Since we're trying to be lesswrong here, I'll risk seeming petty by pointing out that "begging the question" is a logical fallacy, not a synonym for "raising the question". Just sayin...

Sunk Costs - should be easy. Someone does something reasonable, then the situation changes, but the person refuses to change their path, explicitly speaking about the sunk costs. Because it's a bedtime story, the stupidity of the person could be astronomical. For example: there way a boy who wanted to ski in the winter, so he saved money and bought skis... but at the time the snow melted and the winter was over. But the boy insisted on his emotional and financial investment, so he kept wearing the skis during the whole year. Insert various unrealistic situations, resulting problems, and lost opportunities. The other kids were swimming in the lake, this one kid tried, but... wearing the skis... he almost drowned, and after he was saved he just kept sitting at the beach, envying the other kids. But he still refused to take the skis off, explaining how long he worked to get them.

Wondering which side is true instead of arguing for a side - make it so that no side is completely true; each of them is right about some aspect, but wrong about other. Two teams of children saw a mysterious animal; one team reported it as a pink elephant, other team as a brown bear; the Curious Kid refused to take sides and investigated, and it was actually a brown elephant.

The "known knowns" quote got made fun of a lot, but I think it's really good out of context:

"There are known knowns; there are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns; that is to say, there are things that we now know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns – there are things we do not know we don't know."

Also, every time I think of that I try to picture the elusive category of "unknown knowns" but I can't ever think of an example.

when trying to characterize human beings as computational systems, the difference between “person” and “person with pencil and paper” is vast.

Procrastination and The Extended Will 2009

Easy and entertaining. Done!

Qualia are neither a barrier ("sense data") to knowledge of the physical world, nor are they illusory. Rather, qualia are a constant concomitant to perception of the physical world. The best hypotheses to explain our experience involve positing both qualia and the rocks, trees, and animals that the "sense-data" of certain philosophers would screen off.

Try this experiment. Set an apple on the table and look at it. Now approach closer and keep looking at it.

Your experience changes during this experiment. However, the apple doesn't seem to change, the table doesn't seem to change, etc. Your experience involves more redness, but the apple hasn't gotten any redder, nor seemed to. Some of our experience amounts to cognition or alleged cognition of the external world - the apple is red, it is sitting on the table, etc. But some does not - it is just an internal aspect of the way we sense the world. Philosophers call the latter "qualia".

Drugs or sleep deprivation or psychosis may cause someone to hallucinate an apple. If they have enough relevant history, they may correctly doubt that the apparent apple really exists. But they won't doubt that they are having an experience. What does that experience involve? Qualia, but no external object. If the hallucinator says "I hope the apple is real, because I'm hungry" the word "apple" in that sentence does not refer to the qualia. (Nor does "the apple" said by someone having a veridical experience.) It does not refer at all.

Armchair philosophy cannot reveal the full and exact reference of terms, "qualia" included. Understanding the reference of terms requires doing science. The exact reference of many (any?) terms doesn't exist, due to semantic vagueness. There is no exact number of hairs you need in order not to be bald. There may likewise be no exact cutoff in evolution between sentient and nonsentient organisms. But the existence of dusk and dawn doesn't stop the difference between night and day being like, well, the difference between night and day.

How to Draw Conclusions Like Sherlock Holmes? Become a fictional character and point out all the details your author has included to move the plot forward.

I'd be careful about generalising about "Africa" from one Nigerian folktale. I spent a couple of years crossing Africa in the 90s and Nigeria was by far the most generally fucked up place I visited. Some places like Zaire (now Congo) had specific - and huge - issues, but Nigeria seemed somehow endemically damaged. Africa is as diverse as Europe, if not more so.

Good article; Reminds me of the following scene from Lawrence of Arabia:

[Lawrence has just extinguished a match between his thumb and forefinger. William Potter surreptitiously attempts the same]

William Potter: Ooh! It damn well 'urts!

T.E. Lawrence: Certainly it hurts.

Officer: What's the trick then?

T.E. Lawrence: The trick, William Potter, is not minding that it hurts.

addendum: (5 Months later, I see that James "I'm King of the World!" Cameron used this scene in Prometheus; quite ruins it for me.)

In the UK, the only place where it is considered compulsary to tip is in restaurants, and then usually only ones where you are served at a table (some "gastro"-pubs have table service, in which case one should tip). I don't think tipping taxi drivers is a general thing- I tend to let them keep the change if its sensible, but I don't believe there is a rule. You certainly don't tip delivery people of any kind.

In France tips are usually included within the price of the meal. I found this out after going to Paris and tipping at every place we went to..