= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
Omega-3 is a group of several different fatty acids and flax seeds do not provide the ones you actually want.
Very good to know. Thanks for linking to that.
In response to
Open Thread May 16 - May 22, 2016
I've been having digestive trouble recently and have started wondering if I've developed a new allergy/intolerance (Known: milk, cashewnuts, chocolate). Does anyone have a recommendation for tests to check for these?
Apparently, "Eight foods account for 90% of all food-allergic reactions: milk, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts (e.g., walnuts, almonds, cashews, pistachios, pecans), wheat, soy, fish, and shellfish." (source: http://www.foodallergy.org/file/facts-stats.pdf). However, nuts are good for you (eg. https://examine.com/faq/how-can-i-best-ensure-cardiovascular-health-and-longevity/). So what do you do?
I imagine allergies are bad for your body, even apart from the digestive issues. So, do you take any supplements for nuts? The only one I am aware of here is Omega-3, which is common to various nuts.
Sidenote: If you are willing to put a "nuts without allergies" supplement together, I might buy it from you. See https://www.reddit.com/r/Supplements/comments/3ptsz8/i_am_a_supplement_caffeineenergy_pill_company/cw9gwht for business advice.
Flax and chia seeds are both very good sources of omega 3 (but flax seeds need to be ground for your body to absorb it, and once you grind them, you should store them cold), as are fish (especially salmon).
I'm looking for an approach that's made-up numbers all the way down.
You may want to rephrase that :-)
Once you have that, there's an exact answer to the optimal risk/reward tradeoff
No, I don't think so. For example, let's say your utility = log(wealth). That's a monotonous transformation, so if you want to maximize utility you just maximize your wealth. That doesn't answer the question of what is the appropriate risk/reward trade-off because you haven't even started talking about risk yet. And if you just want to maximize expected wealth you are open to being Pascal-mugged.
Maximizing expected log(wealth) is very different than maximizing expected wealth. A log utility function us much more risk averse.
The Wikipedia article on VNM Utility Theory explains the relationship between the utility function and risk aversion (in the Consequences section).
In response to
What makes buying insurance rational?
In addition to what everyone else said, I recommend Gwern's "Console Insurance". Also, Jacob from Early Retirement Extreme says the following about dental and vision insurance:
I don’t have dental or vision insurance. Paying insurance that covers “regular maintenance” like teeth cleaning or contact lenses which these kinds of insurance do makes no sense whatsoever. Suppose everybody pays $25/month for contacts. Now do you think that everybody paying those $25 through an insurance company will make it any cheaper? No, the insurance company will add a $5 administrative fee—they most definitely will not give away free money. As such this kind of insurance is nothing but a financing plan for people who can’t figure out how to save the money for a $200 dental visit. The point of insurance is to cover rare events with a six-figure cost, which dental or vision simply doesn’t have.
If someone else is subsidizing the insurance, that can make it worthwhile.
In the U.S. You can often find the amount of the employer subsidy footer am insurance policy if you read the details of it. Also you pay for employer based health insurance (I think including dental and vision) with pre-tax dollars, which is in effect a government subsidy.
In response to
Tonic Judo
I've been having a lot of anxiety lately, and this is exactly the sort of thing I needed to help me (my System 1) remember how silly it is. Thank you for writing it.
In response to
Lesswrong 2016 Survey
[Survey Taken Thread]
By ancient tradition, if you take the survey you may comment saying you have done so here, and people will upvote you and you will get karma.
Let's make these comments a reply to this post. That way we continue the tradition, but keep the discussion a bit cleaner.
In response to
Where does our community disagree about meaningful issues?
Should we try to grow the community? How? How much?
In response to
Where does our community disagree about meaningful issues?
How important is money?
- To have
- To earn
- To donate
Are EA causes bottlenecked on money or talent?
In response to
Where does our community disagree about meaningful issues?
You could look on the surveys: what questions are closest to 50%?
From the 2014 Survey:
Polyamory:
- 51.8% prefer monogamous, 15.1% prefer polyamorous (a lot uncertain)
- But only 5.3% have more than 1 partner
Children:
- 36.1% want more child(ren), 28.3% uncertain, 34.3% don't want more
Politics:
- 38.9% Social Democratic, 27.7% Liberal, 25.2% Libertarian
- Taxes: 3.14 +- 1.212 (1 = should be lower; 5 = should be higher)
- Minimum Wage: 3.21 +- 1.359 (1 = should be lower; 5 = should be higher)
- Social Justice: 3.15 +- 1.385 (1 = negative view; 5 = positive view)
Ethics:
- 60% accept or lean towards consequentialism
- Out of constructivism, error theory, non-cognitivism, subjectivism and substantive realism, none had more than a third
Cryo:
- 24% don't want to, 36.7% considering, 30.8% signed up or want to be
- Probability that a person frozen today will be revived: 22.3 +- 27.3% (median 10%)
Misc:
- p(many worlds) = 47.6% +- 30.1%
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Some people believe that altruism has evolved through helping your relatives or through helping others to help you in return. I was thinking about it; on the surface the idea looks good -- if you already have this system in place, it is easy to see how it benefits those involved -- but that doesn't explain how the system could have appeared in the first place. Anyone knows the standard answer?
Imagine that you are literally the first organism who by random mutation achieved a gene for "helping those who help you". How specifically does this gene increase your fitness, if there is no one else to reciprocate?
Or imagine that you are literally the first organism who by random mutation achieved a gene for "helping your siblings". How specifically does this gene increase your fitness, or the fitness of the gene itself, if your siblings do not have a copy of this gene?
In other words, it seems simple to explain how these kinds of altruism can work when they are already an established system, but it is more difficult to explain how it could work when it is new.
And this all is a huge simplification; for example, I doubt that "helping those who help you" could be achieved by a single mutation, since it involves multiple parts like "noticing that someone helped you", "remembering the individual who helped you" and "helping the individual who helped you in the past". Plus the problem of how to start this chain of mutual cooperation.
My guess is that... nygehvfz pbhyq unir ribyirq guebhtu frkhny fryrpgvba. Yrg'f rkcynva vg ol funevat sbbq jvgu bguref. Svefg, vaqvivqhnyf abgvpr jub vf tbbq ng tngurevat sbbq, naq gurl ribyir nggenpgvba gbjneqf tbbq sbbq pbyyrpgbef. Gung znxrf vzzrqvngr frafr orpnhfr vg vapernfrf fheiviny bs gur puvyqera, vs gurl nyfb trg gur trarf tbbq sbe tngurevat sbbq. Nsgre guvf nggenpgvba rkvfgf jvguva gur fcrpvrf, gur arkg fgrc pbhyq or fvtanyyvat: vs lbh unir fbzr rkgen sbbq lbh qba'g npghnyyl arrq, oevat vg naq ivfvoyl qebc vg arne bgure vaqvivqhnyf, fb gung bguref abgvpr lbh unir zber sbbq guna lbh pna rng. Ntnva, guvf znxrf vzzrqvngr frafr, orpnhfr vg znxrf lbh zber nggenpgvir. Abgvpr ubj arvgure "urycvat lbh eryngvirf" abe "urycvat gubfr jub uryc lbh" jnf arprffnel gb ribyir urycvat vaqvfpevzvangryl. Npghnyyl, gubfr pbhyq unir ribyirq yngre, nf shegure vzcebirzragf bs be nqqvgvbaf gb gur vaqvfpevzvangr urycvat.
If you have a gene that makes you help you siblings, your offspring are reasonably likely to get it too, which benefits their siblings (also your offspring).