Aliicorn's short stories. I like all her Social Justice AU stories.

Is there directory of LessWrong Tumblr?

I started a thing back in March called the LessWrong Digest. First of all, to you and/or anyone else reading this who signed up for it, I'm sorry I've been neglecting it for so long. I ran it for a few weeks in March, but I was indisposed for most of April, and it's been fallow since then. It contains highlights from the blogs of rationalists who post off of Less Wrong. It doesn't contain Tumblrs yet. I'll restart it tonight. I intend to build upon it to have some sort of rationalist RSS feed. I don't know how many other rationalist Tumblrs or blogs it would include, but lots. Hopefully I can customize it.

Anyway, it's my goal to make bring such projects to fruition so no rationalist under the sun cannot be found, no matter how deep into the blogosphere they burrow.

I rarely bother to comment on this site but this is important meta information. Many outsider groups and rationalists in particular seem to dissolve the moment their exclusion from standard social systems is removed. The most dumbed down example I have, and I specifically desire to post as low brow and example as possible, is the episode of Malcom In The Middle titled "Morp." Its prom backwards in case you missed that. The outsider group starts an anti-prom where they do everything ironically, and amusingly have all the same status bullshit problems over who is in charge or what should even be done as the normal kids prom. Then when some random dumb popular girls come down, feel upper class girl pity, and invite them to real prom everyone but Malcolm goes.

Less Wrong and its specific section of the rationalist community has approached this same singularity. It was all about getting enough like-minded and conveniently located people to form your own samesy, dull, cookie cutter clique just like normal people. Alicorn is a prime example of posts that expose this issue, although that whole cuddle pile bullshit is a more general example.

Much like say Atheism+, the OB/LW community has exploded into a million uncoordinated fragments merely seeking to satisfy their standard social needs. Meanwhile each of these shards has the same number of useless, weird, counterproductive group beliefs as mainstream Christians. And they've accomplished almost nothing except maybe funding the useless MIRI, if one even considers that an accomplishment. EA people even came and said MIRI doesn't qualify for GiveWell.

Indeed I feel my comparison to A+ is quite apt. So much bullshit spewed about improving stuff, raising the sanity waterline vs inclusive atheism but each group did essentially the opposite of their goal.

As per my title and associated duties I here mark the collapse of "internet rationalists" as a cohesive, viable, or at all productive group. Scott has a popular blog, Elie has a full time job wasting his life but gets paid good money, and Alicorn can now throw "interesting" "dinner parties." Also innumerable Tumblr related bullshit storms. Well, some movements accomplished less.

Adieu.

Curious what (in your own case, and your best estimation of other people's case) motivated the move to Tumblr?

I think this post misses a lot of the scope and timing of the Less Wrong diaspora. A lot of us are on Tumblr now; I've made a few blog posts at the much more open group blog Carcinisation, there's a presence on Twitter, and a lot of us just have made social friendships with enough other rationalists that the urge to post for strangers has a pressure release valve in the form of discussing whatever ideas with the contents of one's living room or one's Facebook friends.

The suggestions you list amount to "ask Scott to give up his private resource for a public good, even though if what he wanted to do was post on a group blog he still has a LW handle", "somehow by magic increase readership of the EA forum", and "restructure LW to entice the old guard back, even though past attempts have disintegrated into bikeshedding and a low level of technical assistance from the people behind the website's actual specs". These aren't really "solutions".

You are probably not cynical enough if you think you could beat seven billion people at cynicism.

--Alicorn? (I'm not sure exactly how authorship of these pages works)

What's the deal with laundry detergent packaging? For instance, take a look at this http://news.pg.com/sites/pg.newshq.businesswire.com/files/image/image/Tide_Liquid_Detergent.jpg Nowhere on the package does it actually say it's detergent! I guess they're just relying on people knowing that Tide is a brand of detergent? Except that Tide also makes other products, such as fabric softener. And it's not just Tide. http://www.freestufffinder.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/all-laundry.jpg http://dgc.imageg.net/graphics/product_images/pDGC1-10603813v380.jpg http://dgc.imageg.net/graphics/product_images/pDGC1-10603814v380.jpg http://dgc.imageg.net/graphics/product_images/pDGC1-12184807v380.jpg

Doing a google search, the only image that I came across of a bottle that actually says "detergent" is this: http://dovsbythecase.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/allhefreeclear1.jpg If you zoom in, way at the bottom, in tiny print, it says "detergent". Maybe the other ones also say it, but they weren't zoomable.

I am a prominent LW poster; this is a through-away account because my girlfriend also uses LW.

I would like to propose to my girlfriend in the near future. For this I would like to use a diamond ring. I have never bought one before, so would appreciate any advice. The main things I would like help with:

• Not paying extra due to ignorance
• Ensuring she never has cause to regret the choice of stone/ring.
• Anything else you think I should know.

Some background in case it helps:

• I live in NYC, so have access to the diamond district.
• I am leaning towards an artificial diamond, as it seems hard to guarantee conflict-free otherwise (which does not seem romantic!) and we are both pretty pro-science.
• My price range is orgjrra bar naq gra gubhfnaq qbyynef, ohg V jbhyq cersre gbjneqf gur ybjre raq bs gur enatr
• My girlfreind is neither unusually fat nor unusually skinny for an American of marriageable age. She is white.
• She does not wear much jewelry. The stuff she has is mainly (fake?) yellow gold and silver, mainly gifts.
• I am probably looking for a relatively simple design, round stone.

I spent about a month a couple years ago having migraines, which I had never had before and inexplicably stopped having afterwards. I was prescribed a generic version of Fiorecet; you don't mention it or its unusual ingredient (butalbital; it also contains caffeine and acetaminophen). This worked almost completely if I managed to take the pill during my prodomal symptoms (weird visual aura, in my case; I don't know if you get this warning). However, even unmedicated my headaches did not last as long as it sounds like yours do. Apparently Fiorecet isn't customary for migraines, so you may not have tried it.

I also pestered my significant others for neck massages. I do this anyway but it was especially important when I had just had a migraine.