Yep. Most mass-market space operas are guilty of this. Despite having knowledge and resources to fly to other planets, humans in them still have to shoot kinetic bullets at animals.

However, stories, in order to be entertaining (at least for the mainstream public), have to depict a protagonist (or a group thereof) who are changing because of conflict, and the conflict has to be winnable, resolvable -- it must "allow" the protagonist to use his wit, perseverance, luck and whatever else to win.

Now imagine a "more realistic" setting where humans went through a singularity (and, possibly, coexist with AIs). If the singularity was friendly, then this is an utopia which, by definition, has no conflict. If the singularity was unfriendly, humans are either already disassembled for atoms, or soon will be -- and they have no chance to win against the AI because the capability gap is too big. Neither branch has much story potential.

This applies to game design as well -- enemies in a game built around a conflict have to be "repeatedly winnable", otherwise the game would become an exercise in frustration.

(I think there is some story / game potential in the early FOOM phase where humans still have a chance to shut it down, but it is limited. A realistic AI has no need to produce hordes of humanoid or monstrous robots vulnerable to bullets to serve as enemies, and it has no need to monologue when the hero is about to flip the switch. Plus the entire conflict is likely to be very brief.)

Is there any evidence for this effect in brain regions related to empathy? (mirror neurons?)

Does focusing one's attention on emotional states of others (and, more importantly, one's own feelings experienced while watching others) increase one's "empathic sensitivity"? Or when parents focus child's attention on emotions of others during upbringing, does that make the child more sensitive to others?

I think this comment deserves to be included into the article, with minimal edits, somewhere between the end of the section I and the beginning of the section II.

A possible caveat:

The main premise of the article is that directing one's attention to a sensory input can make one better at processing this input (where "better" may mean "higher resolution and/or sensitivity") by "growing" the associated area of the cortex.

However, the article does not give a clear reason for the assumption that the same principle should apply to higher-level mental behaviors not directly related to sensory inputs -- e.g. playing chess.

(I'm not familiar with the relevant science, so I'm just voicing my doubt.)

Then it's a perfect candidate for garbage collection. I just drop items like this, or, if an item has accumulated too much contextual info I don't want to lose, I postpone it for a month or so and decide later, or move it to non-actionable notes.

depressing list full of items whose context you've forgotten

It really helps to word todo items properly, as complete sentences. For example, instead of "Widget!!!!", you should use "Decide which Widget to buy." I often add more context or next actions as I process the task, so it may gradually evolve into "Decide which Widget to buy. Red ones seem to be better. Bob may know more - call him."

Dropbox + Backblaze is a great combo. It doesn't cover cloud / SaaS backups, so I do manual backups of Google Docs and Evernote every N weeks.

I tried Autofocus as a replacement for my current system for getting stuff done, and so far it works a lot better than GTD (though I can't say that I was using GTD properly, for example, I couldn't bring myself to do regular reviews). The main benefit for me was its ability to handle long-term thinking / gestation tasks, mostly due to not treating them as enemies to be crossed off the list as soon as possible. And it requires very little willpower to run.

A couple of years ago, I'd side with Anna. Today, I'm more inclined to agree with you. As I learned the hard way, intrinsic motivation is extremely important for me.

(Long story short: I have a more than decent disposable income, which I earned by following my "little quirky interests". I could use this income for direct regular donations, but instead I decided to invest it, along with my time, in a potentially money-making project I had little intrinsic motivation for. I'm still evaluating the results, but so far it's likely that I'll make intrinsic motivation mandatory for all my future endeavors.)

IMO, all Russian translations of "LessWrong" are too long, and the transliteration is too awkward, especially considering how hard it is for most Russians to pronounce the word "wrong" correctly (though I admit I like how it sounds when spoken in a thick Russian accent). My spoken English is above average compared to other Russians, but I still stumble on this word every time I have to speak it.

I'd just go with lesswrong.ru -- while it's still available.