There are at least two possibilities: a) I've always been an elitist asshole but I used to rationalize it as shyness. b) I've always been shy and still am but now after overdosing on Robin Hanson and various meta-contrarian writers it flatters my self-image more to think of myself as having base and vain motives for everything.

I used to be shy but now I actually do feel superior to a lot of people and don't want to associate with them.

Well, there are lots of cultists running around trying to summon an Elder God. This will almost certainly end in disaster. The options we have to fight this are: a) We can try to stop all Elder-God-summoning related program activities or b) We can try to get there first and summon a Friendly Elder God.

Both a) and b) are almost impossibly difficult and I find it hard to decide which is less impossible.

He gazed about him, and the very intensity of his desire to take in the new world at a glance defeated itself. He saw nothing but colours - colours that refused to form themselves into things. Moreover, he knew nothing yet well enough to see it: you cannot see things till you know roughly what they are.

-- C. S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet

Those who stand against the dark mirror of evil are trapped in an eternal conflict. Because, for the cultists; they only have to succeed once. But for the defenders of humanity, we have to prevail every single time.

-- From the final screen of Call of Cthulhu: The Wasted Land

Eating a maintenance diet doesn't leave me hungry at the end of meals - it's more that eating tasty food is tempting even without the presence of hunger.

Anyway, the post has five downvotes so there must be something wrong with it - /dev/null will be a good place for it.

I read it and liked it. Some parts felt a bit slow and might need more conflict. Humans like reading about conflict where the outcome seems to be in some doubt.

The death of the last human was surprisingly emotionally engaging for me.

I didn't mind the smoking at all and I don't really get that objection. Even if it might make the reader like Hanna less, why is that a problem? Is there some reason the reader should unambiguously regard Hanna as the hero from the start?

carte blanche to pursue random projects

Define A as "the stuff I would spend my time doing if I got tenure". Define B as "the stuff I would spend my time doing if I became unemployed."

I've been wondering how close A and B are to being identical.

I have three close relatives with a diagnosis - one has classic autism, one has Asperger's and one has schizophrenia. I can never decide how to classify my own shadow traits.

In A Devil's Chaplain, page 40, Dawkins mentions "the three juries that it has been my misfortune to serve on".