Nanani

Odd as it may sound, it would have to be "structured randomness" so to speak. Picking a slip out of a bowl would probably work - getting a reward only when the parent is in the mood to give one would likely not. The latter is just as random from the child's perspective, but inconsistent parenting (or animal training, or employee rewarding schemes) is known to be bad at shaping behaviour in the desired fashion.

Paying a drug addict to get clean isn't rewarding good behavior so much as rewarding the cessation of bad behavior. This has clear problems. For one thing, it isn't random like the "follow the speed limit for a chance at a small reward" scheme.

A true equivalent would be rewarding random people for not being on drugs, including the population of former addicts that have since gone clean. Being on drugs would be a garantee of not getting this reward.

Voted down because tangential replies that belong elsewhere really get on my nerves. Please comment on the post about the vitamin study, linked in the OP.

Wow, that was great! I already had a fairly good understanding of the Theorem, but this helped cement it further and helped me compute a bit faster.

It also gave me a good dose of learning-tingles, for which I thank you.

Rational Tropers. QED.

Where I live, ETC stands for Electronic Toll Collection and is posted at the entry ramp of toll-roads equipped appropriately.

What's wrong with just using "Edit: additional note goes here"

Excellent article, though there is a point I'd like to see adressed on the topic.

One salient feature of these marginal, lifestyle-relaed conditions is the large number of false positives that comes with diagnosis. How many alcoholics, chronic gamblers, and so on, are really incapable of helping themselves, as opposed to just being people who enjoy drinking or gambling and claim to be unable to help themselves to diminish social disapproval? Similarly, how many are diagnosed by their peers (He's so mopey, he must be depressed) and possibly come to believ... (read more)

Interesting post, but perhaps too much is being compressed into a single expression.

The niceness and weirdness factors of thinking about cryonics do not actually affect the correctness of cryonics itself. The correctness factor depends only on one's values and the weight of probability.

Not thinking one's own values through sufficiently enough to make an accurate evaluation is both irrational and a common failure mode. Miscalculating the probabilities is also a mistake, though perhaps more a mathematical error than a rationality error.

When these are the r... (read more)

Forgive me if this has been adressed elsewhere, but doesn't the knowledge that you are -trying- to like them get in the way of success? You will always know that you are liking them on purpose and applying these techniques to make yourself like them, so how do you avoid this knowledge breaking the desired effect?

Let me sum it up more simply: Telling people not to judge is not an accurate reflection of what they actually do.

I tried to explain why non-judgmentalism is a bad value to uphold. I have nothing to say about Garin and Vanessa, only about the value of the advice proffered.

I have a problem here. Filtering implies that some judgement has been made, and the person has been found wanting. It is harmful to advise against filtering, and therefore also harmful to advise against judging.

They decided whether to say "yes" or "no" to a request, and they (allegedly) didn't enter into some class of cognitive states associated with negative affect or disapproval.

Advising people not to judge others is not the same as what you said. My point is only that this constitues bad advice.

How does one acknowledge and accept everybody without filtering people?

What I have seen of people who hold non-judgmentalism as a aspiration has led me to believe that it is a deeply anti-rational ideal. The net result is repeating the same mistakes over and over, such as associating with people who will will take advantage of the non-judger, or not correcting a critical failure because it's judgemental to consider it a failure. By critical failure I mean things like dropping out of the workforce out of sheer laziness; it would be judgemental to say that... (read more)

Think of it like being a rationalist aspiration to always tell the truth and never self-decieve: setting that as your aspiration does not mean you always can or will accomplish it, but at the same time, it doesn't mean your aspiration should be downgraded to "being in the top percentage" of truth-telling and non self-deception!

It also doesn't mean you get to claim that you always tell the truth and never self decieve.

Having known some people who made "accepting everyone" and "being non-judgemental" a point of honour and se... (read more)

So, she said, she and Garin just always acknowledge and accept everyone.

Allow me to express polite but strong skepticism on this point. I would be very much surprised to find that they accept literally EVERYONE. Do they acknowledge panhandlers the same way as attendees to marketing conferences? How about leading politicians from the opposite party as theirs? Religious leaders from a different religion?

It's easy to say "just genuinely accept everyone" when you don't even see most of the people around you.

In fact, really acknowledging and ... (read more)

The point was partially made by the fact that water is free, at least everywhere I've lived. Thanks, though.

As a non-drinker, I often passed proffered drinks onto my friends, who could make use of them. Obviously I would never ask for a drink, except maybe a glass of water.

Sounds like Cabaret Hostesses in Japan. They have male counterparts, too, but the female variety is a lot more common.

You effectively answered your own comment, but to clarify -

Strategy guides on dead tree have been obsolete for more than a decade. GameFAQs is over a decade old, and it's the best place to go for strategies, walkthroughs, and message boards full of analysis by armies of deticated fans. People are still finding new and inventive strategies to optimize their first-generation Pokemon games, after all. Games have long passed the point on the complexity axis where the developper's summary of the point of the game is enough to convey an optimal strategy.

Your last paragraph is gold.

There's nothing wrong with not wanting what those around have to offer, either.

It's worth pointing out that all three examples are highly culturally variable.

The "aspie logic" example behaviour is far more common where I live (urban Japan).

In the first, most people lack the facilities to bake, especially young adults in small apartments or dorms. Buying a cake is the obvious thing to do. That or taking the SO to a cake-serving cafe.

In the second, -no one- here holds doors for strangers. I had to train myself out of the habit because it was getting me very strange looks. Similarly, no one says "bless you" or... (read more)