I wouldn't dream of speaking for rationalists generally, but in order to provide a data point I'll answer for myself. I have one child; my wife and I were ~35 years old when we decided to have one. I am by any reasonable definition a rationalist; my wife is intelligent and quite rational but not in any very strong sense a rationalist. Introspection is unreliable but is all I have. I think my motivations were something like the following.

1. Having children as a terminal value, presumably programmed in by Azathoth and the culture I'm immersed in. This shows up subjectively as a few different things: liking the idea of a dependent small person to love, wanting one's family line to continue, etc.

2. Having children as a terminal value for other people I care about (notably spouse and parents).

3. I think I think it's best for the fertility rate to be close to the replacement rate (i.e., about 2 in a prosperous modern society with low infant mortality), and I think I've got pretty good genes; overall fertility rate in the country I'm in is a little below replacement and while it's fairly densely populated I don't think it's pathologically so, so for me to have at least one child and probably two is probably beneficial for society overall.

4. I expected any child I might have to have a net-positive-utility life (for themselves, not only for society at large) and indeed probably an above-average-utility life.

5. I expected having a child to be a net positive thing for marital harmony and happiness (I wouldn't expect that for every couple and am not making any grand general claim here).

I don't recall thinking much about the benefits of children in providing care when I'm old and decrepit, though I suppose there probably is some such benefit.

So far (~7.5 years in), we love our daughter to bits and so do others in our family (so #1,#2,#5 seem to be working as planned), she seems mostly very happy (so #4 seems OK so far), it's obviously early days but my prediction is still that she'll likely have a happy life overall (so #4 looks promising for the future) and I don't know what evidence I could reasonably expect for or against #3.

I'm a European, and the thought that geographical Europe might be meant didn't even occur to me,since in most of my daily interactions (media consumed, small talk, etc.), "Europe" is used interchangeably with "European Union". Teaches me to read such survey questions more thoroughly.

I want to congratulate you on how well you integrated the many suggestions you got, I see many improvements compared to the 2012 (for example, the introductory text convinced me to take the survey right away, when I was one of those who put it off last year).

• Restart doing sport regularly. I started going to the gym one year ago, with the goal of 3 times per week. I reached an average of about 1 time per week, but with a very uneven distribution - i.e. 1 week 3 times, then two weeks nothing. Since July, I didn't have any regular exercise. At the last less wrong meetup, I set the goal to go to the gym 1/week and do the 7 minute workout twice per week. That was on the 22nd. In the first week after setting the goal, I didn't succeed. This week, I did the 7 minute workout once.

• Till the next meetup (27th October), read chapter one of "Good and Real" by Gary L. Drescher. I haven't started yet, but am a fast reader and hope to do it this week-end.

I don't know how to phrase it best so it fits here, but I feel it does, because it complicates my life regularly and therefore is pretty major: Not sticking to very beneficial routines that I know to be highly useful for my overall functionality in the short term and neccessary in the long term.

I know that I am happier and better-functioning when I regularly make journal entries and meditate. I am more productive at work, and I have more energy in my free time for other projects. Yet, I'm in a cycle where, when everything is going very well, I neglect both activities. Everything continues to go well for a while, then I get unbalanced, less energetic and overall less happy and productive, and only then do I remember that I already know what I can do to improve my situation.

For example, I neglected journal-writing and meditation in the past three month, which was a critical time because this left me with little energy to learn for a test (I'm currently doing a second M.Sc. to improve my chances of entering the economic sector I'm especially interested in). It won't have any unalterable consequences yet - if I fail on Friday, I can repeat the test next year, without having to study longer than intended - but it will make things more difficult and time-intensive next year, because I will have to prepare for the repeat tests as well as the tests scheduled for next semester. And I fear it's only a matter of time till this leads to bigger consequences (Seriously affecting job performance, for example).

I have a problem. My mom sleeps about four to five hours a night and needs help getting into and out of bed. My father goes to sleep around 1 AM and gets up at around 10 AM or so, and gets her up shortly afterward. I usually end up taking my mom into bed some time between 4 AM and 6 AM, going to sleep a little while later, and waking up around 3-4 PM or so. Is there anything social to do in the world outside my house between, say, 2 AM and 5 AM?

Ch 94 - I notice I'm confused. In many ways. Which each confuses me even more.

1. Why don't anyone take seriously the hypothesis that Quirrel did it ? That he could trick the wards, but only to a point, and he had to use the fact he was a teacher to do it, which somehow make the wards point at him. And assuming everyone will think it can't be that straight-forward, they'll think Quirrel was framed.

2. It really seems like Harry didn't do anything special with Hermione's body, that he didn't do anything in the many hours since Hermione's death until the night, which sounds very unlike Harry.

3. The ease at which "the enemy" suspiciously overpowered all the wards and precautions taken is surprising. Hogwarts is supposed to be the safest place, built by the most powerful wizards of the last centuries, protected by the most powerful spell, and with the acting Headmaster being the most powerful alive wizard. Outsmarting Dumbledore/Hogwarts is definitely possible, but overpowering them that way ? Why doesn't anyone suspects he didn't actually control the wards, but just cleverly cheated them (like the slow-killing spell on Draco cheated them without altering them, but with a more complicated scheme) ?

4. Anti-Phoenix wards ? A phoenix can go everywhere, including to/from Azkhaban, Hogwarts, the Wizengamot, the Department of Mysteries, and yet any Death Eater can cast anti-Phoenix wards ?

5. How is Neville safer outside Hogwarts ? Sure, Hogwarts has shown to be vulnerable, but the rest of the world is too. McGonagall and Dumbledore especially should be aware of that, since they believe it was Voldemort who broke into Azkhaban. How do they plan to protect him, Fidelius charm ? Having Neville stay in Hogwarts, but always with one teacher (and neither Quirrel nor Snape) with him at all time would sound safer for Neville to me. It makes sense for Harry's parents to not "draw attention to them", but it's not like attention wasn't already drawn on Neville. And what about the Weasley twins ? They are also known friends of Harry, and just 3rd years, so why aren't supposed in danger too ?

I have even more questions storming in my head, but I'll stop here now... point is, I notice I'm confused, the actions of Harry (and of McGonagall/Dumbledore) don't match my expectations. So either there is a lot we aren't being told about, or I had a wrong model of them, or something even more fishy is going on...

That is a very valid critique of international relations realism.

But what specific international interests has Germany changed its position on because of the closer relationship between specific leaders? Likewise, are there any specific international positions that Russia has changed because of the closer relationship?

I suspect that Russia's geopolitical interests matter a lot more to Russia's stance on big issues (e.g. Syria) than any interpersonal relationship. In other words, just about any internal structure of government in Russia would likely be saying the same things that the current government is saying.

Like China propping up the North Korean government even though the Chinese probably doesn't like North Korea's behavior. The geopolitical consequences of reunification are not in China's interests, and that probably outweighs just about any misbehavior from North Korea, unless NK escalates a lot.

It does not. The entire book is about how he cleverly figured out how to take his struggling small business and automate, streamline, or outsource all its parts until he only had to actually attend to it ... roughly four hours a week. The rest of the book that isn't about this is about how to use your new-found free time to live an enviable life, using himself as an example.

I say again that I am a fan of his and that The Four Hour Workweek had a lasting positive effect on how I think about work and how I think about the value of my free time. I am not saying that the content of his books is bunk because he is an aggressive self-promoter. I am rather saying that the content of his books is in a sense inextricable from the fact that he is an aggressive self-promoter, perhaps because a hidden theme across all his work is that being an aggressive self-promoter is useful.

ETA: He also uses other people as examples, in all his books, but he always includes himself and his personal anecdotes. I wanted to clarify that the books aren't actually 100% about him, they're not even 10% about him, but his signature and his exploits run throughout them.

My most important point is that reasoning of the form "If only the Kaiser had been less obsessed with a strong navy, Britain might have been induced not to ally with France" is likely false. Since the 1700s, Britain's policy had always been to prevent a European hegemon - the UK's opponent changed from France to Germany when the potential hegemon changed from France (Louis XIV, Napoleon) to Germany.

That said, with the benefit of hindsight, it is obvious that Germany could not be closely allied with Austria-Hungary and Russia. Both wanted to dominate the Balkans to the exclusion of any other great power: Russia for warm water ports, AH to have a freer hand against internal dissent.

Also with the benefit of hindsight, Germany looks awfully foolish for picking AH over Russia. But even if the Reinsurance Treaty was renewed in 1890, it is unclear whether Russia would have continued to be willing to renew it over the next two decades.

But my thesis is that nations act in their own interest, regardless of internal dynamics. That is not the same as saying that nations always correctly figure out what their interests are. Britain's failure to take steps to prevent the unification of Germany in the 1850-60s is as inexplicable as Germany's choice of AH over Russia a few decades later.

I think it is more accurate to say that the powers aligned against the potential regional hegemon, who responded with alliances with the willing, regardless of whether they were worthwhile allies.

If you look at the treaties starting in 1848, you see a slow drift from everyone-balance-against-France to everyone-balance-against-Germany. The UK's century or more long running conflict with France transforms into a very close alliance in less than a generation.

Let me put it slightly differently: I think best explanation of Germany's willingness to ally so closely with Austria-Hungary (to the point that a dispute which had no interests for Germany could initiate WWI) is best explained as a unwillingness of anyone else to ally with Germany. Sure, the Central Powers allies make rational sense to Germany once they are all the possible allies. But the historical fact that no one else was willing to ally with Germany cries out for explanation (and France, Britain, or Russia would have maximized their chance to win any European war by allying with Germany).