I can't answer your questions about / criticisms of my belief, but if you ask my guru (or read his book), he'll definitely have the answers to all your questions."

(Or "her book" etc - but the examples I've come across have all used men as their infallible guru.)

I found the last paragraph-sentence impossible to understand. I may just be not thinking straight, but it could be made clearer, and I'm posting about my confusion because I'm sure there'll be others who are also confused.

"actually does have a certain number of exemplars in real life" refers to the "honest people not being good at lying" theory, plus the risk of huge blow-ups from end of lies.

"though obvious selective reporting is at work in our hearing about this one" clearly refers to this sensational case of someone who was mostly good at lying, but left an entangled trace... Einfeld turned out to be a dishonest person (who was remarkably successful at lying, for a long time), so I'm not sure how that relates. The use of "though" was the first thing that confused me, but then I realised that the whole paragraph confuses me.

it would be good to find a version that doesn't assume that women are not merely materialistic, but assess prospective mates solely on their net worth

That deep stacking of negatives is confusing. Did you mean: "This version assumes that women are materialistic - worse than just materialistic, it assumes that women assess prospective mates solely on their net worth. It would be good to find a version that doesn't assume that."?

I appreciate the value of the illustrations, but it would be good to find a version that doesn't assume that women are merely materialistic, assessing prospective mates solely on their net worth. Geek communities are often not friendly places for women - some readers will accept the assumptions for the sake of argument, but some are likely to take offence.

Edited when MixedNuts pointed out how confused the original version was. My apologies.

The problem with therapy-- include self help and mind hacks-- is its amazing failure rate. People do it for years and come out of it and feel like they understand themselves better but they do not change. If it failed to produce both insights and change it would make sense, but it is almost always one without the other.

-- The Last Psychiatrist

Open Thread in Discussion section.

Nothing original just now - I just want to go on record as saying that HP:MOR is amazing, brilliant work - I really enjoy it, as well as learning from it.

Please hit me up (send message) if you have any questions about the event.

I'm 41, working on a wiki project for sustainability and development, which I love (and part-time on a related project which I like and actually get paid for). I use the same username everywhere, so if you're curious, you won't have trouble finding the wiki project.

I'm a one-time evangelical Christian. I think it was emotional damage from my upbringing that made me frightened to let go of that, and I stayed a believer for 9 years, starting in my late teens. I took it extremely seriously, and there were good things about that. But with hindsight, I would direct people to other places for their personal growth than becoming a believer. Later, just a few years ago, I did the Landmark Forum, which was very powerful and mostly very positive, though I wouldn't recommend that as a first step in working on personal development, unless you're already pretty successful and mature. I'm also a big fan of Nonviolent Communication, and I'd recommend that to anyone.

I learned about Less Wrong a year ago (from someone else on the wiki project) and loved it. I've been meaning to join, but the thing that prompted me now is that I need help, in the form of accountability, and this seems like a good place.

I do a lot of work, but I find myself distracted from the work I most need to do. The persistence of the problem leads me to carry out a "lifestyle experiment" for the next 3 weeks. I'm calling it my "3 week Serious Focus experiment", and the key ingredients are:

• Being sensible: doing stuff that I need to do, that will have a big positive effect on my life, before doing other stuff, no matter how good or enticing
• Being accountable: I'm posting here, and will do so on Facebook and G+, and will tell friends In Real Life.
• Regarding it as an experiment: I'm only committing myself to 10-30 Jan 2012, so I can play at being hardline with myself, like it's a bootcamp. I can extend or make new decisions at the end, but the time limit means it doesn't feel like a trap that I'm desperate to escape from.
• A focus on (a) livelihood - the stuff I'm already getting paid for, and (b) taking the wiki project to the next level, i.e. strategic work before maintenance or putting out fires.

The rules for the Serious Focus experiment are:

• Plan each night before bed - up to 6 items to work on the following day
• 3 hours solid work on the one or two top items (livelihood and strategy) before looking at email (except perhaps work related - I have email filters for that) or at work-related social media, or at messages I get on the wiki site. (Only exception is if it's so urgent that a colleague on the wiki project calls or IMs me - which is very rare.)
• Any work I'm tempted to do on secondary things (not among the 6 items, and taking more than 5 min) to be written down and put aside until the 3 solid hours are done.
• After the 3 hours are done, I loosen up a bit, but still focus on getting those items done.
• All items must be done before checking personal social media at all. (I'm allowed to post any time, but not look at replies or other people's statuses.) If I don't get all 6 items finished, that's ok - going without Facebook will do me good, even if I don't get a chance to check it for the whole 3 weeks!

I'm going to start now, but I'm making my official start date 2 days away, so there's time for feedback on the plan and to adjust it if needed, before I launch the experiment.

Glad to join you all at Less Wrong!

Hi everyone,

I am Freetrader, 31, from Barcelona. I am an engineer and I worked in the industry for some years, especially in the fields of operations management and quality, since I enjoy analyzing stuff and creating systems.

I have a very eclectic nature and I'm a bit of a hack, jumping from one thing to another (which is a trait I don't like very much of myself), anyway this led me to often change jobs from one company to another (luckily it seems I am good at getting new jobs, for some reason), until I finally realized that I was not good at getting the paycheck at the end of the month and what I really wanted is to be my own boss.

So, long story short, I also failed at entrepreneurship, however by the end I found out about day trading, and I good hooked by it. I've been studying and practicing day trading on the currency markets for almost a year now, and I'm finally starting to see some (small, weak) success.

(By the way, I'd like to mention my nickname Freetrader doesn't come from being a trader -I was using it long before-, but from the RPG Traveller, where the Free Traders are the small ragtag cargo ships that go from planet to planet taking the odd jobs no one else would and living adventures - think Firefly or Han Solo. I always wanted to be like that, and to a point I realize I managed my business like that, which didn't work so well, but was fun.)

Just recently I found Less Wrong in my RSS aggregator, however I can't remember how it got there (I kind of recall I found the link while doing some research on planned cities and I thought to myself: "this could be important, save it for later", then forgot about it). Anyway when I started reading it, it hit a cord inside myself and for the last weeks I've been reading articles and some sequences with great interest and delight. So I'll stick around. Maybe contribute a little, but I'm shy.

Finally I'd like to take the chance to ask if someone else here are fellow traders. I noticed many of the articles mention trading in examples, however I have not found any article specifically about it, or from the perspective of a trader. Indeed day trading seems like an excellent path for a rationalist with good bayescraft and who doesn't mind staring at a computer screen all day if it makes them good money. There's lots of irrationality in that field, especially within the world of what I call "pop traders", self-taught traders who trade their own money from home (like myself, so it's the world I know). Still many cowboy traders have hacked a way into making a pretty decent living from it, so a good rationalist will be able to get much more.

In summary, I'd really like to meet a rationalist trader and compare experiences. Or well, anyone interested by the topic in general. Or any nice people, so feel free to say hi!