I also suggest we try the "really getting Bayes" game. I'll bring the description and some items to use.

Going to be my last meetup for the foreseeable future - which has got me thinking about what if anything we can do via email. Will come with some suggestions. Looking forward to it as always!

Hmm, it felt pretty forced to me, especially in the third book. So I guess your mileage may vary.

I loved these books as an early teen:

Fantasy: The Hobbit (Film coming out in a few months). No hidden pro-science virtues but a lovely, funny book.

Adventure stories: 1. Anything by Jules Verne e.g. Twenty thousand leagues under the sea. Fits into a science-as-exploration theme. 2. Arthur Conan Doyle (The Lost World - a dinosaur book - or some Sherlock Holmes: speckled band, hound of the baskervilles...) 3. Willard Price's adventure series (writing is a bit poor, but that's completely made up for by the exciting-ness and delightful descriptions of wild animals)

Sci-Fi: 1. John Wyndam (E.g Day of the Triffids, The Chrysalids). She may find the post-apocalyptic themes a little distressing though, so that might be a 'for later'. 2. Asimov, I Robot series

His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman.

Seconded.

I would call it "why we need classes in rebellion" or something (to get their attention) and then talk about the Milgram obedience experiment and Asch's conformity experiment. Two classic results that demonstrate the power of authority and peer pressure.

Then get your audience talking about how to foster independence without going too far in the other direction. E.g. teachers who nearly always teach the core curriculum, but once in a while throw out a huge whopper to test if you're paying attention. (This works btw. I had a history teacher who tested our credulity by telling us that the pseudo-documentary Punishment Park was real. I googled it and called him a liar next class, and he gave me an A. The vivid memory of being terrified but right was useful for a few years)

Have you found any solutions?

Taking time off of work. Thankfully, paid time off is available to me.

On the plus side, at least you recognise its happening to you so you can try and make sure you don't make important decisions in this state.

Unfortunately, I recognize it's happening only some of the time. But important decisions seem to happen to be so frequently I sometimes wonder if my importance sensor is calibrated incorrectly.

I think I need to learn to pace myself better. I remember feeling in a very similar mood to this a while ago, reading some pointing out that people in this set of circumstances needed to learn to pace themselves better, and thinking something along the lines "Of course! That's exactly what I need to do!" and feeling inspired. And now, here I am, weeks later, complaining of a surprisingly similar problem... I think this is evidence I didn't actually learn the lesson of how to pace myself properly.

Edit: Based on this link, I apparently had this realization about pacing not even two months ago. http://lesswrong.com/lw/aks/emotional_regulation_part_i_a_problem_summary/5z6l?context=1#5z6l So I've updated my earlier comment to "weeks" later, and not months.

Fatigue. Large amounts of depressing fatigue.

It's particularly bothersome because I just recently got a very good example of how irrational it makes me. This entire post was originally written before some of the coffee I had kicked in. I was typing up my post, and I read it, and I thought there was a good chance people were going to worry about me being suicidal. And then the caffeine kicked in, and I felt more awake, and I thought "Well, that's not very descriptive. I'm depressed, but I'm not THAT depressed." and then I rewrote everything. And then I realized what I was doing, and then I had to rewrite everything to acknowledge both states.

Basically, the knowledge that "I'm entirely irrational while I'm worn out" and "I'm worn out most of the time." put together, hurts me quite a bit in my Less Wrong parts. Of course, it might just be the availability heuristic. I might actually be less worn out then I remember. But then that brings up "A substantial majority of my recent memories seem to be of me being worn out/irrational." as it's own separate problem.

Using your tool analogy, it would best be described as "My tools are dull. Sometimes, they are VERY dull, to the point where I feel like I'm about to snap them. I would like to sharpen my tools, but I don't usually have the time, because people keep needing those tools NOW, and not later, so I apply chemicals which make them feel sharper, but also feel like they are weakening the blade." I do have a 10 day long vacation coming up for my birthday, which I am looking forward too substantially. I expect I'll feel substantially sharper afterwards. But in the meantime... I am my dull tools.

I think "denying that anything changes" is one of the most common mistakes I make and notice other people making. I'm choosing between a few different jobs at the moment, and I notice I actually try to construct a vision of the world where I go off and do one for 2 years, then return and do the other. Its like I want to think current opportunities will always be open to me, so I don't have to make the painful trade-off.

Now I think about it, this "freeze the world" kind of thinking is also one of the things that makes me bad at chess. I don't think enough about what other people will do, only about my own cunning plotting.

And, just to check, did you make sure that all the diet-related examples you got were examples of making false excuses to oneself, and not just examples of e.g. previously intending to diet, but then changing one's mind when one saw the chocolate cake?