Peter_Twieg

I put in an application. But I realize that I think I forgot to include my LW username (the site was having issues so I couldn't check.) So here it is. I'm pretty sure you won't have trouble attaching it to my real name. :P

(Also, feel free to delete this comment once it's been registered with the proper authorities.)

I agree with your basic analysis of how the "ugh field" works, but I wouldn't be so quick to categorically label it as a problem - cultivating an "ugh field" could also be an effective anti-akrasia technique if honed properly. What if you manage to train your usual (wasteful) displacement activities to trigger the "ugh field", so that your new "displacement" activities become what you originally intended to do to begin with?

I'd like to think that I've encountered some success by basically doing this myself - I probab... (read more)

I recently got into some arguments with foodies I know on the merits (or lack thereof) of organic / local / free-range / etc. food, and this is a topic where I find it very difficult to find sources of information that I trust as reflective of some sort of expert consensus (insofar as one can be said to exist.) Does anyone have any recommendations for books or articles on nutrition/health that holds up under critical scrutiny? I trust a lot of you as filters on these issues.

I realize that I'm late to the game on this post, but I have to say that as economist, I found the take home point about revealed preference to be quite interesting, and it makes me wonder about the extent to which further neuroscience research will find systematic disjunctions in everyday circumstances between what motivates us and what gives us pleasure. Undoubtedly this would be leveraged into new sorts of paternalistic arguments... I'm guessing we'll need another decade or two before we have the neuropaternalist's equivalent of Nudge, however.

My sympathies.

I've given the occasional thought to what I'd do if I ever found myself in this kind of situation. And although I can't speak to my will to go through with it at the time, I'd honestly probably choose to die. Not because of concerns about my human dignity or some kind of depression that comes with a diminished quality of life, but just because my discounted present value will probably be heavily negative, meaning that I'm tying up resources that could be better-used than keeping me alive. I can't speak about whether this applies to your situa... (read more)

Maybe this isn't my most valuable skill, but lately I've been much better at setting to a routine and sticking to it in the absence of external enforcement: "Do your readings for class over the weekend. Go into the lab to work on research several days per week. Go to the regular seminars. Keep up on RSS feeds and extra readings in the evenings." Naturally there are virtues to flexibility as well, but just floating through my day as an optimized routine and avoiding the problems associated with time-inconsistent preferences has really helped my productivity in the past few months.

It's a photoshopped image of a Mortal Kombat tournament ladder. Once Behe defeats Dawkins he gets to debate Motaro.

[Edit]

Actually, he'd probably go straight to Shao Kahn... I just can't see a centaur being a good advocate for Darwinism.

I don't know enough about all the BhTV participants to argue that it is actually the case

I'm quite sure that there are political participants who would fare worse than Behe on any of the dimensions you'd offer. I guess one could lack the expertise to evaluate more than a subset of participants, however, in which case one could apply the principle consistently..

People find creationism more disturbing than ghost hunters because (among other reasons) creationism is making inroads in the educational system in USA, which could have very serious effects. I

Of course it isn't.

It sounds like those are reasons to avoid engaging Creationists, not BhTV in general. If this is going to expand into a point about lowering BhTV's intellectual standards like you mentioned above... then I find it odd to argue that one podcast could have such a powerful marginal effect on the enjoyment one derives from the site, unless you're using some weird criteria where your overall evaluation of BhTV is based on the least intellectual podcast it hosts at any given time.

And I would be surprised if the worst podcast on BhTV by the criteria you described... (read more)

because those sorts of dialogues affect the general reputation of the site and thus the reputation of those who speak there.

So is it necessitated for consistency's sake that those who would boycott BhTV over this incident must also boycott all other forums with lower intellectual standards... which would basically include all mainstream organizations? Somehow I don't believe that it's this simple.

The question I'm curious about is why a Creationist video on BhTV apparently creates reputational pollution in a way that a Creationist video on Youtube does not.... (read more)

A "thematic forum"? Could you elaborate on this?

Wow, I haven't seen Phil Plait's post until now. Bloggingheads "called Creationism science"? I can only guess what tortured reasoning gave rise to this claim.

But I think, Eliezer, that you're being too charitable to those who are jumping ship. Sean and Carl aren't doing so because they're anti-accomodationist, they just can't stand the thought of being within 300 internet meters of Creationists if they don't think they can leverage the situation against them. Whether this particularized form of distaste is justifiable is an interesting issue and ... (read more)

I haven't seen BhTV endorse Creationism as science in any official capacity.

You're shifting the goalposts some. I'm not defending the original decision to invite Behe. I'm questioning the notion that inviting Behe is such an egregious offense against BHTV's "respectability" that it should be boycotted. I wouldn't boycott BHTV if 90% of the diavlogs were replaced by midget porn, if it meant that I would get the occasional episode of Free Will.

I think Behe's critics should just admit that what's really motivating the reaction is the notion that Creationists not only should not be given forums to speak, but those who do gra... (read more)

So BHTV can't both enjoy the participation of respectable academics and also host the occasional crackpot? There exists no such universe where the two could possibly coincide? Is there some implicit assumption here that there's a fixed amount of BHTV episodes, each of which will feature either crackpots or respectable academics? Even if this were so, wouldn't the reasonable response be to skip over the crackpots rather than avoiding the entire medium? The only justifiable rationale I can see for skipping over BHTV because of this is if you just watched dia... (read more)

What harm is done by bringing on an astrologer? At worst it fail to amuse.

But it's obvious you're not talking about the diavlog's impact on you... you're concerned with the poor, unwashed masses who might actually be left to form their own opinions from the available information. Well, that's very nice of you, but I don't think it's unreasonable to believe that it's safe to expose people to views which might be labeled as "crackpottery" by some.

Thanks for the link. I saw the original Behe podcast and was surprised when it suddenly disappeared with a brief note from an admin. I haven't been able to follow up on this matter much since it hasn't generated much buzz, but I'll look forward to reading these links - if people are boycotting Bloggingheads for giving platforms to people whom they don't like.... well, that's an interesting precedent to set which should be scrutinized carefully.

One person's "overarching narrative" is another person's set of Bayesian priors.

Take, for example, your pollution discussion. An economics textbook will tell you that there is an ideal level of taxation, yes. However, it won't tell you about regulatory capture, mission creep, the Hayekian knowledge problem, etc. There is always a correct set of contextual data to be used to interpret and resolve problems in isolation, yes - but determining what this set is and how we should interpret the probabilities of various events occurring is pretty much al... (read more)