Comment author: MileyCyrus 22 April 2013 10:00:00PM 1 point [-]

I can think of a few examples but they're all political.

Comment author: MileyCyrus 21 April 2013 01:37:10AM 6 points [-]

I'm not on this site very much anymore,

:-( Thanks for the time you've spent here. Wishing you luck in whatever you've moved on to.

Comment author: MileyCyrus 18 April 2013 12:43:20PM 12 points [-]

If you like psychology research say "I'm sure this is much more efficient than the wars or farm subsidies the government was going to use this money on."

If you don't like psychology research say "This is an outrage! We could preventing malaria with that money"

Comment author: sunflowers 17 April 2013 12:38:25AM 0 points [-]

It's not hard to criticize a meal at a restaurant. Now, it is hard to criticize a meal when you're a guest in somebody's home. I'll file this under "context specific."

Comment author: MileyCyrus 17 April 2013 12:42:29AM 0 points [-]

Really? I've never had the guts to tell the server that my meal was "satisfactory".

Comment author: MileyCyrus 17 April 2013 12:33:24AM 4 points [-]

When the server asks if the meal was good, it usually wasn't good. Most meals are satisfactory or poor.

Comment author: MileyCyrus 17 April 2013 12:30:38AM 3 points [-]

Life would be better if God existed.

Comment author: MileyCyrus 17 April 2013 12:29:47AM 14 points [-]

Most sexual relationships are between people who are settling for what they can get.

Comment author: [deleted] 16 April 2013 10:08:01PM 4 points [-]

Is tickling a type of pain?

In response to comment by [deleted] on Open Thread, April 15-30, 2013
Comment author: MileyCyrus 16 April 2013 10:23:57PM 8 points [-]

Dissolve the question.

Comment author: DaFranker 16 April 2013 02:32:00PM *  8 points [-]

Errh

On an uncharitable reading, this sounds like two wide-eyed broscientist prophets who found The One Right Way To Have A Successful Career (because by doing this their career got successful, of course), and are now preaching The Good Word by running an uncontrolled, unblinded experiment for which you pay 100$ just to be one of the lucky test subjects.

Note that this is from someone who's never heard of "Cal Newport" or "Scott H. Young" before now, or perhaps just doesn't recognize the names. The facts that they've sold popular books with "get better" in the description and that they are socially-recognized as scientists are rather impressive, but doesn't substantially raise my priors of this working or not.

So if you've already tried some of their advice in enough quantity that your updated belief that any given advice from them will work is high enough and stable enough, this seems more than worth 100$.

Just the possible monetary benefits probably outweigh the upfront costs if it works, and even without that, depending on the kind of career you're in, the VoI and RoI here might be quite high, so depending on one's career situation this might need only a 30% to 50% probability of being useful for it to be worth the time and money.

Comment author: MileyCyrus 16 April 2013 04:55:33PM 0 points [-]

Note that this is from someone who's never heard of "Cal Newport" or "Scott H. Young" before now, or perhaps just doesn't recognize the names.

They seem to get more respect on LW than average career advice bloggers, so I was hoping someone who was familiar would comment. Nonetheless, I'm upvoting you because it's good to hear an outsider's opinion.

In response to Optimal Employment
Comment author: Mithy 16 April 2013 05:09:16AM 6 points [-]

As an American currently living in Australia on a Work and Holiday (462) Visa, I have a small but significant correction to make: foreigners on a 462 Visa aren't actually able to file as residents for tax purposes.

Which means that rather than paying 0% tax, I'm paying about 32% tax. (And that's a lot, but it's still better than what I'd be paying if I didn't have an Australian tax file number. If you don't have one, you can end up paying up to 45%.) I have yet to find out if I'll get any of that money back when I leave.

When I first got here, I was hopeful that maybe I did qualify as a resident for tax purposes. After all, it says on the Australian Tax Office's site that you are "generally considered an Australian resident for tax purposes" if "you have been in Australia continuously for six months or more, and for most of the time you have been in the same job, and living in the same place." (Source: http://www.ato.gov.au/individuals/content.aspx?doc=/content/64131.htm). And that's exactly what I planned to do. But maybe what that actually means is that you need to have already lived in Australia for more than 6 months at the time of application. I don't know. But I do know that for whatever reason, when I applied for a tax file number, I was informed that I don't qualify as a resident for tax purposes. Please correct me if the Australian government and I are wrong, because I would love to not have to pay so much in taxes, but this has been my experience.

Of course, what's left after almost a third of my money goes to the government is still more than I made at my minimum wage job in the U.S. (I get to keep about $12 AUD an hour, compared to $7.40 USD an hour, and the Australian dollar is still a little bit stronger), so it's still a significant step up. Especially because they pay double on public holidays and Sundays, which my job in the U.S. didn't.

However, since food and housing and laundry and everything costs more in Australia (granted, I'm living in North Melbourne, not Alice Springs, so maybe it's different out there) I still end up using almost all of my income on basic living expenses, even sharing an apartment and thus splitting the rent with two friends.

And as someone else pointed out, Work and Holiday Visas only last a year and are non-renewable, so if you want to stay longer, you'll need another one after that. And those can get expensive. (And just as a side-note, the cost of applying for a Work and Holiday Visa has gone up since this article was written. It's currently $365.) Source: http://www.immi.gov.au/allforms/pdf/990i.pdf

So I'm definitely not going to discourage anyone from coming to live and work in Australia on a Work and Holiday Visa. Australia is lovely, and it's been great for me, but it's not a sure-fire way to get rich -- unless you can get a visa that does allow you to file as a resident for tax purposes, or a job that pays more than minimum wage. But finding an upper-level job is kind of tricky when you're only allowed to work for any one employer for a maximum of 6 months, according to the work restriction on a 462 visa. There are plenty of industries that employ backpackers and holidaymakers, but not every employer is going to hire a short-term employee. So I didn't want anyone to come here on a Work and Holiday Visa based on the information in this article and then get blindsided.

In response to comment by Mithy on Optimal Employment
Comment author: MileyCyrus 16 April 2013 07:25:22AM *  0 points [-]

Did I meet you at the Less Wrong meetup in December/January?

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