the fixes. Applied incorrectly they could be even harmful. (Receiving a lot of rejection can make you more resistant, but can also break you. Standing out of the crowd is costly signalling, you need to pay the costs. Doing many approaches may cost you socially.) But there is a theory behind that, and maybe it is not clearly explained, maybe it is not emphasised enough, or maybe it is already obvious to many people, and only a relevation for the most clueless guys like me. (Actually, maybe the explanations are not in the books, but in the related blogs. I don't remember the exact sources of information. I am only sure that "Married Man Sex Life" contains the theory explicitly.) And I guess for a LW reader familiar with status and reductionism, another part is already known.
Here are a few useful ideas; the essence I got from the books and blogs, but the result may be a compilation of various sources, with a bit of LW lingo --
Humans are biological creatures. Attraction is a causal mechanism, not an unexplainable mystery. That does not mean there are no individual preferences. But the shared preferences are also important, and hugely underestimated.
Sometimes the society gives you wrong explanations, for various reasons: People fail at introspection. People optimize their answers for status, not for truth. The inferential distances between socially savvy and socially clueless is too big, so even a honest and good advice gets misunderstood and misapplied. To some degree, sexual mate selection is a zero-sum game, so there is an incentive to spread bad advice. The social advice is optimized for the needs of society (e.g. preserving the social order), which may be misaligned with your needs (e.g. getting from the bottom of the pecking order to the top). -- Of course, if we go more meta, the PUAs also have incentive (status, money) to give you bad advice. Caveat emptor; just don't make this a fully general counterargument.
Reproduction strategies of males and females are different. Some things are universally attractive (health, intelligence), but some things are sex-specific, or at least have different weight for each sex. (Yeah, the mandatory disclaimer: Not all people are heterosexual, even the heterosexual people are not all the same, etc. Just don't miss the forest because some trees are outside of it.) The specifically male preferences are widely known (all those half-naked ladies on the covers of magazines didn't get there by accident). The specifically female preferences are somewhat less known. Why? Consider the incentives: Women prefer to keep this mysterious, because mysterious means higher status. (This is why any attempt to explain the mystery feels like a status attack.) Men who understand them have no incentive to teach it to their competitors. And the men who want to learn, must first get a huge status hit by admitting that they need to learn. (Even worse, the status hit is guaranteed, but the good advice in return is not, and most likely one will not get good advice.) This changed with the internet subculture of low-status males, where admitting to strangers to be low-status does not cost one socially, and thus the usually taboo topics may be freely explored. (With the commercialization of PUA, the status games are back again.)
Specifically: to most heterosexual women, high status men are attractive. A lot of advice is about getting higher status, or about faking some signals that high-status men send. (Actually, getting higher status or faking it, is not a dichotomy. Sometimes status is in the eyes of the beholder: if you convince people that you have high status, you have it. Also, faking the high status can make you more confident, and when you learn to be confident, you will get high status naturally.) Wise people will remind you that becoming a high-status male will also help you in other areas of life, unrelated to seduction, so perhaps instead of becoming better at seduction you should frame it as becoming better at life. -- Add some specific tricks and fixes here, and you have a typical PUA material.
Problem is that the typical PUA material is optimized for short-term relationships. For someone starting from "no relationships" position, that is a huge improvement. But to get a long-term relationship, another lesson has to be learned. Some male traits are attractive for short-term relationships, some male traits are attractive for long-term relationship. The official story says they are the same, which is wrong (but socially useful). Reversing this stupidity, a typical PUA in a valley of bad rationality says they are opposites to each other, which is also wrong. In reality, they are approximately orthogonal. For short-term relationship you need "alpha" traits: to be strong, successful, healthy; in other words, to show you have good genes. For long-term relationships you need "beta" traits: to be kind, reasonable, faithful; in other words, to show you would be a good father. These are not the same, and these are not opposites -- when you fully understand this, everything else is just a commentary. Statistically, young women will put more emphasis on "alpha" traits (which is why PUAs focus on that), but as they get older, they realize the importance of "beta" traits. Men are socially pressed to develop "beta" traits, because that is the part society needs; but having only "beta" traits without "alpha" traits does not make a man attractive.
This is the root of most misunderstandings: When a man asks: "How to become attractive?" he often means that he starts from zero and cannot get even a short-term relationship; which means he needs to work on his "alpha" traits. However, a women hearing this question will typically interpret it as: "How can an already attractive man become even more attractive?", she imagines a typical attractive bad boy, and recommends adding some "beta" traits to that. This is why this kind of communication predictably fails, and then it leads to endless flamewars about whether women really want or don't want "nice guys". The answer is: Women want attractive men to develop "beta" traits; but there is a silent assumption that those men already have "alpha" traits. Women don't want men with zero "alpha" traits, regardless of how much "beta" traits they have.
[deleted]
How has this worked out for you?
To be fair, I have filtered the reasonable parts of PUA. There is also a lot of crap. And most of the focus is on the short-term relationship -- the ending part is based solely on "Married Man Sex Life". (I guess that reflects the needs of a typical customer -- and perhaps even a typical PUA guru. Also, the society does give rather decent advice on "beta" traits; the "alpha" is the missing part, so teaching it is more popular and profitable.)
Yeah, this is difficult to explain (so outside view suggests I am prone to rationalization here). I agree with the examples you gave. And yet... the society gives contradictory and incomplete information on this. Consider saying: "If you have an expensive foreign car, you are more likely to get pretty girls." Say it at one place, and you will get: "Duh, news at 11." Say it at another place, and you will get: "You sexist! How dare you! Not all women are like that. Bringing an expensive car would never impress me."
So we have two separate magisteria here. In one universe, you only get girls by being bold and rich. In other universe, you only get girls by being polite and patient. Both messages are given by the society, none of them is literally a secret. Yet they seem contradictory, and how to successfully put them together, that is kind of a secret. Because people living in one universe typically deny the existence of the other universe.
Perhaps the information is all out there, in pieces, but you need some level of social skills to put it all correctly together. Judging by the popularity of PUAs, many people lack this skill. I certainly did.
I guess the nerds would appreciate a more precise advice; which parts of jocks' behavior are necessary for the desired effect, and which can be left out. Which is the 20% that brings 80% of the result. Otherwise, the price is too high. PUA explains how to get some of what jocks get, without having to become a full-time jock.
If you map says that higher status is not actually important, that it is mostly sought by insecure or evil people, and is not really worth sacrificing your life to get it... then the rational choice is to ignore it. If your map says that higher status will improve your life in almost all aspects, and that the first steps to improve it are rather easy... then the rational choice is to go for it. So you need to get your map right to make the right decision.
There is no need to go high-risk all the time. In some situations (a disco with a hundred pretty girls, you don't care about any one in particular, you don't mind dozens of rejections), high-risk, high-reward strategy is the best one. In other situations, tone down appropriately. There will always be some risk, because willingness to risk is an important "alpha" trait. (But keeping the risk reasonably low is an important "beta" trait.)
A new strategy is better tested on strangers. The people who already know you, will not react to your new strategy per se, but to your change. And people usually perceive change negatively; it disrupts social order. The stranger sees your new strategy and thinks this is what you are -- so you get a better response on what your future relationships would be if you became that.
And yes, you have to tweak all the advice to fit your personality. Also, while experimenting, you may discover traits you didn't know you had. Some of them good, some of them bad. You will have to deal with it too.
I would recommend you to find a torrent of "The Blueprint Decoded", watch it, go meet some new people, and do the experiments you feel (emotionally and ethically) comfortable with. Be just a little more courageous than you usually are, and notice how other people react to you, and how you feel inside once you become comfortable with it. Don't try too much at once. For example, if you have problem starting a conversation with a stranger, then during the first week consider successfully starting a conversation a victory. Don't push too far on the first try; you would sabotage yourself by converting every victory to a defeat.
EDIT: As a new environment with lot of girls, may I recommend dancing lessons? ;)
Discussion on lesswrong on that subject would most likely not be rational. Various forms of idealism result in mind killed advice giving which most decidedly is not optimized for the benefit of the recipient.
Get out of your house, go where the people are and interact with them. Do this for 4 hours per day for a year (on top of whatever other incidental interactions your other activities entail). If "number one priority" was not hyperbole that level of exertion is easily justifiable and nearly certain to produce dramatic results. (Obviously supplementing this with a little theory and tweaking the environment chosen and tactics used are potential optimisations. But the active practice part is the key.)
I agree that when social skills are usually discussed, various forms of idealism tend to result in mind killed advice. The standard set of advice in particular seems to mostly ignore the fact that a) status exists, i.e. it is very possible to be liked and not respected, and sometimes the latter overpowers the former and b) some people genuinely have large personality flaws that make them unpleasant to be around.
I was hoping LessWrong would be able to avoid this idealism, as they do in most other areas, which is why I posted here. Do you think that LessWrong would be worse than average in this regard? Why? And do you think there is anywhere I could have a rational discussion about this stuff?
Like I said in another post in this thread, I don't think it's at all a given that if you socialize enough, you will eventually develop good social skills, and I think that reading a bit of stuff on the subject in the last month helped me about as much as all the social experiences I've had in the last year.
But something about the idea of making it a priority to spend x amount of time a day specifically seeking out social interactions makes sense and is appealing to me. I don't know if four hours a day is the right amount - I will have to experiment, but I can very much see myself implementing something like this.
One problem with widely recommending this is that it seems to me like many, if not most people are not at all in a position to reliably be able to follow this advice. But I imagine someone with low to moderate social skills on a college campus probably can.
So, are you trans?
If so, the queer clubs are a slam dunk, if you get along okay with that "type". One thing to bear in mind is, a lot of the opening chatter will be about gender and sexuality issues, which gets a little tiresome. Just accept that this is the new smalltalk for these spaces --- instead of talking about sports or what your major is, young queer kids often ask each other about coming out stories, etc. People are also trying on the role --- it's all new and unfamiliar to them, too. Many are unused to having an in-group, and overdo "tribe signalling".
I guess I'm just advising you to be wary of the fundamental attribution error in these spaces, which can make people seem very narrow.
You can also turn this around and realise that there are ways you can help people avoid making the fundamental attribution error with you, too. For instance, if you're recently transitioning, I imagine that will feel really weird for a while. It's okay to talk about that! You can excuse some of your awkwardness this way, and I expect most of the folks in these spaces will find that quite endearing.
I'm pretty sure he meant "19 yo as of tomorrow" and not "male as of tomorrow", though I did consider teasing him about that (which may be what you are doing! Those things can be hard to tell online).
Well with the username I really thought it more likely he was trans. Shrug.
You thought his username gave you over 13 bits of evidence?
I needed fewer than 13 bits of evidence: http://lesswrong.com/lw/fp5/2012_survey_results/
I likely committed some level of base-rate fallacy though (regardless of what the truth turns out to be). Trans* is more available to me because I hang out in queer communities, and know multiple transgender people.
This is a nice Bayes learning opportunity. It's reasonable to infer that a female-looking username makes someone more likely to be female, maybe twice as likely (not much more than that; this is the internet and people give themselves weird usernames all the time, and actual women may avoid using female-looking usernames in male-dominated forums to avoid drawing attention to their gender). However, the base rate of transsexualism, even within a community as unusual as LW, is still incredibly low and requires a lot of evidence to overcome (e.g. someone telling you they're transsexual).
(for what it's worth, I didn't reason using base rates, I just remember an early comment by gothgirl420666 saying he was male and only took that name for the lulz)
Do you really think 1/3rd of users named gothgirl* would be male? I'd guess something like 1-10%, compared with 1-3% transsexualism on LW: http://lesswrong.com/lw/fp5/2012_survey_results/
On Less Wrong in particular, I would assign a high likelihood to various permutations of "gothgirl" being ironic, rather than sincere self expression of the user.
Yeah, sure. This is the internet. (Acknowledged that the base rate of transsexualism on LW is higher than I had expected.)
Oh hey, what's up?
Yeah, that's what I meant.
I have a question. Assume that non-profit MIRI develops a fAGI (I like the acronym this way). They realise they can use the fAGI to generate profit. Taking for granted they only wish to make enough profit to sustain the institution free of donor-support, would they then be able to switch to a for-profit institution, despite having created the fAGI while non-profit?
Everyone has found a way around the question; I asked it poorly, so I'll be clearer: if a piece of technology is developed at an institution dependent upon donations from private individuals to operate yet has no obligations to repay those individuals any form of equity - an institution that until this point has been called a 'non-profit' - can that institution then legally start profiting from their technology sans any obligation to their former donors? This may require country-specific answers.
The assumption is that fAGI would render any questions of profit moot.
This does not seem obvious to me. Humans have a strong competitive drive; I do not see why profit should necessarily drop out of a post-Friendly Singularity society, even if what we buy with our Shiny Future Moniez are perhaps status goods. Moreover, considerations of acausal trade to increase the probability of AI being Friendly seem to suggest that its inventors should get some sort of reward. This said, it is of course not clear that such a profit would be taken out in US dollars.
If MIRI (or anyone else) create an AGI that is friendly to them they can do whatever they goddamn please.
Nitpick:
They might not be able to do some things they want to do, but wouldn't want to want to do. But I agree that "making a profit" would no longer be a concern.
Let's taboo "nonprofit." If a tax deductible charity starts making more than de minimis business profit, the charity is no longer eligible to offer tax deductions. But the purpose and mission of any charity is not tied to its tax status. In fact, there are many charities that haven't procedurally qualified to give tax deduction for donations.
But as others have said, I'm not sure why this would be a problem if MIRI had a foom fAGI.
Reminder: Boston is hosting a megameetup on July 13-14.
I am confused. This Washington Post article appears to describe a preliminary study which suggests that politics is less of a mindkiller if you ask people to bet money on their beliefs.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/06/03/if-you-pay-them-money-partisans-will-tell-you-the-truth/
And I am confused because what appear to be my attempts to find the paper resulted in two papers with entirely different abstracts. And papers. Example:
Abstract 1:
"Our conclusion is that the apparent gulf in factual beliefs between members of different parties may be more illusory than real."
Abstract 2:
"Partisan gaps in correct responding are reduced only moderately when incentives are offered, which constitutes some of the strongest evidence to date that such patterns reflect sincere differences in factual beliefs."
http://huber.research.yale.edu/materials/39_paper.pdf
http://themonkeycage.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/bullockgerberhuber.pdf?343c0a
I realize the dates on the papers are different, but the shifts seem very dramatic. Thoughts?
Maybe this will help?
http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2013/06/55494.html
I want to improve my exposition and writing skills, but whenever I think "what do I know that I can explain to people that isn't explained well elsewhere?" not much comes to mind. I think that happens because it is hard to just do a search of everything that I know. The main topics that I know are math and rationality (mostly LW epistemic rationality, but also a little instrumental and LW moral philosophy). So I ask:
What is a topic in math or rationality that you wish were explained better or explained at a different level (casual, technical, etc.) than what already exists? Like, something that you know now but wish had been explained to you better, something that you don't know but wish you did, or something that you wish you could explain to other people but don't know of any sources to send them to.
If improving your skills is your main goal, you should just write, regardless of whether better explanations already exist elsewhere. Actually, such explanations already existing could even be an advantage, as it provides you with feedback: after writing your own, you can look up existing ones and compare what you did better and what you did worse.
I see what you are saying, but I would be more motivated if it felt like I was doing useful work, and I don't really know what to write about. So I kind of am looking for inspiration/motivation and ideas.
What do you really wish someone had explained to you 2 years ago?
The two things that come to mind are things that I am still learning. General category theory (rather than category theory for the purpose of x), and a higher level structural and general viewpoint on Bayes (rather than basic articles on how to compute Bayes theorem and what it means). Also something on what actually happens when you extend mathematical logic using Bayesian probability. I could probably start on the second one right now...
If you want to practice writing, but you can't think of any fun (or... fun-like) ways to practice writing, it may be a good idea to practice in a way that isn't fun, instead of waiting for something fun to come along. If lack of motivation turns out to be actually problematic, then searching for a more motivating topic is a potential solution, but there are lots of other, potentially better solutions.
That seems like the wrong question to start with for casual writing. Some version of it might make sense for academic publishing.
Is there some math you're having fun with that you'd like to try explaining?
If you'd like a great big project, how about rationality for people of average intelligence?
Why do you think that is a wrong question? I am mostly asking because I want something interesting to write about, that I would be motivated to write.
The math that I am having fun with I don't know thoroughly enough to explain (and I am learning it from a really good piece of exposition).
The rationality one looks like fun, I will see if I can do some of it. First step, hack it into pieces so I am not working on a massive supergoal project, but a small project instead.
My guess was that it was a wrong question because it seems to stop you very early.
If having your writing be useful is a primary motivation, then maybe "what do I know well that I can explain to people which they aren't likely to have seen already?" would be better.
Another might be "what's something interesting that I know well that a good many people haven't heard of?".
Pretend you're to have a conversation with a friend in which you need to explain a topic before proceeding. Write your dialogue.
This suggests that studies about partisan confusion about truth are overblown. I haven't had a chance to look at the actual paper yet, but the upshot is that this study suggests that while there is a lot of prior evidence that people are likely to state strong factual errors supporting their own partisan positions, they are substantially less likely to occur when people are told they will be given money for correct statements. The suggestion is that people know (at some level) that their answers are false and are saying them more as signaling than anything else.
Edit:Clarify
Alternative explanation: They're shutting up and multiplying.
Most people have gone through the education system. Most people know how to guess the teacher's password. Most people have learned better than to assume their answers will be counted correct just because they have (in their opinions) good reasons for holding those answers.
Does putting an incentive on getting the answers "right" lead to "right" answers, or does it lead to people answering the way they expect you to treat as being right? My own educational history suggests the latter.
I can't parse this bit:
Going by the syntax, it seems like you're saying "that this study suggests that all the studies [about certain things] are less likely to occur [under certain circumstances]", i.e. the study you're talking about was about the frequency of other types of studies. This doesn't seem to make sense.
(Usual informational hazard warning to attract attention. Warning before compulsory dedicating your attention: it's only the usual hazard. (Collective disappointed sigh))
Interesting smackd..., ah, discussion, between XiXiDu and Aris Kats Aris. If the link doesn't work, it's the Google+ discussion also linked to from the top of this blog post.
A small note: "Katsaris" is my last name and a single word, it doesn't split into "Kats Aris". :-)
Your name is an anagram goldmine ripe for a bonanza. From the litany "as a Sir Tarski" to my "sis, Aria Stark" (works just phonetically), your name implies a role "as AI Risk tsar".
I scraped the last few hundred pages of comments on Main and Discussion, and made a simple application for pulling the highest TF-IDF-scoring words for any given user.
I'll provide these values for the first ten respondents who want them. [Edit: that's ten]
EDIT: some meta-information - the corpus comprises 23.8 MB, and spans the past 400 comment pages on Main and Discussion (around six months and two and a half months respectively). The most prolific contributor is gwern with ~780kB. Eliezer clocks in at ~280kB.
What about for the site overall?
This was my eventual plan, but I haven't settled on a general corpus to compare it to yet.
Curious to hear mine.
intelligence -> 17.119
machine -> 15.353
environments -> 15.052
reference -> 13.546
machines -> 12.304
views -> 12.253
legg -> 12.252
friedman -> 11.417
papers -> 10.792
we -> 10.536
exercises -> 9.532
Your contribution to the corpus amount to ~47kB of plain text. For reference, Eliezer is ~190kB and gwern is ~515kB. The scores are unadjusted for document size and not amazingly meaningful outside of this specific context.
Huh, that seems different from what I'd have expected - but then again, I'm not sure of what I would have expected. Thanks.
I've just fixed a bug in my scraper that was causing it to abandon 25% of the corpus. This has ended up tripling your contribution. Some new values for you:
agi -> 37.328
intelligence -> 22.367
moral -> 21.010
agis -> 20.087
eea -> 18.647
takeoff -> 17.500
credences -> 17.108
machine -> 16.902
our -> 16.222
environments -> 15.919
deer -> 15.761
This retains a similar "flavour" to the previous set, (AGI and ev-psych). The best way I've found to interpret it is "what sort of words describe what I use Less Wrong to talk about?"
As an interesting side-note, rot13 really messes with TF-IDF.
Okay, that feels like it makes more sense. I'm a little confused about the "deer", though.
Blame this comment.
Yes please. I have no idea what they will look like.
suffering -> 25.000
god -> 24.508
does -> 24.383
causal -> 21.584
np -> 21.259
utility -> 20.470
agi -> 20.470
who -> 20.169
pill -> 19.353
bayesian -> 18.965
u1 -> 17.567
The word 'who' seems to come up a lot for the contributors at the more prolific end of the scale. I don't have a satisfactory answer why this should be the case. Your contribution comprises ~170kB of plain text.
I reviewed A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy at my blog ("Modern Stoicism – The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly"). It's a philosophy book that's focused on being actionable, not just a historical survey, but I think it too-casually brushes off some of the unpleasant side effects of stoicism.
You can't control whether or not the girl will hit or insult you. As a result hoping that she would do one of those things goes against stoicist ideals.
It's much better to seek out-of-comfort zone experiences where you can control that you have the experience. Instead of depending on the bully in the bus to provide an experience in which you can grow you can go and have fun dancing in the bus.
A year ago I was in a personal development seminar that's partly about improving one's charisma and finding the courage to do what one likes.
At the end of the day there's live music and most people just sit there listening and watching the musicians. I went and danced in alone in front of >200 people because I felt like dancing. I got a bunch of positive social feedback for it.
Stoicism doesn't have to be about having no fun and doing nothing. It's rather about reducing negative emotions.
It seems like the actual correct play would be to go and DO HARD THINGS. Those will naturally more negative emotions and also be more useful.
It's a bit of a truism that you can't do micropayments to cover the true marginal cost of serving a webpage, adding a user to your service, or other Internet activities, because the gap between free and epsilon is psychologically larger than the gap between epsilon and a dollar. It occurs to me that this curious psychology seems to map onto a logarithmic utility in money: Clearly the difference between lim(x to zero)[log(x)] and log(epsilon) is larger than the difference between log(epsilon) and log(1) for any finite value of epsilon. I'm not sure if this actually explains anything, but I thought it was kind of neat.
The interesting thing about that observation is that it's very much about how the internet get's used in the West. In China where a lot of internet use happens in internet cafés where uses pay the internet café by the hour micropayments for virtual goods are used more frequently than in the West.
Additionally transaction costs are a big deal when it comes to micropayments. Paypal's micromayment fee is 5% + $0.05 per transaction. If we would have cheap micropayment there a chance that a greater ecosystem of services that need micropayments can grow.
Bitcoin did promise being cheap but still have some substantial transaction costs. On the other hand Ripple (https://ripple.com/) provides the opportunity of a cost of $0.0001 per transaction.
Regarding Ripple, I thought that in the United States, financial institutions were required to know their users' identities. I don't see how this isn't blatantly illegal.
Incidentally, I'm confused over the fact that so few sites or people seem to use Flattr, despite it basically solving this problem. (Well, it's microdonations rather than micropayments, so you can't really require your users to pay anything, but still.)
I've not noticed websites I like using flattr, so I have no reason to sign up for it.
Very few people use it, so it's not worth it for sites to sign up for it.
Today I learned that there exist electromagnetic waves in vacuum with electric and magnetic fields parallel to each other. Freaky...
On BBC Radio 4 this morning I heard of a government initiative, "Books on Prescription". It's a list of self-help books drawn up by some committee as actually having evidence of usefulness, and which are to be made available in all public libraries. They give a list of evidence-based references.
General page for Books on Prescription.
The reading list.
The evidence, a list of scientific studies in the literature.
I have not read any of the books (which is why I'm not posting this in the Media Thread), but I notice from the titles that a lot of them are based on Cognitive Behavioural Techniques, which are generally well thought of on LessWrong.
The site also mentions a set of Mood-boosting Books, "uplifting novels, non-fiction and poetry". These are selected from recommendations made by the general public, so I would say, without having read any of them, of lesser expected value. FWIW, here's the list for 2012 (of which, again, I have read none).
I notice that almost all of those books are about things that are considered "mental problems" (the exceptions being chronic fatigue, chronic pain, and relationship problems, which are nevertheless specific problems). So if a self-help book isn't about a particular problem (like How to Win Friends and Influence People and The Seven Habits), or the problem it talks about isn't primarily psychological (like Getting Things Done), then it won't appear on that list regardless of how good it is.
(Stating my opinions here so that you won't have to guess: My brother, who seems quite sensible and whom I admire very much, states that all three of the books mentioned here are very good. Getting Things Done taught me one extremely useful lesson, probably among the top five most useful things I have ever learned. I have little evidence, apart from this stuff, that any of these books are useful.)
From If Many-Worlds had Come First:
Obviously this is a parody and Eliezer is making an argument for many worlds. However, this isn't that far from how the thought experiment is presented in introductory books and even popularizations. Why, then, don't more people realize that many worlds is correct? Why aren't tons of bright middle-school children who read science fiction and popular science spontaneously rediscovering many worlds?
For those who believe that the US is a democracy in the sense that public policy is an aggregate of public opinion, how do you deal with the fact that 42% of the US population don't know that Obamacare is actually law?
If the population doesn't even know about the easy facts, how do you expect a democracy in which public policy is driven by public discourse to work?
I'm currently in a weeklong design meeting. On Monday, the guy leading the meeting proposed a schedule for what we were doing when, in which my presentation was Monday, a likely followup for my presentation was Friday, and various other things were true. Some people objected, and he changed some stuff, though not those two things. Nobody objected to it, and it's the schedule we're using.
I have no idea what we're going to do this afternoon or tomorrow, and I was surprised by what we did yesterday and this morning. At no time have I ever known, I didn't bother to listen when it was announced. I don't care what we discuss when, as long as I know when my topics are so I can prep.
Still, I'm happy to say that our schedule is an aggregate of public opinion.
Would you disagree?
I approach public policy in a democracy similarly. Sure, most of us don't know anything about anything, but I'm not sure how much that really matters.
That being said, I'm also not sure how much I endorse public policy driven by public discourse. "Worst system in the world except for everything else we've ever tried" comes to mind.
By that definition the political decisions in most non-democratic states are also driven by public opinion.
Note that this isn't particularly specific to the US. The situation is pretty much the same in every country, AFAIK.
The future of humanity institue at Oxford University is having a onference on Philosophy & Theory of Artificial Intelligence
Anyone going?
MoR and munchkining fans may enjoy this application to Railgun: http://www.reddit.com/r/anime/comments/1fpome/just_a_fanart_of_railgun_characters/cacmewm
I'd really like it if someone could explain to me what Aaronson is saying here:
-PHYS 771 Lecture
Well, he's saying that. I don't know which part of this is the part you're having trouble with.
I was confused by the way he was using the term "non-determinism". Then I read this:
-Theoretical Computer Science Stack Exchange
Assuming that person was correct, then it seems like Aaronson is responding to an argument that uses the physics sense of "non-determined", but replying with the CS sense--which I'm thinking makes a difference in this case. But that's just what it seems like to me--I must be misunderstanding something (probably a lot of things).
Of interest to folks close to Oxford only.
Max Tegmark will be giving a talk, "The future of life: a cosmic perspective”, on June 10 at 12:30pm. The event is open to the public and free of charge, and will take place on the Martin Wood Lecture Theatre, Department of Physics, 20 Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PU (Google maps). More details here.
I think this Noah Smith disquisition on "derp" might be a useful thing to refer people to when one gets tired of referring them to PITMK. It crystalizes for me why I find a lot of political commentary unbearable to read/listen to.
I'm wondering if the following statement is true: The word "ought" means whatever we ought to believe that it means.
Now, certainly, that statement could be false. There could be a society whose code of ethics states that you must disagree with the code of ethics. But I'm asking whether or not it is false, for us actual humans. And it might be false if you take "we" to mean someone like Adolf Hitler: perhaps Hitler professed his actual beliefs about ethics, and people nowadays think Hitler was so horrible that if Hitler believed something was right, it was probably wrong, and vice versa; and so it would have been best for Hitler's ethical beliefs to be as wrong as possible, so that people who think Hitler was wrong most of the time will come to the correct conclusions. But by "we", I don't mean "each individual human being who has ever lived and ever will live"; I just mean "human society as a whole".
In theory, if this statement were true, we would be able to take sentences like "we ought to believe that murder is wrong" and use them to conclude sentences like "murder is wrong". In practice, this seems like it would only be rarely useful, because it's hard to determine whether or not we ought to believe that a conduct is wrong unless we already know whether or not it is wrong.
Naive evo-psych seems to imply that having a big family should make me more attractive, for two reasons: 1) it's evidence that my genes cause many surviving kids, 2) more people will share resources to help my kids survive. But that doesn't seem to work in real life. Why?