this week on the slack discussions:

• Art and media - HPMOR readership and considering spoilers. A few movie clips. microbiases, "Secret Habitat" game and abstract art analysis. Quality VS quantity, one hit wonder - and what effort it would take to make one (200-500 hours maybe). " short-circuiting happiness in the brain; by - instead of spending money on a bed (normal thing), spend money on icecream (happy thing), even when you neeeed a better bed in your life. In order to trick your brain to being happier than it is."
• Bot test - We have a logging bot; and are building a prediction bot to help us keep track of predictions.
• Business and startups - Comparing startup ideas, Thesaurus for words that don't exist - i.e. "logicalness" so you can find a real synonym to use instead. Healthy fast food opportunities (why isn't fast food already healthy - people probably don't care about healthyness when buying fast food QED healthy fast food is not as great an idea as it sounds.), living on a super-limited budget. Mealsquares.
• effective altruism - provision of condoms to african nations to reduce the birth rate (and why that won't really work), looking to contact people within the EA movement who can explain what happened to the videos on the global conference, and maybe help us find the video in mountainview on x-risk. It's proving quite hard to do...
• goals of lesswrong - determining success of lesswrong, (ways to show the world we are actually doing well - get us a few famous people made out of lesswrong growth). LW needs a symbol, like a logo but super cool. considering "¬□⊥", "how to function as an adult" as an article, website or guide in how to do that. because often enough people end up legal adults without knowing these things. learning how to teach, the nature of local lw groups.
• human relationships - energy intake and exercise, alcohol and social lubrication, nootropics for improving social skills. establishing productive bandwidth with other intelligent humans. theories of confidence/prestiege/charisma (different but similar things that we defined in order to talk about them), fluids of human sexuality (and how much we don't know), owning/responsibility towards others/Significant others VS freedom and miscommunication around that, and the burden to communicate that is placed on people by their significant others. Polyamory. "twist yourself into noodles" (not sure what this related to), Smartphone to the rescue (reminders to do things i.e. remember birthdays, talk to friends who want to talk regularly, etc.)
• linguistics - methods of communicating understanding; or asking for clarification in speech. "Decision making is a process", consider the intention behind the words (not just the words) (caveat: be careful with this)
• open - running lw local groups, r/askscience, is stockholm syndrome real?, changing people's beliefs (specifically making atheists take up spirituality maybe), Aubrey de Grey and beard extension, Sidekicks, Meta: our channels, knowing things in advance does not decrease reported hedonic payoff. Too many messages to keep up with on the slack, sensory language and communication. And more - being the open channel, reasoning with the consultation of your feelings.
• parenting - guilty parents for not knowing things they should know... Chocolate chip game trials are going excellently, kid-proof dividers, sickness during pregnancy, dealing with kid's monsters, (putting it in the wardrobe VS patting it and feeding it to make it friendly - the kid's idea)
• philosophy - occam, occam as a rule/proof (but also not), bayes. CBT - cognitive behavioural therapy, ACT - acceptance commitment therapy.
• projects - https://tangoapp.herokuapp.com/ , some writings that are now lesswrong posts, how do I become a more interesting person, sleep post, AMA among friends on the slack.
• real life - dieting, work hours, sleep, mealsquares, secular solstice, allergies, human superpowers, negotiating with other humans, bikeshedding, how to make complicated decisions, cheap food, advice should be specific, how other people perceive you, and how they act on those perceptions, and the differences. wearable BP monitors, and more...
• resources and links - not much new here...
• RSS feeds - we get a bunch of rss feeds from around the leswrong sphere.
• Science and technology - evolution, space moths, facebook algorithms, chess, privacy in america, grey goo, successful businesspeople, getting data about the internet, cool cap for sleep
• scratchpad - a place to ramble, just in case any of the other places weren't the right place for it, or they were busy with other conversations at the time.
• welcome - introductions and also a discussion on wellbeing.