Aside from painting "LessWrong types" in really broad, unflattering strokes, I thought the author made several good points. Note though that I am a ~15 year vegetarian (and sometime vegan) myself and I definitely identify with his argument, so there's the opportunity for subjective validation to creep in. I also find many perference-utlitarian viewpoints persuasive, though I wouldn't yet identify as one.

I think the 20% thing and the 1-in-20 thing were just hypothetical, so we shouldn't get too hung up on them; I think his case is just as strong without any numbers. There is some uncertainty about the continuum of animal cognition and how it relates to their capacity to suffer.

My own personal voice-inside-my-head reasons for vegetarianism can be summarized as follows: "I am an animal, but a unique kind of animal who can understand what it means to feel pain and to die and who doesn't want that to happen to himself or to any other animals. My unique kind of animal can also live a happy, healthy life at very little personal expense without causing other animals to feel pain or to die." Thus, Rob's first 4 premises (particularly 2 and 3) resonated with me.

I don't believe other animals, even other mammals, have anything like human consciousness. Nor do I believe they should be accorded human rights. But I know that at the end of the day, biologically I am a mammal; if you're warm-blooded and you've got hair and a neocortex, then I'm really going to avoid hurting/killing you. If you have a spine and a pulse, I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt.

PSA: coincidentally, David Dunning (an author in every study I mention above) is currently doing a Reddit AMA. I did not plan this, but if you have any questions for him, he's all ears!

Don't you mean "Others' predictions of your performance are usually more accurate"?

And your last paper and graph are rather well-known by now.

Depicted below is the general relationship between the way we actually perform and the way we predict we will perform:

It looks to me like this is a copy of the graph summarizing the results of one of the four studies (specifically, the third) in the cited paper. It is not accurate to describe it as "the general relationship". The other three studies don't show the same curve, although they all do show the bottom quartile predicting their ability as above the median but below the top quartile.

One thing I've always found suspicious about this paper: Why report quartiles? The four studies had n=65, 45, 84, 140 respectively. Why choose to bin this large number of participants into only four bins? That seems unusually low resolution. Why quartiles and not quintiles or deciles?

This is the most ludicrous slander I have ever read. I also have no idea what the point is supposed to be. It's not funny, it's not remotely believable, it doesn't seem to be making any kind of larger point, and it looks like a really slapdash job anyway. I can't figure out why anyone would bother making this.

Edit: Whoops, I didn't read to the end. Apparently this is an attempt at blackmail. I still don't see what the point is, though, since MIRI will hardly stop fundraising just to prevent this obviously fabricated "leak". Maybe the creator of the page is hoping that rationalists will conclude that there is some truth to the accusations on the basis that they wouldn't bother to blackmail MIRI with them if they were false? But if that was the goal, you'd think they could come up with more plausible or creative accusations.

I just finished an entire difficult textbook with (virtually) all the problems, on my own. I think that might be a first for me. The textbook is Art of Problem Solving Introduction to Algebra. I know that finally completing introductory algebra many years out of high school doesn't sound like a big deal for most LW members, but for me it was a big and difficult step.

Working through this textbook took me about seven months, with a few scheduled breaks and a longer break for my third child being born.

Final grade (= average grade for all the chapters, using a grading system I made up): 93.7 out of 114.8 possible.

A big thank you to zedzed for offering to impose artificial deadlines on me for each chapter, and for giving me occasional help and advice. I would definitely not have been able to do it otherwise. Everybody please upvote zedzed's confirmation below for helping out a fellow LWer.

If anybody else would like someone to set up a system of artificial deadlines for them then please PM me. For me at least such a system seems to be the best anti-akrasia tool I've ever found, short of having real deadlines.

Is the Minerva program recognized by any accrediting body?

I recently moved to a moved to a big US city and promptly sold my car. I can't stand the stress of driving, parking, or maintaining a car in the city and I am also extremely frugal.

My preferred method of getting around is to ride my bicycle, but there are important considerations (bike lanes and infrastructure, weather, potentially getting really sweaty). I've had the same $250 bicycle since 2007 and it requires very minimal upkeep. I've replaced the tires once and gotten a few tune-ups here and there... probably another $250 in the past 7 years, averaging 3 rides/week.

I like cycling because it forces me to get a little bit of exercise every day; setting aside separate time for exercise always feels like such a waste, and I like making my commute do double duty as fitness. Also, if something breaks on a bike it is usually pretty obvious, cheap, and easy to fix. I like that am not beholden to any specialist/mechanic.

If I need to go far, I will ride it to the nearest bus stop, stow the bike on the front of the bus, and hop off the bus near enough to pedal to my destination without breaking a sweat. The bus is great too; I see all sorts of people I wouldn't otherwise know existed, and I use the transit time for leisure activities (usually reading).

If it's true that they provide a superior educational experience, it seems like it might provide a bit of evidence about signaling vs human capital explanations for education. But personally my prediction is that graduates will get jobs and it will be mainly due to signaling effects.

First-time taker! Shorter than I expected. Hope I did the digity thing right...