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I feel strongly that there is a qualitative difference between fence-building and compulsion
I agree. In crude terms, compulsion is forcing other people to change; fence-building is yourself withdrawing.
This distinction is blurry. Which side do boycotts fall on?
In response to
Open Thread May 9 - May 15 2016
I was reading through a link on an Overcoming Bias post about the AK Model and came across the idea that, " the Social return on many types of investments far exceed their private return". To rephrase this: there are investments you can make such as getting a college education which benefit others more than they benefit you. These seem like they could be some good skills to focus on which might be often ignored. Obvious examples I can think of would be the Heimlich maneuver, CPR, and various social skills.
Do you know of any good low hanging fruit in terms of skills or time investments a person can make which can provide a lot of benefit to the people around them (company, family, friends, etc.) but don't actually benefit themselves?
I think that parenting skills are a good example of such situation
In response to
Lesswrong 2016 Survey
[Survey Taken Thread]
By ancient tradition, if you take the survey you may comment saying you have done so here, and people will upvote you and you will get karma.
Let's make these comments a reply to this post. That way we continue the tradition, but keep the discussion a bit cleaner.
My advice was more like "get in touch with your stupid animal side". The social part comes later :-)
Then living in a wilderness and cutting trees would be much better. Or some kinds of manual work where you can see the fruits of your labor, e.g. gardening. I believe that activities like these would be better suited for connecting mental and physical parts of a person.
It could be worse. Rationality essays could be attracting a self-selected group of people whose bottleneck isn't rationality. Actually I think that's true. Here's a three-step program that might help a "stereotypical LWer" more than reading LW:
1) Gym every day
2) Drink more alcohol
3) Watch more football
Only slightly tongue in cheek ;-)
Strongly disagree with 2) and 3). I think you mean them as a proxy for 'become more social, make more connections, find ways to fit in a local culture', but quality of connections usually matters more than quantity. But in many circles that are likely to matter for a typical LWer 3) is likely to be useless and likely benefits of 2) are achievable without drinking or with a very modest drinking.
In response to
Open thread, Mar. 14 - Mar. 20, 2016
One major difference between left and right is the stance on personal responsibility.
Leftist intellectuals (tends to) think society influence trumps individual capabilities, so people are not responsible for their misfortunes and deserve to be helped. Whereas Rightist have the opposite view (related).
This seems trivial, especially in hindsight. But I hardly ever see it mentioned and in most discussions the right side treat the left as foolish and irrational and the left thinks right people are self-interested and evil rather than simply having a different philosophical opinion.
I guess this is part of the bigger picture on political discourse, it is always easier to dehumanise an opponent than to admit is point is as valid as ours.
Would this description pass an ideological Turing test?
In response to
AlphaGo versus Lee Sedol
Lee Sedol isn't at the top of Go ratings. How would Ke Jie fare against AlphaGo? A match against the best human player would be a better test of AlphaGo capabilities.
In response to
Open Thread Feb 22 - Feb 28, 2016
What is your preferred backup strategy for your digital life?
In response to
Open thread, Nov. 23 - Nov. 29, 2015
How do you estimate threats and your ability to cope; what advice can you share with others based on your experiences?
What kind of threats?
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How do you deal with embarrassment of having to learn as an adult things that most people learn in their childhood? I'm talking about things that you can't learn alone in private, such as swimming, riding a bicycle and things like that.
Search for adult swimming lessons. Everyone there will be as embarrassed as you are. Or try to find swimming lessons out of town, then you won't accidentally meet people who know you.