BrassLion

I didn't particularly like this until the last few paragraphs, which I feel are really well written compared to the rest of the piece (this is both praise and criticism).  It feels like a very rough or early Scott Alexander piece (this is both praise and criticism).  I don't feel like my time has been wasted, which is the most fundamental job of a short story. Keep writing, keep practicing.

This is my favorite exchange I have ever read on LessWrong.

I read it, it's a summary of a weekly challenge in Opus Magnum by the author of the challenge, detailing how people managed to beat the author's cycles score and get reasonably close to the theoretical minimum cycles.  As someone who only got about halfway through Opus Magnum, the puzzle and solutions there are wildly complex.

That's definitely not Zachtronics, at least any of the games I've played.  If that game exists it would be pretty awesome - although probably even more niche than Zachtronics games (which weren't too niche to support the makers for a decade+, granted).

Thanks for the answer.  Sad that you never get an answer, although this sort of thing (organizational/personnel changes at the client makes them drop your work / never give feedback) is not uncommon in tech in my experience.

I have the luxury of reading this years after it was posted (going through the D&D.Sci archives and this was linked there), so you may actually have an answer to this question: did the model work?  That is, did your client use it and save/ make money?

You're correct.  I wish we had any sort of tradition that let people with a minor dispute go before some neutral party without expense or bureaucracy - less in the sense of court of extremely small claims, and more that people should be more willing to say to a trusted friend, "hey, resolve this dispute for us and we'll buy you dinner."  Then again, this requires you to both trust the same person, and for neither person to be acting in such bad faith that they refuse the process.  If there's a default place people can go, with very low costs... (read more)

I've seen a bit of this in some organizations I've been part of.  The most important part I see missing is enforcement powers.  If you have a group of excellent and sage judges who can impartially consider the facts but all they can do is issue advisory opinions, all you have is another social bloc taking one side or the other in an interpersonal debate.  You have gossip and the whisper network cosplaying a court of law.  You have nothing.

I have not the first clue how to handle this outside of a formal organization, but solving this in ... (read more)

I want to say that I don't play these, but I love reading them and reading other people play them.

Huh, cool.  Good to have at least one anecdote that you can de (re?) transition and it's just not a huge deal.

I wonder if a proper study of people who took hormones and transitioned socially but de-transitioned fully voluntarily - not because of a medical complication, outside pressure, running out of money etc. but could have fully chosen to continue hormones and didn't - would find this is common.  I wouldn't be surprised, "I tried something for a year or two and it didn't work out" is not uncommon in life.

I am deeply, truly envious that you are able to put "career" in the Yes column for "does it make me happy".  Most people can't. My chart looks more like 50% in important, happy and 40% in important, unhappy, merely by the necessity of making a living.
That 0% in the bottom right corner might be the most important part of the chart, though - getting that number down improves your life for no cost, and a lot of people seem to have numbers there in double digits.

Thanks for posting and explaining the code - that's an interesting, subtle bug.

I think we learn more from Petrov Day when the site goes down than we would if it stayed up, although nothing is ever going to beat the year someone tricked someone into pressing the button by saying they had to press the button to keep the site up.  That was great.

Good point - I'm not sure how to handle that off hand but people have been involved in business ventures where they have put in different amounts of capital for centuries, people could probably figure it out.

If you're, say, roommates in a house that has solar panels, you can do what most people do and split the electricity bill evenly - it's just that, some months, your electricity bill will negative and you'll all get a payout.  If you're in a condo or other situation where you share ownership of the roof and the solar panels with a household with another electrical meter, you'd have to work out sharing the profits/ cost reduction, but you could do it if you wanted to.

>>I haven't seen any mainstream person offer a gear-model that explain why the flu vaccine results in nearly nobody being ill the next day, the COVID-19 vaccines manage to make nearly half ill the next day.
This is actually a really interesting question in its own right!  I think you're both underestimating flu vaccine side effects and overestimating COVID vaccine side effects, but there certainly seems to be more and worse side effects based on a quick search (of popular, not peer reviewed, sources - it was a quick search).  The vaccines ar... (read more)

I will say that lesserwrong is already useful to me, and I'm poking around reading a few things. I haven't been on LessWrong (this site) in a long time before just now, and only got here because I was wondering where this "LesserWrong" site came from. So, at the very least, your efforts are reaching people like me who often read and sometimes change their behavior based on posts, but rarely post themselves. Thanks for the all work you did - the UX end of the new site is much, much better.

This is exactly how conscientiousness feels to me - not wanting to do something but doing so because it's the Correct Action For This Situation. Generally, this applies to things that don't give me a direct, immediate benefit to do, like cleaning up after myself in a common space.

Consequentialism, where morality is viewed through a lens of what happens due to human actions, is a major part of LessWrong. Utilitarianism specifically, where you judge an act by the results, is a subset of consequentialism and not nearly as widely accepted. Virtue Ethics are generally well liked and it's often said around here that "Consequentialism is what's right, Virtue Ethics are what works." I think that practical guide to virtue ethics would be well received.