I discovered this issue for myself by reading a similar article, and going through the same process, but with my third thought being "does that guy [the Prime Minister in this story] really believe this thing that I believe [in this case, pro-choice]?" I think he's bad because he broke the rules, then I forgive him because he's on my side, then for one reason on another I start to wonder if he really is on my side...and notice that I'm trying to decide whether to blame him for breaking the rules or not. (I think this is because I myself use irony a lot, so often when I hear a statement that is in some way ambiguous or silly, I reflexively ask myself if it is sincere or sarcasm, even in a situation where irony would be unacceptable/unthinkable, as is the case with a public statement)

I'm not sure how many times this happened to me before I noticed, but nowadays I just think "broke the rules, -10 points even though I like this guy", and then, "oh and he agrees with me, gotta increase his score for that".

Google never fails. The chart shall not allow it.

Sounds like a fun ritual. Makes me wish I were in Boston so I could attend.

I've doubted his process from the start - I remember reading a third person's comment that pointed out he had forgotten to add iron - and his subsequent reply that this mistake was the cause of his feeling bad. I know nothing about nutrition (except that it's not a very good science, if it's science at all), yet iron is obvious even to me. To miss it shows that he didn't really do much double checking, much less cross-referencing or careful deliberation of the ingredient list.

I'm really hopeful about Soylent - I'd even jump in and risk poisoning to test it myself, if I were living alone. If anything, this experiment highlights how untrustworthy and limited our dietary knowledge is (and should motivate us to improve it). If this fails due to a new form of scurvy, the cause can be found and the experiment retried. If it fails due to not having read information that's already out there, well, that's a downer.

I've read a significant amount of your essays/articles and love the stuff. It's kinda hard to track for new stuff since the RSS feed tends to dump dozens of small changes all at once, so this post is much appreciated.

Is it useful to increase reading speed, even if it takes a minimal amount of time (to go from basic level to some rudimentary form of training)? I've always been under the impression that speed increases in reading are paid for with a comprehension decrease - which is what we actually care about. Or is this only true for the upper speed levels?

What was the name of that rule where you commit yourself to not getting offended?

I've always practiced it, though not always as perfectly as I've wanted (when I do slip up, it's never during an argument though; my stoicism muscle is fully alert at those points in time). An annoying aspect of it is when other people get offended - my emotions are my own problem, why won't they deal with theirs; do I have to play babysitter with their thought process? You can't force someone to become a stoic, but you can probably convince them that their reaction is hurting them and show them that it's desirable for them to ignore offense. To that end, I'm thankful for this post, upvoted.

I agree, you can get over some slip-ups, depending on how easy what you're trying is compared to your motivation.

As you said, it's a chain - the more you succeed, the easier it gets. Every failure, on the other hand, makes it harder. Depending on the difficulty of what you're trying, a hard reset is sensible because it saves time from an already doomed attempt, >and< makes the next one easier (due to the deterrent thing).

I disagree. This entire thread is so obviously a joke, one could only take it as evidence if they've already decided what they want to believe and are just looking for arguments.

It does show that EY is a popular figure around here, since nobody goes around starting Chuck Norris threads about random people, but that's hardly evidence for a cult. Hell, in the case of Norris himself, it's the opposite.

If you want to get up early, and oversleep once, chances are, you'll keep your schedule for a few days, then oversleep again, ad infinitum. Better to mark that first oversleep as a big failure, take a break for a few days, and restart the attempt.

Small failures always becoming huge ones also helps as a deterrent - if you know that that single cookie that bends your diet will end up with you eating the whole jar and canceling the diet altogether, you will be much more likely to avoid even small deviations like the plague, next time.