I spent 7 years playing a video game that started to become as important to me as the real world, at least in terms of how it emotionally effected me. If I had spent the 6ish hours a day, on average, doing something else - well, it makes me vaguely sick to think of the things I might have better spent the time and energy on. Don't get me wrong - it was fun. And I did not sink nearly so low as so many others have, and in the end when I realized what was going on - I left. I am simply saddened by the lost opportunity cost. FWIW - this is less about the "virtual" nature of things - I had good, real human beings as friends - and more about not having the presence of mind and fortitude to spend that time, oh, learning an instrument, or developing a difficult skill, or simply doing things in the real world to help society as a whole. I mean - 6 hours a day (average, 7 days a week) for 7 years is what, a doctorate program? Not that I value the paper and all, but the education means something.
On the other hand, you would not and quite possibly could not have spent all that time on learning valuable things. At least some of it would have been used up by some other sort of relaxation.
We looked at the cloudy night sky and thought it would be interesting to share the ways in which, in the past, we made mistakes we would have been able to overcome, if only we had been stronger as rationalists. The experience felt valuable and humbling. So why not do some more of it on Lesswrong?
An antithesis to the Bragging Thread, this is a thread to share where we made mistakes. Where we knew we could, but didn't. Where we felt we were wrong, but carried on anyway.
As with the recent group bragging thread, anything you've done wrong since the comet killed the dinosaurs is fair game, and if it happens to be a systematic mistake that over long periods of time systematically curtailed your potential, that others can try to learn avoiding, better.
This thread is an attempt to see if there are exceptions to the cached thought that life experience cannot be learned but has to be lived. Let's test this belief together!