BeleagueredPotential

I spent a good year and half trying to answer questions related to the points you brought up after first seeing the mind-body specialist, although you gave me some good perspective.

and that is a characteristic symptom in people who have a purpose they regard as supremely important, who find absolutely no support for their attempt to pursue it, but who continue to regard it as supremely important

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And then at some point it affects your health.

Actually I only discovered the purpose a couple of years after the myalgic encephalomyelitis set in, before that point my primary goal was to get better and to worry about other goals afterwards. I do not think that... (read more)

This was extremely helpful in figuring out what to do, it hadn't occurred to me that a Bayesian calculation would be useful here. After tallying up all the variables I came to the conclusion that my current methods had a lower chance of helping me than I had always implicitly thought. What I referred to as “extreme risks” may not even be the truly risky options when considering other factors; like how the longer someone has myalgic encephalomyelitis the less likely it is they can get better. I realized the types of solutions I’ve been trying give me the mental satisfaction of having “done something” but they might not stand the best... (read 364 more words →)

I find myself in a potentially critical crossroads at the moment, one that could affect my ability to become a productive researcher for friendly AI in the future. I'll do my best to summarize the situation.

I had very strong mental capabilities 7 years ago, but a series of unfortunate health related problems including a near life threatening infection led to me developing a case of myalgic encephalomyelitis (chronic fatigue syndrome). This disease is characterized by extreme fatigue that usually worsens with physical or mental exertion, and is not significantly improved by rest. There are numerous other symptoms that are common to ME, I luckily escaped a great many of them. However I... (read 993 more words →)