Its not only a lack of positive externalities, but the presence of negative externalities. Your gains are someone else's losses.

So, I'm looking for some advice.

I seem to have finally reached at that stage in my life where I find myself in need of an income. I'm not interested in a particularly large income; at the moment, I only want just enough to feed a Magic: the Gathering and video game habit, and maybe pay for medical insurance. Something like $8,000 a year, after taxes, would be more than enough, as long as I can continue to live in my parents' house rent-free.

The usual method of getting an income is to get a full-time job. However, I don't find that appealing, not one bit. I want to have lots of free time in which to use the things I buy with the money I would earn. I'd much rather just continue to spend down my savings than work more than two days a week at a normal job.

This suggests that instead, I should try to get a part-time job. Chances are, that would mean working in a local restaurant or store of some kind. Unfortunately, I tried one of these once before, and it didn't work out very well. I was hired to be a cashier at a local supermarket. To my great surprise, I didn't particularly mind the work, but on my third day after being hired, I was fired for insubordination. (I had a paperback novel with me, and I wouldn't stop reading it during periods when there were no customers.) I've also tried working for a temp agency. That didn't work out too well either. After completing my first assignment, I was told that the company I was contracted out to complained about my behavior (it's a long story), and so I would not be considered for any other assignments. In effect, I was fired from there, too.

As far as I'm concerned, the ideal source of income would be something with no set hours, that I could leave and come back to as I please. In other words, if I decide that I'd rather play video games for a month instead of earning money, it won't prevent me from earning money the month after that. Unfortunately, the only things I know of offhand that work like that are writing (which is extremely hard to make a living at, and requires a lot of time and effort anyway) and online poker (which I suck at). I'm lazy and undisciplined, and I'm not particularly interested in changing that, so I'm hoping to find a way to make money that works even if I don't try very hard at it.

In terms of skills and education, I have a B.S. from Rutgers University in computer engineering. I can program, but when I've tried programming as a job (as a summer intern), it turned into a Dilbert cartoon very, very quickly. Basically, I was given vague instructions, left on my own to do whatever, and instead of working, I mostly sat and surfed the Web while feeling guilty about not working. I don't think I want to do programming professionally. I ever have to sit in another cubicle again, there's a good chance I'm quitting on the spot.

So, um... I need some suggestions on what to do. Bring on the other-optimizing?

This concept comes up among poker players. Smarts corresponds to an ability to talk about the correct play in a hand in theory. Toughness corresponds to a player's ability to continue to play well in a downswing. There are a lot of correct plays that can lead to bad outcomes with high frequencies. Sometimes a player encounters so many bad outcomes that they begin to doubt whether the play is correct.

On Kiva the group that has donated the most money is the "Atheists, Agnostics, Skeptics, Freethinkers, Secular Humanists and the Non-Religious" group.

It doesn't actually matter whether he simulates on or several copies of you - if you divide the expected return by the number of copies that he simulates, the math works out fine.

Standard Sleeping Beauty type problems are also fine. It only in this peculiar set up that there seems to be a paradox.

How do I know that Omega simulated only one copy of me?

My goal going into arguments is not to crush them or convince them that I am right. I try to keep a more open mind and understand their arguments. If you start out with a goal of crushing them you won't be in a state of mind to admit if their arguments are stronger.

I believe that there are very significant correlations between intelligence and race.

I believe that the reason that the United States is more prosperous than Mexico is that the English killed/drove out the natives when they came to the Americas, while the Spanish bred with them, diluting down the Spanish influence, and that there are other similar examples of this.

I believe that the reasons white people enslaved black people, and not the other way around is due to average intelligence differences.

I believe (though only with weak evidence) that hispanic gangs are taking control of LA drug traffic from black gangs and succeeding because of a difference in average intelligence. I also believe that the if the Russian mafia wanted a part in this game, they would dominate for the same reason.

There is a very strong pressure to be "Politically Correct", and it seems that most beliefs that would be tagged with "Politically Correct" are tagged with that because they cannot be tagged with "Correct".

I believe that to be offended, you have to believe in your own inferiority to some extent.

As a disclaimer, (and I think this much will be agreed with) this doesn't imply that possessing superior intelligence makes it morally acceptable to abuse it any more than owning a sword makes it OK to hurt someone- just easier.